History of Google’s CEOs

HISTORY OF GOOGLE (ALPHABET) CEOS & FOUNDERS

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GOOGLE'S FOUNDERS

Portrait of Larry Page and Sergey Brin
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As graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University, bonding over a shared vision for organizing the World Wide Web.

In 1998, Page and Brin formally registered the domain for Google.

It was a new search engine that was able to link the web and understand the relevance of pages.

Other search engines relied on text matches.

They had better ideas.

The founders learned how to quantify each site’s “authority” based on how many other pages linked to it.

It was called Page Rank, named after Larry Page.

With graduate research funds, Page and Brin began crawling the web to index millions of pages.

They quickly learned how to elevate the most reputable results for each search.

FORMER & PRESENT GOOGLE CEOS

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt
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ERIC SCHMIDT (2001 - 2011)

The meteoric early rise of Google left co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin struggling to manage the expanding complexities of search engine start-up.

As they had no management experience to speak of.

So in 2001, Google’s venture capital investors convinced Page and Brin to bring on an established industry veteran who could provide adult supervision and mentorship.

They recruited Eric Schmidt, a computer expert who had previously served as chief technology officer of Sun Microsystems before working as Novell’s CEO throughout the ’90s.

Schmidt provided a stabilizing hand as Google’s first CEO—turning Google profitable.

Under Schmidt’s leadership, Google was able to dominate web search while pioneering targeted text advertising tied to specific queries.

Its ad model became Google’s money printer.

As CEO, Schmidt served from 2000-2010.

He also oversaw Google’s expansion beyond search—leading the development of mapping technologies, video-sharing sites (YouTube), email, and consumer software.  

LARRY PAGE (2011 - 2015)

Portrait of Larry Page
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After a decade of learning from Eric Schmidt, Larry Page took back the reins as Google’s CEO in 2011.

He was ready to lead the company into the future.

With Schmidt staying on as Executive Chairman, Page remained free to pick his brain while finally getting the chance to execute his visions directly as chief executive.  

Page led Google into ever more ambitious technological realms, directing innovative projects that seemed the stuff of science fiction made real—like Google Glass bringing augmented reality seamlessly into everyday life through wearable computers—and self-driving cars.

Page recognized that Google had sprawled into a hugely complex, multi-faceted company that would benefit from restructuring.  

So, in 2015, Page made the landmark decision to form Alphabet.

This was a new parent corporation that would allow him to step back from Google’s massive day-to-day business and focus on cutting-edge research through Alphabet subsidiaries.

He was especially hands on with Alphabet’s subsidiary, Calico Life Sciences, that was working toward human longevity.

Google itself became the lead subsidiary delivering Alphabet’s commercial products, services, and majority of its revenue.

This left Page as CEO but with autonomy delegated to trusted lieutenants.

SUNDAR PICHAI (2015 - PRESENT)

Portrait of Sundar Pichai
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Larry Page passed the baton of Google leadership to trusted deputy Sundar Pichai, allowing Page to focus on big-picture stuff.

As just the third CEO in Google’s short history, Pichai was chartered on building Google’s dominance in search while pushing innovation into emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning.

An engineering veteran who had rapidly risen through Google’s ranks since 2004, Pichai oriented Google toward AI-driven solutions, leading the charge in what many deem an AI revolution.

Pichai’s helped lead to the creation of knowledge engines like RankBrain integrating AI into Google’s core search functionalities, as well as the DeepMind algorithmic system that defeated a world champion player of the game Go in 2017.

Beyond software, Pichai also supervised Google’s focus on consumer device hardware—most notably mobile phones.

Key hardware product lines launched under Pichai’s leadership include the Pixel smartphone along with voice-assistant speakers like Google Home.

Since taking control, Google has consolidated its dominance of mobile ecosystems, cloud computing, and integration of artificial intelligence across both consumer and enterprise markets.

He’s now tasked with upgrading Google into an AI-first company to successfully compete with newcomers in search like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

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