Google has grown so big so fast and now has fingers in so many pies it was starting to confuse investors.
So in a shock announcement on Monday night the Californian giant unveiled major restructuring and the creation of a new company, Alphabet. Google will just be a branch of this new entity.
Google will be the biggest branch, for sure, but will be recentred around its core internet activity. It will also keep the research skunkworks, and the online advertising business.
Star products like its mapping systems, YouTube and Android stay with Google.
But the boss changes. Google will be run by Sundar Pichai, until now co-founder Larry Page’s presumed heir. This 43-year-old Indian-born engineer created Chrome and Android, but the public hardly knows him.
Page becomes the boss of Alphabet along with his co-pioneer Sergey Brin.
The businesses the most removed from Google’s origins will now be clearly defined and separate, although subsidiary to, the mothership; things like Calic
