Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella congratulated Google’s new CEO, Sundar Pichai, on Monday, calling his promotion “well deserved.” Pichai, who is only the third CEO of Google after Schmidt and co-founder Larry Page, grabbed the limelight after the search giant announced a surprise restructuring.
Pichai the best man for the job
Apart from Microsoft’s CEO, Apple CEO Tim Cook; Bret Taylor, co-creator of Google Maps; Danny Sullivan, founding editor of digital news daily Marketing Land; and many more high-profile tech executives congratulated Pichai on his new role as CEO of the biggest search engine firm. Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi also congratulated the India-born Pichai.
Schmidt, who is now the executive chairman of Alphabet, tweeted, “Really excited about the vision and brilliance of Sundar… he’s going to be a great CEO.” He also said “Alphabet” is an “awesome” name for the parent company.
In a blog post, Page praised Pichai for his efforts at the firm and called himself “very fortunate” for having someone as “talented” as Pichai to head the new Google. Schmidt was CEO between August 2001 and January 2011, and after, that Page took over as CEO again.
Highlighting the importance of Pichai, Time magazine called him “Larry Page’s right-hand man,” adding that Pichai has been good support for Page when he was starting his second stint at Google in 2011.
Pichai could have been Microsoft’s CEO?
Pichai, who joined Google in 2004, has headed up work on many consumer products that are now being enjoyed by millions of people around the globe. Following the success of Chrome, Pichai was given the responsibility of Gmail and Google Docs in 2011, says a report from Time.
A report from The NY Times stated that Pichai will run Google “with users in mind.” Wall Street experts believe Pichai is the best man for the job as he has the backing of both the business side of the company, and of the engineers.
There were reports that in 2011, Twitter tried to poach Pichai to head its consumer product division. Also last year, Pichai was rumored to be in a race for the Microsoft CEO.
Pichai, 43, previously served as senior vice-president of product at Google. He holds a bachelor’s degree from IIT Kharagpur (India), an MS from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania.
