21 years after they created Google in 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin handed the keys to Sundar Pichai yesterday. While Pichai was already CEO of Google and especially doing everything at his disposal to deal with data concerns & ad revenues for the past couple of years. Page and Brin took the reigns at Google parent company, Alphabet. But now, Pichai has taken over the reins.
However, it is still questionable how much free-hand will Pichai has over the Alphabet, as Page and Brin are still the company’s biggest shareholder.
But one thing is certain with this development, officially he is unarguably his own boss and stepped foot at a time when the company is struggling with some internal issues with employees and most worst with the regulators. So the responsibilities now will demand Sundar Pichai to become a wartime CEO.
Maybe that’s the reason Page and Brin have handled the responsibilities to Pichai, as they are missing out on the fun they used to have in the pre-regulation era.
But why Sundar Pichai? Is he is the best option for this damage control or rescue? Well, if we believe the inside sentiments of Google. Yes, he is the most righteous choice available.
First of all, Pichai is a mild-mannered diplomatic kind of guy, and especially, equally popular with both engineers and non-technical workers. A perfect definition of engineering acumen with calm and technical expertise. Most amazingly, he has earned the value of being seen as “one of the people”, which was very unlikely with both Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
There is no inch of doubt about its capabilities, but the road for Pichai as the CEO of Alphabet has many impediments, and his policies and roadmap have to pass muster. So let’s discuss those merits-
Government pressure
Pichai will also go under more scrutiny than ever before. Every government agency in the United States and politicians are unprecedentedly teeing off on silicon valley giants. For the past couple of months, the US and foreign antitrust regulators have scrutinized Google and accused it of many massive data breaches.
Last time Pichai had to move into action to make things clear, so maybe he will handle things more smoothly when at the helm of parent company Alphabet.
Find what’s next for Alphabet & Google collectively
Alphabet already has plans for a slowdown in its core digital advertising business, which still accounts for a significant share of its revenue. The company’s ad revenue has shown a decline in profit in this quarter. Adding more insult to the injury, the tech giant has been struggling a lot to make decent revenue from its hardware line despite several acquisitions. You know how Google Pixel smartphones and Google lenses failed miserably to make a mark in the market.
Youtube, the biggest content creator to date for Google, has also been under great scrutiny for promoting misleading content, underpaying creators, and more. In terms of the cloud computing market, Google stands third place after Microsoft and Amazon.
Recently many regulatory groups have demanded more examination in Google’s proposed $2 billion purchase of Fitbit. Unfortunately, if we believe in the CNBC reports, some of the Fitbit users said that they are looking for alternative devices because they don’t trust Google with their data.
In another stance, Google Stadia, a cloud-based gaming platform, launched by Google with a lot of fanfare on November 19, has also failed miserably and was rejected outrightly by the public.
Above all these, Sundar Pichai’s own den, Play store revenue was 24.8 billion dollars last year. It is almost half than App store’s revenue which was $46.6 billion last year even though Google has integrated many security features into its play store, including app approval time.
A Thoughtful Summary
There is no denying that Alphabet as a parent company of Google has incurred many losses in recent times. But its potential as a tech giant and innovator for next-gen technologies can’t be questioned at any time. Now the baton is in the hands of Sundar Pichai, as both Page and Brin have entrusted their creation entirely to him. Now, we have to wait and watch how Sundar Pichai will live up to the hype of its meteoric rise.
