From my (very limited) perspective, this seems to be mostly publicly clarifying the roles they were already effectively serving in their ad hoc division of labor for a while.<p>Larry has been the most involved in the technology details, Sergey has been the most involved in the blue-sky new projects, and Eric has been the most involved in the interaction between Google and other entities (as well as very high level direction.)
From a programmer nerd, Schmidt has the most enviable resume.<p>The entrepreneurs admire Jobs and Gates, but Schmidt worked his way through Bell labs, PARC, managed the release of Java, was CTO of Sun, CEO of Novell, and brought google from a well executed grad school project to dominate the internet. He turned down a job with the Obama administration to be the governments CTO.<p>He also did all that as an academic, after getting a Ph.D. from Berkeley.<p>He has gotten some bad press doing PR for google recently, but the man has been kicking ass in enviable positions since I was a toddler.<p>After all that, yeah, good on him. Take some time off.
Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, Sun (CTO), Novell (CEO), Google (CEO)... Quite impressive.<p><i>As indicated by page 29 of Google's 2004 S-1 Filing Eric Schmidt, Page, and Brin run Google as a triumvirate. Eric Schmidt possesses the legal responsibilities typically assigned to the CEO of a public company and focuses on management of the vice presidents and the sales organization.</i> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt</a>)<p>Google was always a different company. And we should not evaluate this move as if HP's CEO is stepping down, or IBM's etc. After all this time, I believe Larry can make it. Interesting times.
Most underrated executive of all time? Google's been incredible under his tenure, blown away the wildest projects, and yet Schmidt's press has been kind of neutral to bad... actually, that doubly sucks because it seems like people get upset when he says true-but-uncomfortable things instead of just giving politically correct non-answers.<p>I think as time passes, his reputation's going to grow even more... that was one of the greatest decades of any company ever.
I wonder if this has more to do with media relations than anything else.<p>Schmidt had some major media slips & blunders in 2010, it just doesn't seem to be his thing.
I wonder if this was in the plan all along. Schmidt acting as front-man until one of the founders has learned enough and garnered enough respect to credibly take over.
I'm sorry, but this is not "publicly clarifying" anything. This new is huge. My guess at the real reason is this: Google created and continues to dominate the global market for low-priced ads - but it isn't doing enough to retain that dominance by either innovating in search, developing content networks (like Facebook or Amazon) or by taking control of new platforms (which is hard to do).
> <i>Sergey['s]....title will be Co-Founder.</i><p>I can just imagine the conversation. "So, Sergey, you're okay with Larry taking the CEO title, what will yours be?"<p>"You can call me 'Co-Founder', bitch"
Despite the cordial collaborative tone of the blog post, it seems the picture, taken today, tells it's own story.<p>Forget for a moment who is who and just consider the picture.<p>There are two dudes in the 'self driving car', sitting in-sync with arms wide open. There is also another guy with crossed arms who is next to, but not in, the 'self driving car'.<p>Can you guess where Eric is in the picture?<p>Review the picture again and make your own conclusions..<p><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/TTirzCdsGgI/AAAAAAAAHW0/syTLBoNuYJg/s1600/L100288-clean.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/TTirzCdsGgI/AAAAAAAAHW...</a>
Tried and true: founders make terrific CEOs.<p>EDIT, Context being tech: Hastings, Ellison, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Jobs, Gates. I'd say Google was a company in the spirit of these before WorldCom, Enron and Countrywide Financial.
My guess is this is aimed at stopping Google from hemorrhaging engineers in Facebook's general direction. "Look, we've got a programmer in charge again!"
I guess Google is going to be more focused on PR (and lobbying) and will be way more aggressive than ever before - in simple lingo , they wont take anymore bullshit (from all sort of heavy weight and nasty competitors) and even more than that they will stop them even before they think to do anything against google ...<p>Don't be Evil to Customers and Shareholders !!!<p>But be as Evil as possible if (and Only if) someone tries to screw you !!!
I've always wondered when a change in the "triumvirate" would happen and what impact it would have on public perception of Google, but somehow I also imagined it would be one of the co-founders leaving the company first.
Sometimes people switch out from being CEO to being chairman because it's just more fun being the globe-trotting-jet-setting-lunching-with-Obama guy schmoozing and closing deals and partnerships than being the tedious micromanager.<p>Just saying.<p>But it's also fun to fantasize, speculate, and gossip about really rich and important people.
Wow. Back to the original CEO then.<p>Eric is still around and filling an important role (basically doing what he used to mostly do, he just doesn't have to sit in on earnings calls anymore):<p><i>Eric Schmidt will assume the role of Executive Chairman, focusing externally on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership--all of which are increasingly important given Google's global reach. Internally, he will continue to act as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.</i>
Larry becoming CEO sounds like the same path that Bill Gates had.<p>Found a company and become it's CEO.<p>When it's time for the company to "grow up", bring in a well respected CEO who can structure the company for growth and stability while teaching the young founder.<p>When the founder has learned the ropes he takes over again as CEO.