Larry Page takes over as Google CEO

In a surprise announcement at Google’s 4th quarter earnings review, Larry Page is to take over as CEO at Google in place of Eric Schmidt. Co-founder Page will take over the role in April and Schmidt – who has been in the job for a decade – will become executive chairman with a focus on “deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships”. The news has led to much speculation about the reasons for the change and the intentions for Google’s future development.

Page is the co-founder of Google with Sergey Brin. When they first established the company in the late 1990′s they served as co-presidents until 2001, when Schmidt was brought in to bring some business experience and guidance to the growing company. As a veteran CEO, Schmidt created a ‘triumvirate’ with Page and Brin to lead the company and to drive the massive growth of the business that has been seen over the past decade.

This new change retains the triumvirate, as Schmidt remains as Executive Chairman with Google, but Page would appear to have a power shift towards him, which has surprised many who see him as the ‘quiet’ partner in the team. He will also lead product development and technology strategy, which will include Google’s aim to become more involved in social media. It’s not clear from the announcement whether any disagreements internally prompted the change, but Schmidt says Page is ready to run the company, while Brin will continue focusing on new product ideas, with the title of Co-Founder.

Schmidt said the management changes were part of a plan to “streamline” decision-making and create clearer lines of responsibility and accountability. Not surprisingly, the news has generated an enormous amount of comment and speculation on the change, with some commentators feeling that Google has become too corporate and the change is an attempt to regain the vibrancy and innovation that drove the business in the early years.

The news upstaged the earnings report, which showed that Google had a strong rise in net profits in the last three months of 2010, at US$2.54bn on revenues of US$8.44bn. The profit figure also compares well to the $1.97bn made in the same quarter the year before. Although there will be much speculation about the change in leadership, it appears that Google timed the potentially unstabling news to come out at the same time as the positive financial figures.

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