The head directing Google's Android arm and Chrome leg, Sundar Pichai, will oversee more of the search engine company's parts, as CEO Larry Page steps back for a view of the big picture.
Hailing from Tamil Nadu, the southern-most state of India, Pichai received his bachelor of technology degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.
Pichai found a home at Google in 2004, serving as vice president of product management for Google's Chrome browser and operating system.
His labor in the Chrome division earned him more work, when his responsibilities were expanded to include oversight of Google apps in 2012 and widened to encompass Android in 2013.
Though the details are still unclear right now, Pichai's responsibilities at Google have been expanded yet again. However, Pichai's new responsibilities won't entail management of Google's nearly autonomous YouTube division.
Beyond Page stating he was relinquishing some of his day-to-day responsibilities to look at "the big picture," it's also unclear exactly what prompted the Google CEO and company co-founder to do so now. Page will continue to oversee Google's operations, according to the details of the news that was disseminated at Google internally and later confirmed to the press.
With moves such as its recent push into artificial intelligence with Deep Mind and its $542 million acquisition of augmented reality startup Magic Leap, Google's investments in companies with little or no sustainable revenue streams accentuate the search engine company's slowing ad income. While Google remains a premium stock, investment firms lowered their targets on the search company's revenue for yet another quarter.
"We believe the traditional network business (AdSense & Toolbars) is in decline, and AdMob & DoubleClick are driving Network growth, as advertising shifts to mobile and programmatic platforms," stated Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein in a report. "While results support our view that GOOG remains among the highest-quality Internet stocks, we believe other names in our coverage universe offer greater upside potential. Maintain Perform rating."
With Page stepping back to focus on a macro view of Google, Pichai's expanded role will keep the search engine's parts running efficiently and could help the company avert the slowdown investors have been fearing.
"While some of the slowdown in growth is due to tougher comps, results suggest a slowing environment for online traffic and advertising, or a competitive shift to social sites," stated Justin Post, an analyst at Bank of America.
