With his return to the helm at search giant Google, once-again Google CEO and co-Founder Larry Page is looking to help the $29 billion company return to some of its startup roots.
Page took over on April 4 from former CEO Eric Schmidt, who led the company for ten years after Page stepped down in 2010. Schmidt stays on as executive chairman where he will focus on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships.
Leadership changes usually mean shakeups in other areas of a company and Page is likely to do just that.
For starters, Page may have streamlined some of Google’s upper management. The company’s senior vice president for product management, Jonathan Rosenberg, departed the company the same day Page became CEO.
"Skeptics
believe Rosenberg’s exit is tied to the fact that Page is rumored to have overhauled and streamlined the management
structure to have product managers work independently and report directly to
him. YouTube, Android and Google’s new Slide unit function as fairly autonomous
units," Clint Bolton wrote in eWEEK."This would
seem to leave little room for the role assumed by Rosenberg, who served as a
sort of buffer between product managers and Google CEO-turned executive
chairman Eric Schmidt since he joined the company in 2002."
What can Page do to take one of the world’s most successful technology companies to the next level?
As the company makes the transition, Page will need to trim the Google fat — by abandoning the likes of Google Health, an electronic medical records project — and court the good graces of Congress and federal regulators through support of initiatives like Do Not Track which seeks to help customers opt out of systems that track their Internet use.
For more on what Page can do to as Google goes back to the future, read the eWEEK article: Indexing and Search Engine: What CEO Larry Page Should Do to Improve Google.