Sundar Pichai Joins Big League Of Indian-Origin CEOs At The Helm Of Fortune 500 Cos

With his elevation, Pichai joins the big league of Indian-origin CEOs in at least half a dozen Fortune 500 companies, including Indra Nooyi at Pepsi, Ajay Banga at Mastercard, and Sanjay Mehrotra at SanDisk.

Pichai will lead Google with users in mind, said a report in the New York Times suggesting he "owes his new job to his success in making Google products easier to use and thus more popular".

He "made a name for himself early as a product manager, working on high-profile efforts like Chrome, the company's web browser".

"Chrome grew like a weed, exploding from a single-digit percentage of market share to become the most widely used browser across desktops and mobile devices in the world," it said citing StatCounter.

Google will continue to focus on internet products. Android, YouTube, search and ads will remain part of Google Inc.

Other departments spinning off into their own sub-companies include the Google X lab working on driverless cars, Google Glass and drone delivery.

Google Ventures and Google Capital will also become independent Alphabet companies.

The Alphabet companies will retain their current leadership. Nest will be led by Tony Fadell, Sidewalk Labs by Dan Doctoroff, and Calico by Arthur Levinson. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki will now report to Pichai.

Brin will continue to head up Google X in addition to his role as president of Alphabet. Eric Schmidt will become Alphabet's executive chairman.

"We are not intending for this to be a big consumer brand with related products-the whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands," said Page.