When Google announced that Eric Schmidt was stepping down as CEO and Google co-founder Larry Page was moving up to the CEO chair, you could have knocked Wall St. analysts over with a feather. They didn’t see this coming. They’re already debating about what it will mean.
I’m no business expert, but I do a few things and I don’t see much change happening here. After all, as Eric Schmidt wrote, “As Executive Chairman, I will focus wherever I can add the greatest value: externally, on the deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership that are increasingly important given Google’s global reach.”
Isn’t that where Schmidt has always shone? I think so. And, where has Page shown? Well, of course, as the search maven. Many of you know that Google’s PageRank isn’t named because of the connection between Web pages and how they rank in Google; no PageRank’s name comes from Larry Page. In addition though, Page, along with his friend and fellow Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, have always been ardent open-source users, developers, and, dare I say it, fans.