Eric Schmidt is to step down as executive chairman of Alphabet, the company which owns Google—the world’s most influential tech company.
Alphabet announced yesterday that Schmidt would end his 17-year post in January to become a “technical adviser” for the company.
Alphabet’s chief executive Larry Page said: “Since 2001, Eric has provided us with business and engineering expertise and a clear vision about the future of technology.
“Continuing his 17 years of service to the company, he’ll now be helping us as a technical adviser on science and technology issues. I’m incredibly excited about the progress our companies are making, and about the strong leaders who are driving that innovation.”
Google’s growth has been remarkable. Statista, the online statistics portal, shows that advertising revenues for the internet search engine were $70m in 2001, compared with $79.3bn in 2016. Total full-year revenue last year was $90bn.