관련 이야기: 래리 페이지 포스팅 원문 "다시 미친 짓에 도전하겠다"
10일(현지시각) 해외 언론에 따르면 래리 페이지 구글 최고경영자(CEO)는 신규 법인인 알파벳을 설립하고 구글과 구글벤처스, 구글캐피탈, 구글X 등을 거느리는 구조로 기업 지배구조를 개편한다고 설명했습니다. 이에 따라 구글은 인터넷 사업과 관련 이 없는 사업을 털어낸 가벼운 몸집으로 알파벳 자회사에 편입됩니다.
페이지가 알파벳의 CEO를 맡고 구글 공동설립자인 세르게이 브린이 대표이사직을, 에릭 슈미츠가 이사회 의장을 맡게 됩니다. 구글 CEO는 순다르 피차이 구글 선임부사장이 승진할 예정입니다. 지난 5월 모건스탠리에서 자리를 옮긴 구글의 루스 포랏 최고채무책임자(CFO) 역시 알파벳 CFO로 수평 이동합니다.
구글이 지배구조 개편에 나선 것은 주요 사업과 장기적인 전략을 구분해 현 사업은 각 실무 경영진에게 맡기고 페이지와 브린은 좀더 전략적인 역할을 담당하기 위해서인데요. 아직 조직개편에 따른 구체적인 사업부문 이동은 공개되지 않았지만, 관리 효율성을 높이기 위해 조직을 슬림화해 경영 규모를 키우려는 전략으로 풀이됩니다.
신설되는 알파벳은 생명과학, X랩, 드론 담당 사업부인 윙 등을 총괄하는 역할을 맡게 될 예정입니다. 구글 산하 연구소 칼리코(Calico)는 별도 CEO가 임명됩니다. 알파벳이 상장주식이 되며 현재 구글 주식을 보유하고 있는 주주들은 알파벳 주식으로 대체됩니다.
페이지는 “크게 관련이 없는 사업들을 독립적으로 운영해 구글 내에 있는 평범하지 않은 기회에 초점을 맞출 계획”이라고 말했습니다.
<래리 페이지 구글 CEO의 알파벳 설립 관련 포스팅 원문>
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| 래리 페이지. 사진=게티이미지 |
G is for Google: Read Larry Page‘s entire letter
Posted: Monday, August 10, 2015
As Sergey and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.” As part of that, we also said that you could expect us to make “smaller bets in areas that might seem very speculative or even strange when compared to our current businesses.” From the start, we‘ve always strived to do more, and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have.
We did a lot of things that seemed crazy at the time. Many of those crazy things now have over a billion users, like Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Android. And we haven’t stopped there. We are still trying to do things other people think are crazy but we are super excited about.
We‘ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes. But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant.
Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable. So we are creating a new company, called Alphabet. I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as President.
What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity). Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren‘t very related. Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence. In general, our model is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed. We will rigorously handle capital allocation and work to make sure each business is executing well. We’ll also make sure we have a great CEO for each business, and we‘ll determine their compensation. In addition, with this new structure we plan to implement segment reporting for our Q4 results, where Google financials will be provided separately than those for the rest of Alphabet businesses as a whole.
This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google. A key part of this is Sundar Pichai. Sundar has been saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!) for quite some time now, and I’ve been tremendously enjoying our work together. He has really stepped up since October of last year, when he took on product and engineering responsibility for our Internet businesses. Sergey and I have been super excited about his progress and dedication to the company. And it is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google. I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations. I have been spending quite a bit of time with Sundar, helping him and the company in any way I can, and I will of course continue to do that. Google itself is also making all sorts of new products, and I know Sundar will always be focused on innovation -- continuing to stretch boundaries. I know he deeply cares that we can continue to make big strides on our core mission to organize the world‘s information. Recent launches like Google Photos and Google Now using machine learning are amazing progress. Google also has some services that are run with their own identity, like YouTube. Susan is doing a great job as CEO, running a strong brand and driving incredible growth.
Sergey and I are seriously in the business of starting new things. Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort. We are also stoked about growing our investment arms, Ventures and Capital, as part of this new structure.
Alphabet Inc. will replace Google Inc. as the publicly-traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights. Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Our two classes of shares will continue to trade on Nasdaq as GOOGL and GOOG.
For Sergey and me this is a very exciting new chapter in the life of Google -- the birth of Alphabet. We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search! We also like that it means alpha-bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for! I should add that 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.
We are excited about...
•Getting more ambitious things done.
•Taking the long-term view.
•Empowering great entrepreneurs and companies to flourish.
•Investing at the scale of the opportunities and resources we see.
•Improving the transparency and oversight of what we‘re doing.
•Making Google even better through greater focus.
And hopefully...as a result of all this, improving the lives of as many people as we can.
What could be better? No wonder we are excited to get to work with everyone in the Alphabet family. Don’t worry, we‘re still getting used to the name too!
Posted by Larry Page, CEO
dsun@heraldcorp.com
