Alphabet's Share Price Soared Under Sundar Pichai

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced that they will be stepping down from their roles as CEO and president of Alphabet, passing the torch to Sundar Pichai, who will be CEO of Google and Alphabet going forward.

“We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company,“ Page and Brin wrote, adding that “Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President. Going forward, Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet. He will be the executive responsible and accountable for leading Google, and managing Alphabet’s investment in our portfolio of Other Bets.“

Pichai joined Google in 2004 and gradually rose through the ranks until being appointed as CEO of the search giant as part of its restructuring in 2015. As the following chart shows, his stint at the helm of Google has been pretty successful, at least from a shareholder’s perspective. Since his appointment in August 2015, Alphabet’s share price nearly doubled, outperforming the broader market by a significant margin. Alphabet is currently valued at $911 billion, making it the third most valuable company in the world behind Apple and Microsoft.