Larry Page

There have been a lot of changes at Google since co-founder Larry Page took over the CEO reins from Eric Schmidt. By his own words, Page has focused much of his energy on increasing Google's velocity and execution since he took over in April. That has meant investing in acquisitions, including $12.5 billion for Motorola, as well as dropping more than 25 projects.

Moreover, Page has added some new members to his cabinet, such as Social Networking Head Mr. Vic Gundotra, Android Mobile Chief Mr. Andy Rubin and YouTube Head Mr. Salar Kamangar, confirmed all those familiar with internal matters of the company.

Google was ending 2011 with another $94 million investment in solar photovoltaic (PV) projects, bringing the search giant to a total of $915 spent on clean energy initiatives. But where most of Google’s solar PV initiatives have focused on power for individual homes, it’s now taking the broader view by funding solar plant projects that provide energy to the whole grid.

Biography

Lawrence "Larry" Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who, with Sergey Brin, is best known as the co-founder of Google.

In 1998, Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded Google, Inc. Page ran Google as co-president along with Brin until 2001 when they hired Eric Schmidt as Chairman and CEO of Google.

In January 2011 Google announced that Page would replace Schmidt as CEO in April the same year. Both Page and Brin earn an annual compensation of one dollar. On April 4, 2011, Page officially became the chief executive officer of Google, while Schmidt stepped down to become executive chairman.

Products Buzz

In the latest round of cuts, Google loses Bookmarks Lists, an experimental feature for sharing bookmarks and collaborating with friends. Google will also shed Friend Connect, which allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code.

Google Gears is going away in March. Gears is a browser extension for creating offline Web applications and stopped supporting new browsers. And Google is moving the Search timeline graph of historical results for a query.

As of Jan. 31, Wave will become read-only; users will not be able to create new ones. On April 30 Google will turn it off completely. Knol, a project Google launched in 2007 to help improve Web content by enabling experts to collaborate on in-depth articles, is moving.

Acquisitions

Since 2001, Google has acquired many companies, mainly focusing on small venture capital companies.

In 2004, Google acquired Keyhole, Inc. On April 13, 2007, Google reached an agreement to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. On August 5, 2009, Google bought out its first public company, purchasing video software maker On2 Technologies for $106.5 million.


In April 2010, Google announced it had acquired a hardware startup, Agnilux. On August 15, 2011, Google announced that it would acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.

Awards

In 2002, Page, along with Sergey Brin, was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100, as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In 2002 the World Economic Forum named Page a Global Leader for Tomorrow and in 2004 the X PRIZE chose Page as a trustee for their board.

In 2011, he was ranked 24th on the Forbes list of world’s billionaires and as the 11th richest person in the US.