Former Google boss Eric Schmidt leaves Alphabet board after 18 years

Former Google boss Eric Schmidt is standing down from its parent company Alphabet’s board after 18 years spent helping run the company.

The 64-year-old billionaire was Google’s chief executive officer between 2001 and 2011 and as executive chairman until 2018. He will continue as a technical adviser to Alphabet.

“After 18 years of board mtgs [sic], I’m following coach Bill Campbell’s legacy & helping the next generation of talent to serve,” Mr Schmidt wrote on Twitter.

“Thanks to Larry, Sergey & all my BOD colleagues! Onward for me as Technical Advisor to coach Alphabet and Google businesses/tech, plus teaching & more, to help coach and develop extraordinarily talented leaders, and to build more free, prosperous societies,” he added.

Mr Schmidt, 64,  had a stint at the helm of Novell, which is now known as Micro Focus, and as chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems during the technology boom but is famously known for his business acumen that helped stabilised Apple and Google, which were promising tech startups being run by  inexperienced technologists like Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Steve Jobs at the time. The 64-year-old served on Apple’s board between 2006 and 2009.

Chairman John Hennessy said: “Eric has made an extraordinary contribution to Google and Alphabet as CEO, Chairman, and Board member. We are extremely grateful for his guidance and leadership over many years.”

Alphabet’s former cloud boss Diane Greene, who was replaced by Oracle’s Thomas Kurian as the company’s cloud computing business chief in January, will also give up her place on the board.

Robin L Washington, formerly of pharmaceutical giant Gilead sciences and Salesforce, will join the board.