Google Founders Give Up on Being the Warren Buffett of Tech

Alphabet’s hands-off approach unwound as Google CEO takes over
Moonshot projects are sucked back into Google’s orbit

Larry Page, left, and Sergey Brin in 2008.
Photographer: JB Reed/Bloomberg

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By Mark Bergen and Alistair Barr

December 4, 2019 at 3:03 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

The Google founders’ decision to step down ends a multiyear effort to turn their company into the Berkshire Hathaway of technology by embracing Warren Buffett’s hands-off management style.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin created the Alphabet Inc. holding company in 2015 to give themselves more time to invest in new tech businesses and handed responsibility for Google to Sundar Pichai. The model was inspired by Buffett’s approach of allocating capital to disparate businesses and letting independent CEOs decide how to run the operations.