The news has surfaced that Google’s Senior Vice President of knowledge, Alan Eustace, is to retire from his position in March.
Eustace joined Google in 2002 as the SVP of engineering, before moving onto knowledge, where he was instrumental within the search and maps division. Prior to his time at Google, Eustace spent 15 years at Compaq / Digital and HP’s Western Research Lab.
Interestingly, he also made a name for himself when he broke Felix Baumgartner’s stratospheric free-fall jump record last year, with a 13,908 ft (26 mile) attempt.
It is not yet clear who will be taking over his position, but he is staying on to assist with the handover of his duties.
An internal email suggested he had been thinking about leaving for while, but chose this time as the company is going through an internal management reorganisation.
Is Google in transition?
It seems Google has been undergoing a transition of late, as Eustace follows Android co-founder Andy Rubin, Google X founder Sebastian Thrun and two other executives from the company’s home automation division who have recently left the company.
We also reported its US market share dropped below 75 per cent for the first time last month, with gains for its rival, Yahoo, while Matt Cutts, its head of Webspam, is still taking extended leave.
In addition to striving to improve its search and mobile functionality, Google also looks to be expanding its focus to other areas including cloud-based services. It is also rumoured to be planning a rival for Uber’s mobile app based taxi service.
An eye on search developments
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