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Urs Hölzel, Google’s senior vice president of Technical Infrastructure, speaks about the Google Cloud Platform during a conference on June 25, 2014 in San Francisco.
Stephen L | Getty Images
CNBC has learned that Google employee #8 Urs Holzle will step back from management after 24 years leading technical teams.
State-of-the-art technology infrastructure leading to Google Cloud Reporting directly to CEO Thomas Kurian, Holzel oversaw an organization of more than 12,000 full-time employees.
In the transition period, Holzle will be classified as an “individual shareholder,” meaning he will operate independently and no longer manage staff. In an email to staff on Tuesday, Holzel said he would focus on a small number of technical tasks at a time in addition to advising. Part of this will include clarifying technical AI processes, facilitating discussions and encouraging faster decision-making, his memo said.
He followed up with his email to say that this was one of the most interesting and impactful years in a long time and that he’d wanted to do more technical work.
The move comes amid change within the company’s cloud organization, according to an email from Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian seen by CNBC.
Chris Vonderhaar will head Supply Chain and Cloud Operations and will depart Amazon Web Services after 13 years at the company, where his last position was Vice President of AWS Data Center Community. Ben Treynor Sloss, Vice President of Engineering for Google Cloud, will start reporting directly to Corian. Kurian noticed two more seizures.
Kurian noted that making technical decisions more quickly is more important than ever.
Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Google is facing pressure to continue cloud revenue growth after the unit reported its first earnings quarter in April. The company also faces competition from Amazon and Microsoft in both cloud and artificial intelligence offerings.
In a separate reorganization between Google’s search and AI teams in April, Jeff Dean, who had long managed Google’s AI efforts, was also designated an “individual contributor” and given the new title of “Chief Scientist.”
The move also comes as Google calls for a limit on remote working as it tries to move employees back to physical offices. Holzel sparked internal controversy in 2021 after announcing he was moving to New Zealand while the company began requiring staff to return to the office, leading to workers complaining that the company had double standards for senior positions.
In recent group meetings, more company executives have appeared.
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