Where Is Larry Page? Alphabet Deserves Better
Technology superpowers like the parent of Google require accountable, visible and empowered leaders
By Shira Ovide
At a meeting last week of Alphabet Inc. stockholders, a man lobbed a simple query at the company’s chairman: Where is the CEO?
Good question.
He was told that Larry Page, the head of Google’s parent company and its co-founder, wasn’t able to to come to the annual session with shareholders, who asked tricky questions about the company’s approach to artificial intelligence ethics, treatment of its contract workers and its impact on Bay Area home prices. Page wasn’t at last year’s annual meeting, either.
The stockholder sessions aren’t Page’s only glaring absence. It was news when Page and the company’s other founder, Sergey Brin, recently broke an unusually long attendance lapse at the traditional weekly Q&A for employees. U.S. lawmakers last year criticized Page for declining to appearat a hearing about exploitation of internet platforms. The senators’ outrage was a stunt, but they weren’t wrong to ask the same question as the Alphabet shareholder: Where is Larry Page?
Page has always been an idiosyncratic executive. Both before and after he became CEO eight…
