Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt is stepping down from his role as executive chairman of the company, according to a press release published Thursday. 
 
 Schmidt was Google’s CEO for a decade, stepping away in 2011, and has been chairman of Google, now Alphabet, since 2001. He helped oversee Google’s transition into Alphabet and will remain on the company’s board, but in a “technical advisor” role focused on science and tech projects. The key change is he’ll be stepping away from his day-to-day work leading Alphabet’s board. 
 
 The company says it expects to “appoint a non-executive chairman,” presumably sometime next year. 
 
 Schmidt had a long career as a software executive before becoming Google’s CEO in 2001. He helped turn the company from what was effectively a side project by two grad students into a dominant online ad business. He was recently the subject of an article that detailed a personal relationship he had with a publicist hired by Google some years ago. 
 
 The 62-year-old executive is currently worth over $13 billion, and he has lately spent more time on his foundation, which is focused on environmental causes and energy technology. 
 
 “Since 2001, Eric has provided us with business and engineering expertise and a clear vision about the future of technology,” said Larry Page, Alphabet’s CEO and Google’s co-founder. “Continuing his 17 years of service to the company, he’ll now be helping us as a technical advisor on science and technology issues. I’m incredibly excited about the progress our companies are making, and about the strong leaders who are driving that innovation.” ||||| Eric Schmidt will be stepping down as the executive chairman of Alphabet's board of directors and transitioning to technical advisor, the company announced. He will continue to serve on the company's board. 
 
 Schmidt first joined Google as CEO in 2001, back when the company only had several hundred employees, and became its executive chairman 10 years later. He maintained that role when Google restructured to become Alphabet in 2015. 
 
 "Larry, Sergey, Sundar and I all believe that the time is right in Alphabet's evolution for this transition," Schmidt said in a statement. "The Alphabet structure is working well, and Google and the Other Bets are thriving. In recent years, I've been spending a lot of my time on science and technology issues, and philanthropy, and I plan to expand that work." 
 
 A source tells CNBC that the transition has been in the works for about a year, and that board member John Hennessy, a former president of Stanford University with a long history in computer hardware and research, is a likely candidate to replace Schmidt as chairman. 
 
 Schmidt tweeted "adult supervision no longer needed," a reference to a comment co-founder Sergey Brin made on the Charlie Rose show when Google first hired him. 
 
 In the past several years, Schmidt has become increasingly involved in philanthropy through his own family foundation, which just launched a $25 million science fellowship, as well as Rise of the Rest, which invests in startups in middle America, and the Alliance for Southern California Innovation. He also serves as a board member of the Broad Institute, which focuses on medicine and disease prevention. 
 
 In his new role, he'll likely advise the company's urban development arm, Sidewalk Labs, its deep learning efforts, and its healthcare spin-offs, Verily and Calico. 
 
 Alphabet expects that its board will appoint a new, non-executive chairman at its next meeting in January, meaning that it will join the ranks of Apple and Microsoft as major companies with non-executive chairman. ||||| Shira Ovide is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. She previously was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Read more opinion LISTEN TO ARTICLE 2:48 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email 
 
 Photographer: Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg Photographer: Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg 
 
 One of the trendsetters of "adult supervision" in the technology industry is now out of the picture. It's too bad. Today's tech startups could certainly use more adults. 
 
 Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and executive chairman of parent company Alphabet Inc., said on Thursday that he would step down from that role. He will stay on Alphabet's board of directors and become a technical adviser to the company. 
 
 It's hard to overstate Schmidt's role in the maturation of Google and how he helped shape leadership practices in Silicon Valley. In 2001, the longtime technology industry executive was hired to serve as a guiding hand for a company founded by two twentysomethings with little corporate experience. 
 
 In an interview at the time, one of those whippersnappers, Sergey Brin, was asked why he and co-founder Larry Page needed someone else to run Google. "Parental supervision, to be honest," Brin replied. 
 
 Alphabet's Market Cap Gain Since Schmidt Left CEO Post $541 Billion 
 
 It was a quip that changed technology. It became accepted for companies to hire experienced CEOs to serve alongside or in place of young founders. Sometimes those hired guns were good for a company, as was the case with Jim Barksdale at Netscape Communications and Meg Whitman at eBay. Sometimes adult supervision fell short. Look up the track records of John Sculley and Gil Amelio at Apple. 
 
 Now, the pendulum seems to have swung to the opposite direction. Founder-CEOs are cool again in the tech industry. Page took the CEO job from Schmidt in 2011. Arguably the most respected and feared company in the industry, Amazon.com Inc., has been run from the beginning by its founder, Jeff Bezos, and it's hard to imagine the company without him. Ditto for Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook. He made every founder-CEO think he or she was inevitably the best person to run the company. 
 
 But not everyone is Mark Zuckerberg. Uber Technologies Inc. booted its founder-CEO this year in favor of, well, an adult. Microsoft Corp. rediscovered its mojo after it hired its first CEO without connections to the company's founding. It might not be a bad thing if Evan Spiegel had a little less power at Snapchat. 
 
 Who Needs Adults? The market value of the company now called Alphabet has climbed more than $500 billion since Eric Schmidt stepped down as chief executive officer Source: Bloomberg 
 
 Google has done more than great since Schmidt stepped down as CEO. "Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!" he said when he left the corner office. Definitely not. The company's market value has climbed more than $500 billion -- that is not a typo -- since Schmidt stepped down as CEO in early 2011. In a way, Page is now the adult supervision to Google's chief executive officer, Sundar Pichai. 
 
 Google isn't in desperate need of more adults. But the rest of the technology industry might be. 
 
 This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.
– Eric Schmidt, the man who turned Google into a juggernaut during his decade as CEO, is stepping down as executive chairman of Alphabet, its parent company. The company announced Thursday that the 62-year-old will be leaving the role, but will stay on as technical adviser and will continue to serve on the company's board, CNBC reports. Google did not comment on the reason for the departure, though Schmidt said he plans to spend time focusing "on science and technology issues, and philanthropy." Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that Schmidt and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have been discussing the transition for around a year. "Since 2001, Eric has provided us with business and engineering expertise and a clear vision about the future of technology," Page, who is CEO of Alphabet, said in a statement, per Recode. "Continuing his 17 years of service to the company, he’ll now be helping us as a technical adviser on science and technology issues." Bloomberg, which sees the change as a generational shift, notes that when Brin and Page were asked in 2001 why they were bringing Schmidt, an experienced software exec in as CEO, Brin quipped: "Parental supervision, to be honest." When Schmidt stepped down from the Google CEO role in 2011, he said: "Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!"