Google is replacing Android chief Andy Rubin, who oversaw development of the mobile operating system at his Android Inc. and then at Google, and saying Rubin will begin “a new chapter” at the company.
But chatter among company insiders is that the end of Rubin’s old job isn’t about turning over a new leaf so much as it is about a tightening at Google, in terms of both company focus and leadership. In this view, Rubin’s transition out of the Android division is of a piece with former Google VP Marissa Mayer’s transition out of Google.
Key to both moves, of course, is Google CEO Larry Page, who has sought to put more wood behind fewer arrows at Google, a company once famous for its willingness to nurture experimental employee passion-projects – as well as for its failure to quickly combat Facebook and the threat social networking posed to Google’s business model. Page famously froze Mayer out of his “L Team” inner circle after he became CEO two years ago and began diverting more resources into the Google+ social networking initiative.It seems to some people at Google that the same is now happening to Rubin. The man replacing him, Google Chrome chief Sundar Pichai, is close with Page, according to a Google veteran, more so than Rubin. The two operating system chiefs have long clashed as part of a political struggle between Rubin’s Android and Pichai’s Chrome OS, and the very different views of the future each man espouses. The two operating systems, both based on Linux, are converging, with Android growing into tablets and Chrome OS shrinking into smaller and smaller laptops, including some powered by chips using the ARM architecture popular in smartphones. (Rubin did not respond to a request for comment.)
At the old Google, Android and ChromeOS might have been allowed to continue to flourish in tandem, even as they began to grow parallel functionality. But Page’s Google is all about focus; early in his tenure, Google shut down Google Labs and began curtailing product launches and setting a higher bar for employee “20 percent time” experiments.
There’s a certain logic to consolidating the two operating systems, but it does seem odd that the man in charge of Android – far and away the more successful and promising of the two systems – did not end up on top. And there are hints that the move came as something of a surprise even inside the company; Rubin’s name was dropped from a SXSW keynote just a few days before the Austin, Texas conference began.
It’s entirely possible that Rubin will move on to bigger and more innovative things. Already, there is speculation he might join Google’s high-profile Glass project. Page’s note on the company blog didn’t specify, saying simply, “Andy, more moonshots please!” a reference to the secret, and typically far out on the horizon tech being cooked up within Google X. Rubin may pursue his own ideas within the Googley skunkworks.
But wherever the serial entrepreneur ends up, his boss Page has made one thing very clear: There’s no longer room for separate fiefdoms within Google, and the company’s days as a sort of corporate grad school – with lots of tinkering, disparate technology paths, and a deep-seated love for goofing off – are over.
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