When Urs Hölzle started working for Google in 1999, Yahoo and Alta Vista were the two main internet search engines.
He rose through the ranks as Google gained notoriety throughout the years.
He most recently oversaw Google Cloud’s infrastructure, directly answering to CEO Thomas Kurian, but today the company confirmed rumors that Hölzle was leaving his leadership position.
Hölzle, who was Google’s eighth employee, won’t be departing, though. Instead, he will transition into a Google Fellow position, which is an individual research post, where he will be an individual contributor.
For someone with Hölzle’s particular corporate knowledge to leave the infrastructure position he has had for so long comes as quite a shock. Hölzle was a crucial player at the business, according to Constellation Research founder and lead analyst Ray Wang, and with his considerable knowledge served as a sort of connector between Google and Google Cloud.
“He assisted in organizing Google’s resources to make the switch from specialized cloud to enterprise-class cloud. Being the eighth employee, he has been eager to test out fresh concepts and return to creativity, according to Wang, who spoke to TechCrunch. He should be able to do that more easily now that he is the Fellow.
However, switching from being a leader to being an individual contributor will probably have an effect on Google Cloud. In contrast to the rest of Google, which lacks the engineering discipline businesses anticipated from their contractors, he has done an excellent job of assisting the engineering teams in understanding what a product-led culture looks like, according to Wang.
Hölzle will be replaced by Chris Vonderhaar after 13 years in various data center operations roles at AWS. Vonderhaar will take Hölzle’s place.
He held the position of VP of AWS Data Center Community, where, according to his LinkedIn profile, he was in charge of the design, planning, development, and management of the AWS data centers, before abruptly stepped down from that position last month.
Even though he’s stepping into enormous shoes, Vonderhaar is no slouch; he spent well over a decade assisting in the development of AWS’s infrastructure.
Vice President of Demand and Supply Management will be Vonderhaar’s position at Google; it’s an odd title, to be sure, but one where he should be able to put his extensive experience to work replacing Hölzle’s expertise managing the company’s infrastructure.
