Former Google LLC Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has reportedly quit the company for good after stepping down from his role as a technical adviser in February, according to a report in CNET Saturday that cited an unnamed source.

The departure of Schmidt (pictured) marks the end of an era for a company that has undergone some massive structural changes in recent years. Back in 2015 it established its parent company Alphabet Inc. that houses Google and several other bets it has made in recent years, such as Waymo LLC.

More recently in December, Google announced that its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were stepping down from their roles as CEO and president. They were replaced by Google chief Sundar Pichai, who is now Alphabet’s CEO.

Schmidt had been a key figure at Google for the best part of 20 years, having first joined the company as its CEO in 2001 after leaving his former employer Novell Inc. Brought in to give Google more credibility, Schmidt oversaw the company’s rapid growth from a small, search engine startup to one of the largest companies in the world, branching out into services such as email, cloud computing and smartphones.

Schmidt helped lead Google through its Nasdaq debut in 2004. He stepped down as CEO in 2011 and taking over as its executive chairman.

Google said in 2017 that Schmidt would be stepping down from his executive chairman role, and instead serve as a special adviser to the company focused on science and technology issues.

“Larry, Sergey, Sundar and I all believe that the time is right in Alphabet’s evolution for this transition,” Schmidt said at the time. “The Alphabet structure is working well, and Google and the other bets are thriving.”

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller told SiliconANGLE that Schmidt’s departure marks the end of an era for Google, that began with him being hired to provide more experienced leadership at the company.

“Schmidt’s contributions to the company were massive, and Google would not be Google if he had not pushed it into Android, G Suite and Google Cloud,” Mueller said. “His ten-minute presentations at Google Cloud conferences would nail the value proposition better than most.”

Schmidt has since focused his attention on other matters, notably taking over as chairman of the U.S. government’s Defense Innovation Board, which advises the Pentagon on any promising new technologies that could have military applications. He also serves as the chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, which advises the U.S. Congress on AI technology for defense purposes.

More recently, Schmidt has stepped in to lend his expertise during the coronavirus pandemic. Just last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that Schmidt would serve as the chairman of a new commission tasked with updating the state’s technological infrastructure and practices both during, and after the pandemic. That group will be focused on technologies that can facilitate telehealth, remote learning and internet broadband, Cuomo said.

Schmidt stepped down from Alphabet’s board of directors last year but still owns 4.1 million shares of Alphabet Class C stock, according to CNET.

Photo: JD Lasica/Flickr