Published earlier in Sep 2015 in my earlier Blog – Ported here in Aug 2017:

As you may have noticed, some of the original Tech Titans, who have founded great Tech companies and have changed our lives for the better forever, are now slowly planning their retirement. We saw this earlier this year with Google appointing a new CEO while Oracle a little while ago appointed two Co-CEOs. We believe that Messrs. Larry Page, Sergei Brin and Larry Ellision would have considered what happened to Steve Jobs, earlier in the 1980s, where he lost control of Apple to Sculley, and had to fight very hard to get his “baby” back.

Based on events that have occurred so far it appears that this succession planning is being done in one of the following two ways:

1. Co-CEO Appointment: Oracle decided to appoint Mark Hurd and Safra Katz as Co-CEOs perhaps with the rationale that when power is equally divided among two people, it makes it more unlikely that they will collude and have the original Founder voted out of the Company. This goes back to the principle of “Internal Controls” as laid out in Business Finance, that the person recording the assets does not have custody of it etc. Also, generally two equals will find it hard to keep any coup d’etat moves a secret and the founder can get wind of any such plots and act accordingly

2. Unknown / New CEO from Inside: Google probably followed this Model where they appointed a relatively unknown Sundar Pichai to the role of CEO. This model was used earlier by Microsoft when they appointed a relatively unknown Sathya Nadella as their CEO. Google and Microsoft did this because their founders did now want a version of Jobs vs. Sculley tussle happening here, if a CEO with a proven record and stature such as Alan Mullaly or Sam Palmisano were appointed. Hence, Sundar and Sathya, who were never a CEOs, were probably appointed because are excellent Engineers and beholden to the founders. Also, they are both first generation immigrants from India, who are not “wired” into the American Corporate Culture, and not perceived to be a threat to their respective founders.

Of course, the good thing about following this approach, is that there is leadership continuity in these two companies, which is something Wall Street likes. In closing, with one of these approaches, the founders can “have the cake and eat it too” i.e. should something go wrong, their legacy will not be affected and they can blame their appointed CEOs and step in and “right the ship”.