In 2001, Google’s board fired its own founders from running the company.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin were 27. Brilliant, but “too young to lead.”

So they brought in Eric Schmidt as CEO.

Most founders would’ve stepped back or moved on.

Larry and Sergey did something smarter.

They stayed close.

They learned.

And for 10 years, they quietly planned the most elegant power play in Silicon Valley history.

In 2011, they took back the CEO role. But that wasn’t the real move.

The real play was Alphabet.

By 2015, they’d:

▫️ Created a holding company structure (Alphabet Inc.)

▫️ Introduced dual-class shares (with 10x voting power)

▫️ Separated moonshots (X), bets (DeepMind, Waymo), and core cash (Google)

▫️ Locked in control, forever

They turned “too young to lead” into one of the most powerful ownership models in tech.

And they made sure no board could fire them again.

This was a masterclass in long-term thinking, founder power, and strategic patience.

If you're a founder today, here’s the takeaway:

▫️ Don’t just play the game, design the rules

▫️ Power comes from structure, not just titles

▫️ The best revenge is building something too big to ignore

Author

Ai Base Network (ABN), ABN ASIA was founded by people with deep roots in academia, with work experience in the US, Holland, Hungary, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam. ABN Asia is where academia and technology meet opportunity. With our cutting-edge solutions and competent software development services, we're helping businesses level up and take on the global scene. Our commitment: Faster. Better. More reliable. In most cases: Cheaper as well.

Feel free to reach out to us whenever you require IT services, digital consulting, off-the-shelf software solutions, or if you'd like to send us requests for proposals (RFPs). You can contact us at [email protected]. We're ready to assist you with all your technology needs.