The man leading Google‘s most important business is leaving the company.
Google advertising chief Sridhar Ramaswamy is joining venture capital firm Greylock Partners, the firm announced in a blog post. He will be replaced by Prabhakar Raghavan, formerly a vice president of engineering with a strong background in AI research. He currently works on Google Apps, according to his Twitter bio.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement, “I’ve worked with Prabhakar over many years now and can think of no better person to lead our monetization efforts. Prabhakar has incredible management experience, and the deep technical expertise to match. He is the right person to succeed Sridhar, whose contributions over the past 15 years have helped grow Google into the company it is today.”
Ramaswamy, whose title at Google was senior vice president of advertising and commerce, joined the company 15 years ago.
While he worked on various projects during his time there, he’s role at the helm of the advertising unit was the most high profile. Last quarter, Google parent company Alphabet made 86 percent of its $32.65 billion in revenue from advertising.
“I have been extremely privileged to have spent the past 15 years at Google, where I focused on starting and scaling new businesses and platforms,” Ramaswamy wrote. “I have always been drawn to earlier stage entrepreneurial projects and becoming a venture partner at Greylock is an exceptional way to explore these types of opportunities.”
