Aug. 11: Google has a new boss - and he is Chennai-born, IIT Kharagpur-educated Sundar Pichai.

Pichai's elevation to the top job at the $70-billion Google follows a sudden and massive recast at the technology giant that seeks to create a new parent called Alphabet and separates the "moonshots" - driverless cars, balloon-powered Internet and biotech ventures - from its core businesses that have been built around its popular search engine.

Rumours swirled that Google was forced to propel Pichai into the hot seat at Google as he had a tempting offer from Twitter that saw its CEO Dick Costello step down last month.

In a blog detailing the changes at Google, founder Larry Page said Alphabet would be a collection of companies with a "slimmed-down" Google being the largest entity within that new structure.

It isn't clear how much Google's $70-billion revenues will shrink by. That will be apparent when Alphabet - which will replace Google Inc as the publicly-traded entity on the Nasdaq - reports its fourth quarter results. "Google financials will be provided separately than those for the rest of Alphabet businesses as a whole," Page wrote.

On Monday, the Google stock jumped almost 6 per cent to 633.73, yielding a market capitalisation of $434.4 billion.

"Congratulations Sundar Pichai. My best wishes for the new role at Google," Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted early on Tuesday.

Pichai, 43, had joined Google in 2004 and made a name for himself as a product manager working on a high-profile effort like Chrome, the web browser that has become the most widely used across desktops and mobile devices around the world. Soon after, he started overseeing apps like Gmail.

Two years ago, he was promoted to also oversee Android, the software that runs 78 per cent of the smartphones sold around the globe.

"I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as him to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations," Page said.

"Sundar has a talent for creating products that are technically excellent yet easy to use - and he loves a big bet," Page added.

At IIT Kharagpur - records show him as P. Sundararajan and friends remember him as "Sundi" - Pichai used to sing " Anjali Anjali", not just because it was a hit in the 1990s. 

Students at Vana Vani Matriculation Higher Secondary School - an experimental school started by a couple of professors on the IIT Madras campus - were excited to learn that an alumnus had been named as the CEO of one of the world's largest Internet companies.

"This is one of the proudest moments in the school's 52-year history. We have been flooded with calls from former students and teachers congratulating us," said principal Kaveri Padmanabhan.

Pichai had spent his last two years at this school, passing out in 1989. He also captained the cricket team at Jawahar Vidyalaya in Chennai, a school that he had attended earlier.

Padmanabhan rued that most of his teachers had moved on and they had very little "actual memories of our star student to share with the media". "We would be very happy if he could find the time to visit the school and address our students during his next trip to India," she added.

The children today put up a congratulatory note on the notice board under the printout of an old photo of Pichai from the Google website. One pupil read out a brief profile of Pichai in the assembly.

In a world that bristles with larger-than-life personalities, Pichai stands out because of his low-key style and his ability to advance his agenda through quiet advocacy.

"Google has politics like any other large company, and Sundar navigated those politics to make his team successful while inflicting the least possible damage on any other team," wrote long-time Google product manager Chris Beckmann in a post last year on the question-site Quora.

After studying metallurgy engineering at IIT Kharagpur, Pichai moved to the US and attained a master of science degree from Stanford as well as a master's in business administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

He worked as an engineer at Applied Materials and then moved to management consulting at McKinsey & Company. He joined Google after trying to talk one of his McKinsey colleagues out of going there, before realising that the arguments in favour of joining the company were better.

Several rival Internet companies have tried to woo him away from Google in the past. In 2011, Twitter tried to lure Pichai away to run the company's consumer products division.

Last year, Pichai was reported to be in the race to replace Steven Ballmer as chief executive at Microsoft. The job eventually went to Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella. "Congrats Sundar Pichai. Well deserved," Nadella tweeted soon after the announcement.

Twitterers had a field day playing on Satya-m and Sundar-am. One tweet said: "Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella vs Sundar Pichai. Shiv Nadar also must enter the race. We can then have a full Satyam-Shivam-Sundaram contest."