Larry Page Reorgs Staff, Anoints Sundar Pichai as New Product Czar
This is purely speculative, but for me it looks like Larry Page may be preparing Google towards becoming a more privacy-aware company that you can entrust with information.<p>Why do I think this?<p>Trend: I think that 2014 has led to consumers becoming more actively aware of privacy. Google will be aware of consumer behaviour changing in this space. I have noticed in my general non-techie personal circle that people are far more protective of personal data and changing their online behaviour compared to two years ago. I think this is Google's current Achilles heel.<p>Tech: Google has so far got the best track record of security implementations which are open to anyone using their end-to-end platforms. They could seriously leverage this capability as a differentiator if it wasn't for the perception that they 'snoop' on its users.<p>Mission: In contrast to this Trend Larry Page has always been enthusiastic about a big vision of how consumers can benefit from sharing information to the right people, for example in the health space. At I/O 2013 this was a big topic for him: so many people's health could be improved if they would be able to comfortably share their personal data with the right people. The true value of this has massive potential.<p>Indications for a Pivot: Eric Schmidt is currently touring Europe, stating that Google doesn't 'read' email and does not make its money from analyzing your personal data. 
In the end Google's best bet may be to try to transform itself into a personal, trusted data company.