The main difference between Larry Page and Google's new CEO Sundar Pichai

By Lisa Eadicicco

Google just announced a massive change to its business.
It's implementing a new structure in which Google will become a subsidiary of a new company called Alphabet. Larry Page, Google's co-founder and former CEO, will now take over as the CEO of Alphabet.

Sundar Pichai, Google's product kingpin who has been rising through the ranks over the past several years, is now the CEO of Google.

Based on what we've heard from a former Google employee, it sounds like Pichai is a natural fit for the job.

Maarten Hooft, a partner at the venture capital firm Quest Venture Partners who worked at Google for six years between 2006 and 2012, described the differences between Page and Pichai when speaking to Business Insider in October. This is when Pichai received a promotion that put him in charge of all of Google's major consumer products. Here's what Hooft said back then:

If I [were] to highlight one differentiator, [it's that] Larry can take on that blue sky vision. He's not afraid of setting an audacious goal. Whereas I think Sundar is more of a great operator.

While Larry and Sergey [Brin] have these visions and can start these initiatives, I think it's Sundar that's the guy that can just get it done. He can assemble the team, he can appoint the right people, and he's the one that makes it happen. That's not to say that Sundar doesn't have any product vision. But in terms of the grand 10-year horizon, I think Larry probably has more of that than Sundar does.

Hooft, who joined Google in 2006 as part of the search distribution team before moving to the Android department as a technical program manager in 2010, made it clear that these statements were based on his personal views and were not necessarily definitive.

Still, as a someone who spent time at the company for six years, Hooft was able to offer some insight as to how valuable Pichai was to Google. He even said he could see Pichai taking over as CEO.

"If there's anybody that could take over as CEO one day, I would see Sundar as being a great choice for doing that," Hooft said. "There's a lot of smart people [at Google], but in terms of the consumer products he's worked on so far, I doubt they would be as successful without Sundar being there."