The babysitter is leaving the corner office.
After a decade leading google from a barely known startup into the world's No. 1 search engine with sales of $29 billion and 24,000 people on the payroll, CEO Eric Schmidt is handing over the keys and the day-to-day management of the company to co-founder Larry Page, 37.
Schmidt, 55, was brought aboard the Mountain View, Calif., company in 2001 from Novell to provide steady, seasoned management as Google worked toward its 2004 initial public offering. That role has run its course now that both Page and co-founder Sergey Brin, also 37, have a decade of experience under their belts.
Google co-founder Larry Page (left) will take over day to day operations as CEO Eric Schmidt announced he'll be stepping down in April.
"Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed," Schmidt tweeted yesterday.
Page, who Schmidt said is "ready to lead," will take over on April 4.
"Larry is looking to take a more active role in day-to-day operations, seeing as he's ready to step up to that CEO role," said Aaron Kessler, an analyst with ThinkEquity. "Larry was relatively young when he founded Google. Young entrepreneurs aren't ready to assume a CEO position at that point."
Ken Sena, a director at Evercore Partners, said the leadership change will give the company a fresher face, like its Silicon Valley peer Facebook, which is led by 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg.
"When you look at Mark Zuckerberg and how he has been recognized as being on the forefront of where tech is headed, it's no wonder they want Sergey and Larry back at the helm," Sena said.
The changing of the guard overshadowed the news that Google's fourth-quarter profit soared 29 percent, to $2.54 billion, well above Wall Street estimates. Revenue, excluding commissions paid to marketing partners, beat forecasts, topped out at $6.37 billion, a 29 percent jump.
Company officials attributed the gains in large part to strength in the company's core search product, which continued to dominate the market and ratchet up ad sales. According to comScore, Google had 66.6 percent share of the US search market in December 2010.
While Page takes control as CEO, co-founder Brin's role will be to focus on pet projects and innovations.
Brin did indicate Google would continue to develop social components to its services even though the company admitted its failures of last year such as Google Wave, a social Gmail feature that never took off. The company killed Wave and another not-so-hot offering, its Nexus One phone, Schmidt said.
While by most measures Schmidt has been wildly successful as CEO, he has taken heat for not having the tech chops of Google's founders. Also, privacy groups have sniped that he has turned a deaf ear to their concerns as Google amasses personal -- if not identifiable -- information on people who use its services.
Google also reported that it had $35 billion on hand in cash that will be tapped in the year ahead. Shares rose 1.6 percent to $637 in after-hours trading.
gsloane@nypost.com
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