Alphabet announced that he will continue to serve on the company's board.

Schmidt first joined Google as CEO in 2001, back when the company only had several hundred employees, and become its executive chairman 10 years later. He maintained that role when Google restructured to become Alphabet in 2015.

"Larry, Sergey, Sundar and I all believe that the time is right in Alphabet's evolution for this transition," Schmidt said in a statement: "The Alphabet structure is working well, and Google and the Other Bets are thriving. In recent years, I've been spending a lot of my time on science and technology issues, and philanthropy, and I plan to expand that work."