New Android Boss Finally Reveals Plans for World’s Most Popular Mobile OS

For the past few years, Sundar Pichai has been part of a tag-team routine staged at Google’s annual I/O developer conference. Pichai, a Googler since 2004, would present on behalf of Google’s Chrome division, including its browser and cloud-based operating system. His counterpart was Andy Rubin, head of Google’s Android division. As Android grew to the world’s most popular mobile OS (it’s now on 750 million devices worldwide, with 1.5 million new activations every day), people wondered what was the sense of Google having two operating systems. Meanwhile, Andy Rubin was the unofficial king of I/O.
That won’t be the case this year. In March, Google announced Rubin was stepping down from Android to pursue unspecified moon shots elsewhere in the company. Pichai would take over Rubin’s duties at Android. He immediately went from being an important Google executive (in addition to Chrome, he was also in charge of Google’s apps efforts) to perhaps the most pivotal member of Larry Page’s “L-team” of top executives. So far Pichai, a 40-year old grad of the fabled Indian Institute of Technology and later Stanford, has kept his head down and refused all press. But as this week’s I/O event approached, he granted WIRED his first interview since taking over Android.

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/exclusive-sundar-pichai-reveals-his-plans-for-android/