Alphabet has announced that it is folding all Sidewalk Labs’ projects under the umbrella of Google, after the founder and CEO of Sidewalk announced that he will be stepping down ahead of a possible battle with ALS.
Alphabet Inc. is an American tech company which was created through a Google restructuring in October 2015, eventually becoming the parent company of Google and several subsidiaries of Google. One of the subsidiaries of Alphabet Inc. is Sidewalk Labs, which deals with urban planning and infrastructure. Until recently, Sidewalk Labs was headed by founder and CEO Daniel Doctoroff.
Doctoroff, who had previously been in charge of Bloomberg LP, announced in a blog post on Thursday that he would be resigning as CEO. He made this decision in the wake of a possible battle with the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a highly deadly neurodegenerative condition. Doctoroff has not been diagnosed with the disease yet, but meetings with experts in the field, meetings and test results have all pointed to the possibility of being diagnosed.
He however said that he tested negative for a gene mutation that points to ALS, which had been present in his family with the disease, making it a possibility that he is fighting a disease with similar symptoms to ALS but which is not ALS.
According to Doctoroff, the disease runs in the family as both his father and uncle were diagnosed with the devastating disease. Since the ALS fears, he has decided to spend more time with his family and lead his organisation called Target ALS. Doctoroff said he plans to raise $250 million for medical research through the Target ALS group.
In the wake of Doctoroff’s resignation, Google will take over Sidewalk projects like the parking technology Pebble, and low-cost energy tracking system Mesa. Doctoroff announced that the projects will still be led by Sidewalk Labs’ President of Urban Products Prem Ramaswami and the Chief Technology Officer Craig Nevill-Manning, who are both former workers with Google.
It was however announced that the company did not have a date for the transition yet.
