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Thomas Kurian, chief executive officer of cloud services at Google LLC, speaks during the Google Cloud Next ’19 event in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, April 9, 2019. The conference brings together industry experts to discuss the future of cloud computing.
Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian is shaking up the unit’s engineering organization in hopes of gaining more market share more quickly.

In an email to staff, Kurian announced a number of changes among its technical leadership, including replacing Eyal Manor, who has been in charge of engineering and key Google Cloud products for the last five years and has been at the company for nearly 15 years, according to an email viewed by CNBC.

Manor, who led engineering and key Google product Anthos, will be looking for another role within the company, Kurian’s email said.

Brad Calder will take over Manor’s responsibilities, overseeing product and engineering for Google Cloud Platform. Calder will report to Thomas Kurian in a change that Kurian said will allow the technical teams to “work more closely with me and the Cloud leadership team, as well as Sundar and the Google leadership team” on longer-term strategy.

“With 15+ years of experience in Cloud, Brad has the proven expertise to take on a broader role to shape and drive the entire strategy for GCP,” he wrote. (Some aspects of Calder’s new role were previously reported by ZDnet.)

Design and product VP Pali Bhat will assist Calder with the transition, he noted.

The shakeup is is meant to help continue grow Google Cloud’s market share while streamlining an organization that has ballooned in the last several years since Kurian took over.

With 10% market share in Q2, according to Synergy, the company trails well behind market leader Amazon (33%) and number-two Microsoft (20%), although it has made since Kurian took over in late 2018 — as of Q4 2018, Google had only about 7% share, Synergy estimated.

“We have an enormous opportunity to continue to grow the business by expanding our total addressable market in new ways,” Kurian said in his memo. “As the market changes, the needs of our products continue to evolve, and it’s important that we evolve our organization to support this growth.”

Kurian also said that Google Cloud Platform and technical infrastructure organization have more than doubled in the past few years and the “demands of shaping long-term strategy while focusing on day-to-day operations have continued to accelerate.”

“As a result, we felt that it was the right time to unify the broad portfolio under Brad Calder,” his email states.

Kurian also outlined other changes that affect the cloud’s data organization, the core and system infrastructure teams, chief of staff, and application teams. He said Manor’s departure will also create an opening for a new leader to run the company’s “Application Modernization Platform” (AMP). Kurian stated that until it finds someone, he would appoint several other leaders to take on more responsibility.

Manor is at least the third VP to leave the cloud unit in recent months. Google fired developer relations vice president Amr Awadallah in July after he published a manifesto that confessed antisemitism, which CNBC found came after months of discontent within his reporting leaders. That, itself, caused one of “a number of organizational changes” already underway, Manor said at the time.

Kurian went on to thank Manor and congratulate the more than a dozen leaders who will assume new or broadened roles.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Cryptocurrencies rise to start the week, bitcoin jumps above $102,000

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Cryptocurrencies rise to start the week, bitcoin jumps above 2,000

The photo illustration shows the Bitcoin cryptocurrency on November 12, 2024 in Shanghai, China.

Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

The price of bitcoin leapt back above $100,000 to start the first full trading week of the new year.

The flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by about 4% at $102,234, according to Coin Metrics. The broader crypto market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 index, gained more than 3%. Bitcoin and ether are coming off their best weeks since Dec. 6, while Solana had its best week since Nov. 22.

“Overall, we are in a bullish environment and traders appear to be risk-on as we head into the new year,” Mario Jurina, CEO at crypto swaps platform Jumper.Exchange. “With Trump’s election set to be certified today, and January often being a bullish month — six of the past 10 years saw positive price action — it’s no wonder markets are moving upward.”

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Bitcoin rises above $100,000 to start the week

The moves in crypto coincided with a rebound in tech stocks as Nvidia and shares of other chip names jumped. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was last higher by about 1.7%.

Crypto stocks Coinbase and MicroStrategy advanced nearly 6% and 5%, respectively. MicroStrategy Monday morning reported it has purchased another 1,070 bitcoins for about $101 million, bringing its total bitcoin holdings to 447,470.

Activity is coming back into the crypto market after a post-election rally that was driven by promises of a more supportive regulatory environment. The optimism sent prices rocketing for weeks before cooling at the end of the year. The price of bitcoin is expected to roughly double under the new administration this year, with some price predictions, like Fundstrat’s Tom Lee’s, being as high as $250,000.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

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Amazon’s Ring announces smart smoke alarm as CES tech palooza kicks off

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Amazon's Ring announces smart smoke alarm as CES tech palooza kicks off

Ring security cameras are displayed on a shelf at a Target store on June 01, 2023 in Novato, California. 

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Amazon‘s Ring is partnering with fire safety product maker Kidde to launch a connected smoke alarm, the company announced Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The companies plan to launch Kidde smoke and carbon monoxide alarms that integrate Ring’s home security technology and can deliver alerts to the Ring mobile app. The Kidde Smart Smoke Alarm with Ring will cost $54.97, while the Kidde Smart Smoke and CO Alarm with Ring will cost $74.97. Both products will ship in April.

As part of the launch, Ring will also roll out a $5-per-month subscription service that gives users access to round-the-clock professional monitoring and emergency dispatchers.

Amazon acquired Ring in 2015 for a reported $1 billion. The home security company is primarily known for its video doorbell devices, which allow users to record activity in front of their homes, though it has expanded to include a portfolio of products ranging from camera-equipped floodlights to flying security camera drones.

Amazon doesn’t disclose unit sales for its Ring division, but Ring and rival home security company SimpliSafe comprise one-fifth of the U.S. market for professional monitoring systems, according to data from market research firm Parks Associates. Ring CEO Liz Hamren, who took the helm from founder Jamie Siminoff in March 2023, told Bloomberg last May that the company “recently” became profitable.

Users aren’t required to subscribe to Ring Home, the company’s program that enables video recording storage and other security features, in order to access the new smoke alarm service.

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Global chip stocks climb as Foxconn’s bumper results show a continuation of the AI boom

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Global chip stocks climb as Foxconn's bumper results show a continuation of the AI boom

Jakub Porzyck | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Global semiconductor stocks climbed on Monday after contract electronics giant Foxconn announced record fourth-quarter revenues, suggesting the artificial intelligence boom has far more room to run.

Hon Hai Precision Industry, which does business as Foxconn internationally, said in a Sunday statement that the company’s fourth-quarter revenue totaled 2.1 trillion New Taiwan dollars ($63.9 billion), growing 15% year-over-year.

Foxconn — which is a supplier to Apple — also set a record, posting the highest fourth-quarter revenue ever in company history, according to the statement.

The firm’s bumper revenue performance was driven by growth in its cloud and networking products — which includes AI servers like those designed by the likes of chipmaker Nvidia — and components and other products segments.

Computing products and smart consumer electronics — which numbers iPhone and other smartphones — saw “slight declines,” Foxconn said.

Shares of several semiconductor firms across Asia, Europe and the U.S. rose, as a result.

In Asia, TSMC hit a record high Monday and closed 1.9% higher in Taiwan.

The largest semiconductor manufacturer globally, TSMC produces chips for the likes of AMD and Nvidia.

Other Asian chip firms also logged share price gains — South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung rose nearly 10% and 4%, respectively.

In Europe, globally critical semiconductor equipment firm ASML saw its shares jump almost 6%, while fellow Dutch chip company ASMI’s stock rose almost 5%. Germany’s Infineon surged more than 6%.

The momentum in semi stocks could last as they have great earnings momentum, says Jim Cramer

Paris-listed shares of European contract chipmaker STMicroelectronics rose nearly 6%.

Stateside, Nvidia got a boost from the Foxconn numbers, climbing 2% in U.S. premarket trading.

Also boosting chip stocks on Monday was Microsoft’s announcement at the end of last week about plans to invest $80 billion in 2025 on data centers that can handle AI workloads.

Microsoft is one of several tech giants splurging on GPUs (graphics processing units) from Nvidia to train and run the most advanced AI models.

AMD, Nvidia’s closest rival, rose 3% in pre-market trading Monday, while fellow U.S. chip firms Qualcomm and Broadcom both climbed almost 2%.

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