The term ‘the acting CEO of Google’ has been trending recently, and it was strongly associated with the name ‘Nate Higgers’.
This occurrence has aroused the curiosity of many people to learn more about ‘Nate Higgers,’ who is in charge of such a vital role at the giant tech company.
Surprisingly, the name ‘Nate Higgers’ is, in reality, related to an online meme!
In this post, I’ll cover everything you need to know about the ‘acting CEO of Google.’ I’ll also discuss why this phrase has been so popular recently.
Who Is the Acting CEO of Google?
If you own a smartphone, you’ve certainly not only heard of, but also used the renowned search engine, Google.
According to data from Statista, Google is the most frequently used search engine worldwide. Given the caliber of information it provides, it’s unsurprising that it holds this position.
The acting CEO of a company is a person appointed to manage the company temporarily for a certain predefined period.
A company might choose an acting CEO for multiple reasons based on the business needs. That said, Google doesn’t currently have an interim CEO.
Instead, the company’s current CEO is Pichai Sundararajan, best known as Sundar Pichai.
Despite the knowledge of many people about this information, the online search volume for the term ‘acting CEO of Google’ has been incredibly high recently.
Surprisingly, the whole story is an online joke about Google’s notoriety for discriminating against black employees.
Who Is Nate Higgers?
Nate Higgers is a virtual name used online to refer to Google’s reputation for discriminating against black employees. The term means that Google hates *iggers.
It gained popularity with the widespread stories of the company’s discrimination in previous years.
Although the creators of the name are unknown, it trended widely on social media since its first appearance.
To shed more light on Google’s discrimination stories, an unknown person created an account on the popular professional platform LinkedIn under the name ‘Nate Higgers.’
The creator listed the account’s current job title as the acting CEO of Google.
In a brief period, numerous people started interacting with this LinkedIn account. They also began circulating screenshots from this account everywhere.
Due to the account’s skyrocketing popularity, it started to appear in web searches, including on Google!
At the end of 2022, when individuals searched for the term ‘the acting CEO of Google’ online, the search results fetched the name Nate Higgers and the corresponding LinkedIn account.
This contributed to the further spread of the term the ‘acting CEO of Google, Nate Higgers’.
In addition, the person or people who managed the account continued to switch the account’s profile image to convey particular messages related to discrimination issues.
Nonetheless, the account suddenly disappeared in the past few months.
How Did the ‘Acting CEO of Google’ Trend Start?
The beginning of the story behind the ‘acting CEO of Google’ trend dates back to March 2022.
This was due to reports about a plaintiff, April Curley, who filed a lawsuit against Google in the Federal court in San Jose, California.
The black ex-employee of Google sued the technology company for what she described as systematic racial bias against black employees.
She stated that the company pays its black employees less and limits their roles to lower-level jobs. Curley also noted that Google restricts blacks’ advancement in their positions.
In addition, she complained about the company’s rules that put its black employees in a hostile work environment.
Curley included in her complaint that Google prefers to employ whites as black people represent only 4.4% of the company’s labor force.
Furthermore, Curley alleged that the giant technology company terminated her employment when she and some other employees asked for reforms to the company rules regarding blacks.
The Department of Fair Employment started investigating Curely’s claims, searching for possible discrimination at Google.
It’s worth mentioning that April Curley isn’t the only one alleging Google’s inappropriate attitude toward black people.
As a result, many people invented the term ‘Google Nate Higger’. It means that Google hates *iggers.
The Spread of ‘Acting CEO of Google’ Memes
Once the term ‘Nate Higgers’ appeared, many started to use it widely on Reddit and Twitter.
Likewise, a lot of internet users started to use the terms ‘Nate Higgers’ and ‘ the acting CEO of Google’ to create memes.
These memes dominated the social media platforms for several months.
On the other hand, Google didn’t make any statement regarding the trend of the ‘acting CEO of Google.’
The giant technology company seems to prefer not to comment on this occurrence to avoid further spreading it.
The Real CEO of Google
The current CEO of Google is Sundar Pichai, who was chosen for this position in 2015.
Let’s take a look at Pichai’s journey to the top management of Google:
Sundar Pichai was born in Madurai, India, in 1972. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.
He then obtained a master’s degree from Stanford University. He also gained an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Soon after, he started his career as a product manager at Allied Materials. Years later, he joined McKinsey & Co. as a management consultant.
Two years later, Pichai joined Google as the vice president of the product management department. He led the development of Google Chrome and Google Toolbar.
As you probably know, the Chrome browser achieved massive success over the years, which proved Pichai’s proficiency.
Pichai also supervised the launch of Chrome OS and Chromebook in 2011. In addition, he headed the development of the Android operating system.
In 2014, Pichai became the leader of all of Google’s products. This includes Google Search, Gmail, Workspace, Play, Chrome, and Maps.
In 2015, Pichai was chosen as the CEO of Google. In 2017, he joined the board of directors of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
Google invested in leading products like YouTube and Google Cloud under the leadership of Pichai.
Similarly, the company took vital steps in improving its technologies. This included quantum computing and machine learning.
The Former CEO of Google
In 2015, Google’s co-founder Larry Page announced that he’d step down as the president and CEO of Google and Alphabet.
The company’s board of directors selected Sundar Pichai as Google’s new CEO.
Commenting on this, the founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, stated that it was time for the company to operate without the daily management of the founders.
In Summary
There’s no current acting CEO of Google. Similarly, the name ‘Nate Higgers’ is a pseudonym many people use to describe alleged discrimination against black employees at Google.
In 2022, a person combined the two terms and created a LinkedIn account named Nate Higgers and set the account’s job title as ‘the acting CEO of Google.’
This account appeared in the web search results for a while before it suddenly vanished.
