Google Inc CEO Larry Page, who plans to skip several high-profile events in coming weeks after losing his voice, told employees there was “nothing seriously wrong with me,” according to a source who had seen an internal staff memo.
Page sat out his company’s annual shareholders’ meeting on Thursday. The 39-year-old Google co-founder is resting his voice because of an unspecified condition, and he will miss Google’s annual developer conference next week as well as its quarterly results announcement next month, executives said on Thursday without elaborating.
Page continues to run Google’s business, Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt told attendees at the shareholder meeting on Thursday. But Page’s prolonged absence from the public spotlight raises questions about his condition, and the company’s obligation to highlight issues of concern to shareholders.
“It gets them over the first disclosure hurdle, that is they’ve alerted shareholders to the fact he’s going to have this health effect,” said James Post, a professor of management at Boston University who focuses on corporate governance issues.
“It’s OK for them not to say that. As more information emerges from other sources, the tough questions still lie ahead, and there will be continued pressure to keep answering those tough questions.”
Google would not comment on its CEO’s medical condition on Friday.
