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<ul><li>As Alphabet's new CEO, Sundar Pichai is will be looking after more than just Google. </li><li>He will also at the helm of Alphabet's Other Bets division, which hones research and development.</li><li>Its undertakings include developing neural networks, 'curing death', internet-beaming balloons and other semi-secret projects.</li></ul>As Google's co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, step down from their posts at Alphabet, Sundar Pichai will now be at the helm of the world's <a href="http://beta.fortune.com/global500/list/filtered?sector=Technology">fifth-largest</a> tech company. And, he'll be looking after more than just Google.<br /><br />Google is Alphabet's largest subsidiary but it has a whole other division for its research and development ventures called Other Bets. The secondary division includes experimental projects like self-driving cars, health-tech — like smart contact lenses — and venture capital investments. <br /><br />Overall Alphabet has 13 other mini-companies under its umbrella, aside from Google.<br /><br />But, the Other Bets division hasn't been faring too well of late. In 2018, it posted a loss of $3.4 billion. Meanwhile, Alphabet has been pouring more money into Google's cloud business which meant less investment toward Other Bets.<br /><br /><strong>Here's a list of the projects that Pichai will now be looking after:</strong><br />

'Curing death' and other semi-secret projects that Pichai will oversee as Alphabet’s CEO

<p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">The logo of Amazon is seen on the door of an Amazon Books retail store in New York</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>A secret project at Amazon known as "Project Gesundheit" is working toward developing a cure for the common cold, CNBC reported.</li><li>The secretive project is part of Amazon's "Grand Challenge" R&amp;D initiative lead by Babak Parviz, who previously led an R&amp;D group at Alphabet, Google's parent company. </li><li>While developing a cure to the many viruses that cause a common cold has long been thought as impossible, recent breakthroughs, like one at Stanford University, have indicated it might be more likely that once thought.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>Amazon has been working on a cure to the common cold as part of a "years-long" top-secret project known as "Project Gesundheit," according to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/05/amazon-grand-challenge-moonshot-lab-google-glass-creator-babak-parviz.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain">CNBC</a>.</p><p>CNBC cited three people who had worked on the secret project, over 100 people work on the project that includes scientists and technologists. They reportedly work as part of Amazon's "Grand Challenge" research and development group, which has never been publicly acknowledged by Amazon.</p><p>The group, sometimes called by codename "1492" is led by Babak Parviz, who previously led Google X, the R&amp;D group at Alphabet, Google's parent company, CNBC reported.</p><p>According to the report Friday, the project hasn't been entirely focused on healthcare projects, though they have been a major initiative of the group. In 2018, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/05/amazon-grand-challenge-moonshot-lab-google-glass-creator-babak-parviz.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain">CNBC</a> had reported the project was working on research into cancer treatments and diagnostic technologies.</p><p>A cure for the common cold has widely been viewed as impossible as there are 160 known types of rhinovirus that cause what we call the common cold, according to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-havent-we-cured-the-common-cold-yet/">Scientific American</a>.</p><p>In addition to the practicality of finding a common cold cure, others have pointed out such a drug would have to have virtually zero side effects, as the common cold typically subsides within a week to two weeks. Side effects could be more severe than the virus itself, venture capitalist Mike Pellini told CNBC.</p><p>Amazon's attempt would <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/researchers-may-have-actually-found-a-cure-to-the-common-cold-2018-5">not be the first one</a> to cure a common cold. Scientific American reported scientists began working on a cure in the 1950s after rhinoviruses were first discovered. More recently - in 2019 - scientists at <a href="https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2019/09/16/scientists-close-in-on-a-cure-for-the-common-cold/">Stanford</a> reported making strides toward developing a cure for the illness. According to the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/dotw/common-cold/index.html">Centers for Disease Control</a>, millions of people get a cold each year in the US, and most adults get two to three of them per year.</p><p>Pellini also said it's unclear whether health insurance companies would want to foot the bill for such a cure.</p><p><strong>Read more: </strong></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-us-cases-health-risk-2020-1">The US has reported 20 coronavirus deaths among almost 500 cases. Here's what we know about the US patients.</a></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/italys-coronavirus-death-toll-increased-marking-center-outside-china-2020-3">Italy's coronavirus death toll shot up to 366 within a day as the country put 16 million people on lockdown</a></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-change-cancel-travel-refund-2020-2">What you need to know about changing or canceling your travel plans because of the coronavirus, as outbreaks spread to every continent except Antarctica</a></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-school-closures-have-left-kids-feeling-scared-confused-2020-3">Parents are struggling to cope as coronavirus worries shut down schools, leaving kids scared and confused</a></p><p class="tagline"><a href="/intelligence/digital-health?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_subscription&amp;itm_content=health&amp;itm_campaign=digital-health"></a></p><p>Featured Digital Health Articles:<br />- <a href="/telehealth-industry-explained">Telehealth Industry: Benefits, Services &amp; Examples</a><br />- <a href="/value-based-care-pay-for-performance-healthcare-model">Value-Based Care Model: Pay-for-Performance Healthcare</a><br />- <a href="/senior-care-market-trends">Senior Care &amp; Assisted Living Market Trends</a><br />- <a href="/wearable-technology-healthcare-medical-devices">Smart Medical Devices: Wearable Tech in Healthcare</a><br />- <a href="/artificial-intelligence-healthcare">AI in Healthcare</a><br />- <a href="/remote-patient-monitoring-industry-explained">Remote Patient Monitoring Industry: Devices &amp; Market Trends</a></p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-myths-debunked-wuhan-china-2020-2">Pathologists debunk 13 myths about the coronavirus, including why masks won't help</a></h3>

A secret initiative at Amazon known as 'Project Gesundheit' is working to create a cure for the common cold

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Craig Barritt/Getty" title_caption="Google CEO Ruth Porat" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5615901f9dd7cc1e008c026f-960/ruth porat.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Craig Barritt/Getty</span></p><p class="caption">Google CEO Ruth Porat</p></div><p></p></div></div>Last week, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-officially-becomes-alphabet-today-2015-10">Google officially became Alphabet</a>, following through on the plans announced in August to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-new-operating-structure-2015-8">blow up its corporate structure</a> to allow its different businesses to move faster.</p><p>Google's <keyword id="53346" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="CFO">CFO</keyword>, Ruth Porat, who joined the company <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/morgan-stanley-ruth-porat-new-google-cfo-2015-3">only a few months before</a> the Alphabet announcement, just made it clear on stage <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/vanity-fair-new-establishment-summit">at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit</a> that one of the company's core ideas isn't going away. </p><p>Google CEO Sundar Pichai is still thinking about the "70/20/10" rule that Larry Page and Sergey Brin set out when the company got started, she said.</p><p>The idea is that Google spends 70% of its resources on core businesses, 20% on adjacent businesses, and 10% on new exciting opportunities.</p><p>This wasn't necessarily a foregone conclusion.</p><p>Alphabet separates the money-making and more established parts of Google - with core businesses like search, YouTube, and Android - from the businesses that used to make up that 10%, like its "moonshot" factory GoogleX, the Nest connected home products, its robotics division, and its Sidewalk Labs city-improvement projects.</p><p>Right now, almost all of Alphabet's money comes from Google's advertising business (with perhaps a teeny-tiny bit coming from hardware maker Nest). So, it would make sense that the remaining part of the company that's still called "Google" would put <em>all</em> its energy and resources into growing the core business, while the other subsidiary Alphabet companies are working on newer opportunities like self-driving cars and curing death.</p><p>Not so, says Porat.</p><p>"Innovation within Google is still key to the overall Alphabet family as a whole," she said.  </p><p>The topic came up in response to a question about the risk of Alphabet talent no longer being able to easily move between divisions, like they could when it was all one company under Google.</p><p>The risk of losing talented employees existed before the restructure, and it will continue to exist now that Google has become Alphabet, she said: Now, if you're not creating the best, most creative environment, you could lose someone to another company - or another Alphabet company.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/map-states-most-cheating-ashley-madison-hacker-cyber-2015-8">Ashley Madison hack reveals the states where people cheat the most</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="VjcXU3dzqzL92n8kTGCOUVDuP4Ie0r_7" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Google won't leave all the crazy ideas to the Alphabet teams, says CFO

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Getty and Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Telsa CEO Elon Musk and Eric Schmidt, the former executive chairman of Google's parent firm Alphabet.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Alphabet's Eric Schmidt has shot down Elon Musk's doomsday vision of AI.</strong></li><li><strong>Speaking at VivaTech in France, Schmidt said Musk "is wrong" because he "doesn't understand the benefits that this technology will provide to making every human being smarter."</strong></li><li><strong>He added that Alexander Graham Bell did not let the potential drawbacks of the telephone get in the way of his invention.</strong></li></ul><p><br />Eric Schmidt, the former executive chairman of Google's parent company Alphabet, pushed back against Elon Musk's doomsday vision of AI's threat to humanity while speaking at a tech conference in Paris.</p><p>Musk, the CEO of Telsa, is a vocal skeptic of artificial intelligence, and last month imagined a nightmare scenario in which the technology morphs into a tyrannical regime.</p><p>"At least when there's an evil dictator, that human is going to die. But for an AI, there would be no death. It would live forever. And then you'd have an immortal dictator from which we can never escape," Musk said in the documentary "Do You Trust This Computer?"</p><p>Schmidt has a more optimistic view of AI, which he laid out at the VivaTech conference in Paris, France, on Friday. The Alphabet board member was asked directly about Musk's opinions by Maurice Lévy, the chairman of advertising agency Publicis Groupe. He said:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Elon is exactly wrong. My position is clear. He's wrong. And he's wrong because he doesn't understand the benefits that this technology will provide to making every human being smarter. The fact of the matter is that artificial intelligence and machine learning are so fundamentally good for humanity. It makes every citizen smarter, from the best educated to the least. It allows you to live longer, with less pain, less disease.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"It allows you to make economic systems and social systems be more fluid. Over and over again making people smarter is a net good. He is concerned about the possible misuse of this technology and I am too, but today the overwhelming benefit of this is positive."</p><p>Schmidt added that other great inventors did not let the potential drawbacks of their creations get in the way of innovation. He highlighted Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone.</p><p>"You would not invent the telephone because of the possible misuse of the telephone by evil people. You would build a telephone and try to figure out a way to police the misuse of the telephone," Schmidt said.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-shares-thoughts-elon-musks-ai-2018-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was also asked about Musk's skepticism of AI</a> at VivaTech on Thursday. He said: "AI is going to unlock a huge amount of positive things, whether that's helping to identify and cure diseases, to help cars drive more safely, to help keep our communities safe."</p><p>Schmidt's comments comment as he is increasingly being kept in the dark about major AI projects at Google. He did not know, for example, that the company was working with the Pentagon on artificial intelligence until hearing about it in the media, <a href="https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/04/eric-schmidt-didnt-know-google-was-working-pentagons-ai-project/147546/">according to military blog</a><a href="https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/04/eric-schmidt-didnt-know-google-was-working-pentagons-ai-project/147546/"><span> </span>DefenseOne.com.</a></p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/errol-morris-steve-jobs-making-of-apple-switch-ad-campaign-2018-5">Steve Jobs made 3 AM phone calls to argue about Apple ads</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Eric Schmidt shoots down Elon Musk's doomsday vision of AI's threat to humanity: 'Elon is exactly wrong'

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></p><p class="caption">Bank of America sees a booming market as more people live to be 100.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>As humans begin to live longer than 100, it's going lead to a $610 billion market by 2025, according to analysts at Bank of America. </li><li>That's going to be driven by advances in food, medicine, and technology. </li><li>"Technology is on the cusp of bringing unprecedented increases to the quality, and length of human lifespans," the analysts wrote. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></li></ul><p>In the near future, more humans will be living longer and healthier past the age of 100.  </p><p>Analysts at Bank of America see a market that could be worth $610 billion by 2025, up from $110 billion today. It'll largely by driven via advancements in technology, both used preventatively and to treat some of the conditions associated with getting older. </p><p>"Technology is on the cusp of bringing unprecedented increases to the quality, and length of human lifespans," the analysts wrote in a report published on May 8. </p><p>Bank of America broke down that potential $610 billion market into five subgroups: genomics, big data, future food, ammortality, and moonshot medicine. </p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/anti-aging-longevity-startups-face-fda-obstacle-2019-1"> </a></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/anti-aging-longevity-startups-face-fda-obstacle-2019-1">Investors bet nearly $1 billion on startups that want to defeat aging, but there's a key challenge ahead</a></em></p><h2><strong>Genomics</strong></h2><p>One factor the analysts realized could contribute to people living longer and healthier would be a large uptick of people getting their genomes sequenced. As many as 1 in 4 people in the world could have their DNA mapped out by 2025,<a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002195"> according to research</a> cited by the Bank of America analysts.</p><p>That'd be a massive jump from where it's at today. So far, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612880/more-than-26-million-people-have-taken-an-at-home-ancestry-test/">about 26 million</a> people have taken at-home DNA tests to look into ancestry and/or health traits based on small pieces of the genome. While the cost to sequence genomes has gone down drastically over the years, it can still cost $1,000. But between personal genetics, gene-editing tool <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/first-crispr-food-5-years-berkeley-scientist-inventor-2019-4">CRISPR</a>, and advancements like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-medicine-tech-backed-by-novartis-johnson-and-johnson-has-big-potential-2019-4">gene therapy</a> to treat inherited diseases, the market could balloon to<strong> $41 billion by 2025</strong>, the analysts wrote. </p><h2><strong>Big Data</strong></h2><p>As we amass more information from sources like sequenced genomes, that data could help with new breakthroughs in drug discovery and development. </p><p>Ideally, new sources of data will help give researchers a more comprehensive picture of patients, helping personalize treatments or tailor new drugs to work precisely how the researchers want them to.</p><p>Ultimately, Bank of America expects the market around big data in healthcare to reach <strong>$36 billion by 2025. </strong></p><p><strong><em>Read more: </em></strong><em><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/targeted-protein-degradation-therapy-treat-cancer-1-billion-investment-arvinas-2019-5">Scientists are working on cancer treatments that attack the disease's 'Holy Grail.' Big pharma and biotechs have already invested more than $1 billion.</a></em></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Katie Canales/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">A bite of a lab-grown sausage.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Future Food</h2><p>Changes in our diets might help us live healthier to 100 as well, with one of five preventable deaths worldwide tied to diet, Bank of America noted. </p><p>Alternatives to the way we eat now could be a big opportunity for food companies. </p><p>"Next gen products such as lab-grown meat, where costs have fallen 99.7% in the past six years, and the rise of 'flexitarian' diets that reduce meat consumption are among the future food solutions in a market opportunity worth <strong>$7.5 billion by 2025</strong>," the analysts wrote. The market seems to be catching on. During the <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/beyond-meat-stock-price-soaring-as-market-tanks-2019-5-1028178340">initial public offering</a> of Beyond Meat, the <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/beyond-meat-stock-price-ipo-shades-dotcom-bubble-2019-5-1028187689">makers of plant-based burgers saw its stock surge by 163%.</a>  </p><h2>Ammortality</h2><p>By far the biggest of the subgroups highlighted by Bank of America is something the analysts dubbed "ammortality." The researchers define it as "living healthier, better and longer" as an alternative to "immortal," or simply living forever. </p><p>Helping us live healthier for longer are tools like health-tracking wearables and the ability to meet with a doctor without going into the office, as well as electronic health records used to digitally log patients within health systems. The interest in remote monitoring for chronic conditions is driving the growth in the market, the analysts noted. </p><p>The market right now is $86 billion, and it's expected to <strong>jump to $504 billion by 2025.</strong> </p><h2>Moonshot Medicine</h2><p>The analysts put research on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/anti-aging-longevity-startups-face-fda-obstacle-2019-1">anti-aging treatments</a> into the "Moonshot Medicine" subgroup. These new approaches might be able to help with particular conditions, like Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease, or they help prevent muscle loss or other visible signs of aging. </p><p>Investments into startups <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/startups-cure-for-aging-raised-850-million-this-year-2018-10">trying to find a cure for aging are exploding</a>. And the report pointed to projects Silicon Valley companies like Alphabet's life sciences company Verily is working on in its "quest to disrupt death," as Bank of America put it. </p><p>Right now, the market for anti-aging stands at just $1.6 billion. By 2025, that could <strong>grow to $20 billion</strong>, the analysts wrote. </p><ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/longevity-fund-laura-deming-on-investing-in-aging-2018-10" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">A VC who dropped out of MIT at age 14 has invested in biotech companies that are now worth billions. Here's how's she's picking her next investments to help us live longer.</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/longevity-funds-laura-deming-on-why-aging-research-is-exploding-2018-10" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">'To them it was a science fiction story': A VC who dropped out of MIT at age 14 explains why investors are starting to pour hundreds of millions into a field they had previously snubbed</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/samumed-osteoarthritis-phase-2b-data-2018-10" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">Samumed, a $12 billion startup that wants to cure baldness and smooth out your wrinkles, just released promising data on its lead drug to treat osteoarthritis</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-amedysis-ceo-paul-kusserow-learned-from-aging-countries-2018-11" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">The CEO of a $3.7 billion senior-care company went to a country facing a 'demographic time bomb,' and what he saw could be a lesson for the US</a></li></ul>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ketamine-drug-depression-antidepressant-effects-special-k-clubbing-medicine-2019-4">Ketamine, once known for its club-enhancing effects, is now an FDA-approved antidepressant. Here's what it does to your brain.</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

More people are going to be healthily living past 100, and Bank of America sees a $610 billion market there by 2025

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right no-rightrail"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Here's the crew at the IPO. Cofounder Sergey Brin stayed in Mountain View that Day because he didn't want to take a red-eye flight ot New York</p></div><p></p></div>Google went public exactly 12 years ago today. </p><p>In the immediate aftermath, employees who made big money were warned not to buy BMWs (or else they'd get their windshields smashed) or check the stock ticker at work (or else they'd have to buy the person who caught them a share). </p><p>People who bought shares on August 19, 2004, and kept it have made off well, as the stock price of Google and new parent company Alphabet has skyrocketed.</p><p>If you bought one share of Google in 2004 at its initial public offering price of $85, it would be two shares worth $1,575 today, taking into account Google's stock split.</p><p>That's a stunning $1,752.94% change, or about 18.5x.</p><p>So, let's assume that you bought more than one share:</p><p>If you bought <strong>~$1,000</strong> of stock (~11.76 shares) at the IPO price in 2004, you'd have <strong>~$</strong><span><strong>18,522</strong> today. </span></p><p>If you'd invested <strong>$10,000</strong>, you'd have <strong>$</strong><span><strong>185,384.53</strong>, a gain of $175,384. </span></p><p><span>If you'd been high-rolling with a <strong>$100,000</strong> investment, you'd have a stunning <strong>$1,853,022.60. </strong></span></p><p><span>Not too shabby. </span></p><p>Although the company has changed tremendously in the past 12 years - there are now separate divisions for self-driving cars, curing death, and improving cities - the core search experience looks pretty much the same. </p><p>Thanks to <a href="https://archive.org/web/" target="_blank">The Internet Archive</a>, we can revisit those early days and see exactly what Google used to look like:</p>

Here's how much you would have made if you'd invested in Google at its IPO

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Former FCA and Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Former <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/fca">FCA</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/ferrari">Ferrari</a> CEO <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/sergio-marchionne">Sergio Marchionne</a> has died at age 66.</strong></li><li><strong>He had reportedly been in a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fca-ceo-marchionne-in-intensive-care-in-a-swiss-hospital-report-2018-7">coma in intensive care at a hospital in Zurich</a> after complications from surgery.</strong></li><li><strong>The boards of FCA and Ferrari named his <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/r-marchionne-exits-fiat-chrysler-ferrari-amid-health-crisis-sources-2018-7">replacements following emergency meetings over the weekend</a>.</strong></li><li><strong>Marchionne was an auto industry legend, leading a turnaround at Fiat and taking Chrysler from bankruptcy to renewed prosperity.</strong></li></ul><p>Sergio Marchionne, the outspoken former CEO of both Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Ferrari, has died at age 66.</p><p>FCA Chairman John Elkann said in a statement, <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-fiatchrysler-ceo-marchionne/former-fiat-chrysler-ceo-marchionne-dies-idUKKBN1KF182">as cited by Reuters</a>: "Unfortunately, what we feared has come to pass. Sergio Marchionne, man and friend, is gone."</p><p>Marchionne was recovering from shoulder surgery when his condition took a turn for the worse. It was unclear from various news reports whether Marchionne's illness has been more serious. He fell into a coma at a hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, and was placed on a respirator in intensive care.</p><p>This past weekend, the boards of both FCA and Ferrari met during emergency sessions to choose replacements for Marchionne when it became apparent that his condition was grave.</p><p>Marchionne was the unlikeliest legend in the modern auto industry. An accountant by training, he was born in Abruzzo region of Italy in 1952 but moved to Canada as a teenager. He was educated at Canadian universities and started his career at Canadian firms before returning to Europe. Prior to joining Fiat's board of directors in 2003, he had no experience in the auto industry. He was named Fiat's CEO in 2004.</p><p>"Four years ago, Fiat was a laughingstock," <a href="https://hbr.org/2008/12/fiats-extreme-makeover">Marchionne wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 2008</a>.</p><p>"Whenever you opened a newspaper in Italy, there was another embarrassing story: Fiat had lost more money; its new car had flopped; a strike was on somewhere. Even more worrying to me was the fact that the company had gone through four CEOs in three years. Imagine showing up in June 2004 and being the fifth guy to try to resuscitate what appeared to most people to be a cadaver."</p><p>Marchionne went on the remake Fiat and its culture, trademarking his tireless, dynamic, demanding style along the way.</p><h2>Bringing Chrysler back from the brink</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Bill Pugliano/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Marchionne took over at Chrysler in 2009.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The stage was set for an unexpected takeover of Chrysler, which had to be bailed out during the financial crisis in 2009. Bankruptcy followed, and the Obama administration's Auto Task Force was ready to let the smallest of the Detroit Big Three go. Dealing with the multi-billion-dollar bailout and bankruptcy of General Motors at the same time was the higher-priority problem.</p><p>Chrysler had languished for years, first after being acquired by Daimler and later under management by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm. Fiat and Marchionne were the last hope for the carmaker, founded in 1925 by Walter Chrysler (the company had already been saved once before from extinction by the government, in the late 1970s).</p><p>With billions in restructuring financing arranged by the Obama administration and the Auto Task Force eliminating much of Chrysler's debt, Marchionne was able to steer the carmaker back to prosperity as the US recovered from the Great Recession and the US auto market set new annual sales records.</p><p>Fiat bought the government's and the United Auto Workers' stakes in the new Chrysler, and Marchionne staged a successful IPO in 2014, just as the company's RAM and Jeep brands were benefiting from a resurgence of pickup trucks and SUVs.</p><h2>Taking Ferrari to the next level</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP</span></p><p class="caption">Marchionne, far right, at Ferrari's 2015 IPO at the NYSE.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Marchionne followed that up with a spinoff of Ferrari from the newly formed FCA in a 2015 IPO. Marchionne had <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/departure-of-ferrari-chief-fiat-ceo-may-have-pushed-luck-too-far-2014-9">struggled with longtime Ferrari head Luca di Montezemelo</a> over expanding production of the storied Italian supercar brand, which Montezemelo wanted to keep at 7,000 vehicles a year. Marchionne had 10,000 in his sights.</p><p>He took on the dual role of CEO and chairman, and he also oversaw Ferrari's Formula One racing campaigns. (Marchionne was a Ferrari enthusiast and avid, if not always accident-free, driver: he crashed a 599 GTB in 2007, and he also owned a black Ferrari Enzo, named for the founder of the prancing-horse marque.)</p><p>On Wall Street, it was speculated that he might consider <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-wants-fca-to-spin-off-jeep-maserati-2017-10">similar spinoff IPOs of Maserati, Alfa Romeo, or both</a>. But he had also announced his intention to retire as FCA CEO in 2019, leaving the technicalities of such decisions to his successor, who hadn't yet been named at the time of his illness (he planned to stay on as CEO of Ferrari until 2021).</p><p>Marchionne was unflinching in his negative views of how the global auto industry was managed - often incompetently, he thought - and how it obliterated cash. In 2015, he produced a scathing analysis of the business' inefficiencies, titled with typical flair "<a href="https://www.autonews.com/Assets/pdf/presentations/SM_Fire_investor_presentation.pdf">Confessions of a Capital Junkie</a>" and subtitled "An insider perspective on the cure for the industry's value-destroying addiction to capital."</p><p>The presentation was widely circulated and discussed, as it bolstered Marchionne's case that the auto industry was rife with redundant technology development, addicted to easy money, and determined to maintain far too much manufacturing capacity.</p><h2>Pushing FCA into an uncertain future</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Marchionne tried and failed to convince GM to merge with FCA.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>But as effective as Marchionne was in merging Fiat and Chrysler, his efforts to court the largest US car maker failed in 2015. After a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fiat-chrysler-ceo-marchionne-is-really-pushing-his-luck-with-hopeless-gm-merger-talk-2015-6">noisy campaign to conjoin FCA and GM</a>, Mary Barra exercised her power as GM CEO to rebuff Marchionne's advances and leave him to the task of preparing FCA for his departure.</p><p>This he did in consistently entertaining fashion, working the global auto circuit with his appealing combination of straight talk and edgy jokes. He rarely shied away from a bold position, arguing for example that electric cars were a costly waste of time no matter what Tesla and CEO Elon Musk thought (he changed his mind on that score in 2017 and 2018 and was taking electrification more seriously).</p><p>He also sought out a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fiat-chryslers-ceo-google-waymo-2017-4">partnership with Alphabet's Waymo unit</a> on self-driving cars to help FCA catch up on a technology that it lacked the resources to invest in as it paid down debt on its balance sheet. And he was readying Ferrari to launch its first-ever SUV, as well as a possible electric supercar.</p><p>And he recognized earlier than the rest of Detroit that a decisive consumer shift away from passenger cars to SUVs, crossovers, and pickups was underway; he committed FCA to a nearly all-truck portfolio in the US years ahead of the competition.</p><h2>Work, work, more work - and sweaters</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Marchionne, in his uniform.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Marchionne was a noted workaholic. "Being a leader at Fiat is a lifestyle decision," he wrote in the Harvard Business Review. "It's not the Buena Vista Social Club." With Fiat and Ferrari in Italy, FCA headquartered in London, and Chrysler's operations based in Auburn Hill, Michigan, he traveled often and everywhere, usually in his uniform of a black sweater and pants, an antidote to the industry's armor of tailored suits (he claimed he bought his signature threads in bulk, online, in the middle of the night - and always on sale). He didn't seem to sleep much, and until recently, he was fueled by cigarettes and espresso.</p><p>He enjoyed jousting with analysts on earnings calls and would mix it up with reporters at car shows like a sort of cheerfully disheveled, bespectacled, prosperous philosophy king with jaded macro-economic view of the world, but he rarely granted one-on-one interviews. To the end, he referred to FCA and Ferrari, in the charmingly antiquated language of aristocratic commerce, as "houses." He had an MBA, but he never talked like a bureaucrat.</p><p>He's now left both houses in monumentally better shape than they were before he arrived on the scene. When Marchionne's condition declined, John Elkann - scion of the Fiat-founding Agnelli family and FCA's chairman - wrote in a statement to FCA employees that it was "a situation that was unthinkable until a few hours ago, and one that leaves us all with a real sense of injustice."</p><p>For the rest of the industry, Marchionne's death leaves us without a true original and a leader who always sought to balance opportunistic optimism and flinty realism, hard work and humor, the world of business and the realms of life.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ferrari-488-gtb-best-ever-car-2016-5">This is the best Ferrari ever built</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

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