Microsoft was under consent decrees and anti-trust / anti-monopoly scrutiny for much of Ballmer's tenure and had to tread very carefully in the marketplace. Pi

Microsoft was under consent decrees and anti-trust / anti-monopoly scrutiny for much of Ballmer's tenure and had to tread very carefully in the marketplace. Pichal doesn't have that excuse. In fact, Google is staring down the barrel of a barrage of anti-trust / anti-monopoly lawsuits itself and the real test of Pichal is how well he is able to get Google to perform over the next decade when it's laboring under similar restraints. I would not bet money on him doing a better job than Ballmer did.