Eric Schmidt

After 17 years, Eric Schmidt stepped down in Jan. 2018 as executive chairman of Google's parent company, Alphabet; he will now be a technical advisor.Shortly after stepping down, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that Schmidt would be joining as a visiting innovation fellow.Schmidt co-founded Innovation Endeavors, a venture capital firm that has raised $676.5 million to date. Schmidt was Google's CEO from 2001 to 2011; prior to that he had stints as CEO of Novell and chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems. In May 2015, his family's investment vehicle bought a 20% stake in hedge fund firm D.E. Shaw & Co. for an undisclosed price.