Larry Page loses voice, 'nothing seriously wrong' with him
Page will miss a couple of upcoming events, but he emailed to reassure staff it's no biggie.
Google co-founder Larry Page has lost his voice, causing him to sit out a couple of high profile company events, but he's told employees it's not serious.
Page emailed staff this week, saying there was "nothing seriously wrong with me," and he would "continue to run the company," according to a source who saw the internal memo, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Page missed Google's annual meeting on Thursday. He'll also skip the annual developer conference next week (27 to 29 June), as well as the second-quarter earnings report announcement next month, expected for some time around 19 July.
At the start of the shareholder meeting on Thursday, executive chairman Eric Schmidt told staff the 39-year-old Page had lost his voice. He said Page "can't do any public speaking engagements for the time being," mentioning the two forthcoming events.
"Larry will continue to run the company, he's running all the strategic business decisions and all that," he added.
Schmidt was in jovial mood, joking that co-founder Sergey Brin "has said this problem will make Larry a better CEO because he's going to have to choose his words very carefully."
Steve Jobs' death is still fresh in the minds of tech industry watchers. Apple refused to disclose much information in the early days, and with Page being ruled out of an event that's still about a month away, it's only natural for some to assume he's more ill than Google is letting on. Let's hope that's not the case.
During a speech in London last month, Page had to keep pausing to swallow before continuing to speak, though it's not known whether that was related to his current ailment.
It's pointless speculating on what Page is suffering from, so here's hoping him a speedy recovery.