In a surprise move Eric Schmidt the chief executive of Google has handed over the reigns of the company to Larry Page, one of its two original founders.

Schmidt will become executive chairman handing over day-to-day control to page on April 4.

The news came as Google announced better than expected profits of $2.54b, which is up from $1.97b on the year before.

After the results were announced Schmidt tweeted out “adults no longer needed!” Schmidt, an established Silicon Valley chief executive had joined the business in 2001 to keep the youthful, and some say socially inept, Google founders Sergey Brin and Page on the corporate straight and narrow.

Page was quoted as saying: “Eric has clearly done an outstanding job leading Google for the last decade. The results speak for themselves. There is no other CEO in the world that could have kept such headstrong founders so deeply involved and still run the business so brilliantly. I have learned innumerable lessons from him.”

Schmidt will now focus externally on deals and partnerships while Brin will devote energy to new product development.