Strategy
Chade-Meng Tan, who announced his retirement on his blog, joined the company as an engineer fifteen years ago.
Although he spent his early days developing Google's first mobile search service and leading search quality, he earned his eccentric title after starting "mindfulness training" courses at the company.
Mindfulness training helps Googlers find inner peace and clear their minds to sidestep stress and negativity.
The success of the class inspired Tan to write the best-selling book called "Search Inside Yourself" and found two non-profits, the One Billion Acts of Peace campaign and the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. Both aim to ultimately create conditions conducive for spreading world peace. He's now the chairman of both organization.
Tan leaves Google to work on them both full time and continue to work towards the mastery of his own mind through three hours of meditation per day. He's also writing another book, to publish in 2015, and advises startups.
Here's how Tan explained the move:
"A few months ago, after I celebrated my 15th anniversary as a Googler (which is my version of the "Google 15", since I never gained 15 pounds as a Googler), and as I looked forward to an impending 45th birthday (yes, I am that old, dammit), it occurred to me that I don't have that many years left and I really need to focus on my two most important priorities: mastering inner peace, and creating the conditions for world peace in my lifetime," he writes on his blog.
Want to get a better understanding of his teachings? Here's a popular Ted Talk Tan did in 2010: