Meet the brain behind Google\u2019s most groundbreaking product innovations, and now, the man in charge.<\/p>\n
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If you use Gmail, Chrome, Android, Search, ATAP or Google Drive, you have Sundar Pichai to thank. There is likely no individual at Google with a better, deeper understanding of the Google machine.<\/p>\n
Yet the one-time engineer behind some of the tech giant\u2019s most important products now has a very different role: guiding Google\u2019s stated ambitions to improve the world through managing information and balancing the growth aims of the world\u2019s largest Internet company.<\/p>\n
Founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California, Google is one of the Big Four technology companies alongside Amazon, Apple and Facebook. In August 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet’s leading subsidiary and will continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet’s Internet interests. That same year, Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page who became the CEO of Alphabet.<\/p>\n<\/div>
For Pichai, it would be a long journey from his childhood in Tamil Nadu, India, where he grew up in a two-room apartment where he and his younger brother slept on the floor of the living room and the family owned neither a TV nor a car.<\/p>\n
He would go on to acquire an MS from Stanford and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar respectively.<\/p>\n
Pichai subsequently worked in engineering and product management at Applied Materials and in management consulting at McKinsey & Company before joining Google in 2004 where he led product management and innovation efforts, including Google Chrome and Chrome OS as well as being largely responsible for Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Maps. Having also served as Product Chief, where he oversaw Android, by 2014 Pichai was being tipped to become the next CEO of Microsoft, a role eventually given to Satya Nadella.<\/p>\n
Yet he chose to take the reins at Google itself, and speaking at the Mobile World Congress shortly after his appointment, the quietly-spoken Pichai amply demonstrated why the company had such confidence in him, addressing everything from Android to Google\u2019s future as an MVNO mobile service provider and the launch of balloons that will transmit broadband to the developing world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing that attracted me to Google and to [the] Internet in general is that it\u2019s a great equalizer,\u201d Pichai said in 2015. \u201cI\u2019ve always been struck by the fact that Google search worked the same as long as you had access to a computer with connectivity, [whether] you were a rural kid anywhere or a professor at Stanford or Harvard. I want Google to strive to do that\u2014 not just build technology for certain segments. For me, it matters that we drive technology as an equalizing force, as an enabler for everyone around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>
The Google of today is a rapidly evolving company. Pichai\u2019s appointment coincided with the tech giant\u2019s reinvention as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., giving it ample room to branch out into new realms of the tech universe, as well as other sectors. Google currently has under its remit areas such as Search, Maps, Apps and Ads, as well as Android and YouTube while Alphabet will be a massive conglomerate under which Google and other divisions like Calico, Google Ventures, Google Capital, Google X, Fiber and Nest will exist as subsidiaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Sergey and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, \u2018Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one\u2019,\u201d Google co-founder Larry Page, the soon-to-be CEO of Alphabet, said after announcing the changes to the company. The reorganization has ultimately permitted the leaders of Alphabet to take a longer-term view of business, while allowing slimmed-down divisions like Google to focus on the job at hand.<\/p>\n
These days, of course, being one of the leading figures in the tech world also means dealing with controversy. Google’s market dominance has led to prominent media coverage, including criticism of the company over issues such as aggressive tax avoidance, search neutrality, copyright, censorship of search results and content, and privacy. Google has also drawn attention for adhering to the Internet censorship policies of China, enforced by means of filters colloquially known as \u201cThe Great Firewall of China.\u201d<\/p>\n
In August 2017, Pichai himself drew criticism for firing a Google employee who wrote a ten-page manifesto criticizing the company’s diversity policies. While noting that the manifesto raised a number of issues that are open to debate, Pichai said in a memo to Google employees that \u201cto suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.\u201d Whatever one\u2019s own views on such issues, diffusing controversy is now a key responsibility of any tech CEO.<\/p>\n<\/div>
In 2015, shortly before he was appointed CEO, Sundar Pichai sat down with The Verge to lay out his vision for the future of the company.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a high level I think of what we are doing in terms of two core things,\u201d the future chief executive said. \u201cOne is what we set out and wrote in the Founders\u2019 Letter, which is to say we really want to work on big problems that help solve big problems in users\u2019 lives. We want to do it at scale, we want to do it for everyone. The second is our mission statement, which is to organize users\u2019 information.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pichai believes strongly in making Google\u2019s technology accessible to the entire world, from corporate executives to rural farmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe entire PC industry reached about 1.7 billion people,\u201d he said on the reach of smart technology. \u201c[But with mobile,] we are truly dealing with the first computing platform [that] is going to touch people at scale. I can see a clear path to getting over 5 billion users one day. I think just in the last 12 months there [have been] over 600 million users who for the first time have had access to a modern computing platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich is why I do want Google to see, push, and invest more in making sure computing is more accessible, connectivity is more accessible,\u201d Pichai elaborated. \u201cAnd going back to our core mission, when we do things like machine learning and assist users, I view that as a huge game changer. Because over time, someone who has [access to] just a smartphone hopefully has…the same [capabilities] as someone who is more privileged. That\u2019s what\u2019s very exciting about what we are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>
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