The Stunning Rise Of Google CEO Sundar Pichai

Who is Sundar Pichai? If you google him, you'll find he's the CEO of, well, Google. Listed among the titans of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2020, Pichai joins Tyler Perry, Patrick Mahomes, and Gwynne Shotwell. Pichai dreams big, and his commitment to excellence, charity, and work ethic are shining examples of how he made that list. But what do we know about Pichai? How did this shy and quiet boy from India use his love of science and engineering to become one of the most powerful and influential people on the planet? Sundar was born on July 12, 1972, in Madurai, a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He grew up in poverty, living in a two-bedroom apartment with his parents and brother in a small province on the southeast coast of India. The family had no car nor television. The future CEO of Google didn't even have a working telephone in the house until he was 12 years old. Pichai's father worked as an electrical engineer for the British titan General Electric Company, while also managing an electrical components factory. His mother was a stenographer, someone that transcribed speech using a shorthand keyboard known as a stenotype machine. You know them best from courtrooms. Pichai has had a lifelong fascination with technology. He recalls the time, just before the family phone, when his mother had fallen ill and he had to travel hours just to get the results of her blood tests. Soon after, the Pichais invested their first rotary phone, and Sundar was as fascinated as he was excited. Test results that felt like they were at the end of the earth were now just a phone call away. Technology we take for granted, like a refrigerator, was a life-changing purchase for Sundar and his family. Upon buying their first fridge, Sundar noticed how drastically his mother's life improved, and the bond between them strengthened. Technology's impact on Pichai's life set him on a course he could never have seen coming. Sundar's father noticed his son's love of tech, but he was far more impressed with Sundar's brilliant memory. He was skillful at memorizing many things at an early age. Sundar had a Rolodex in his brain. To nobody's surprise, Sundar excelled in school. He continued his studies in technology by enrolling in the Indian Institute of Technology, or IIT, in Kharagpur, India. There, he earned his bachelor's degree in metallurgical engineering. He married his wife Anjali, a classmate at IIT. She was a chemical engineer, and the couple was blessed with two children. Sundar's mind was one of the brightest, and it won him a scholarship to study material science and semiconductor physics at Stanford University. He achieved his master's from Stanford upon completion, and earned an MBA from the Wharton School in Pennsylvania in 2002. Pichai settled with his family in Silicon Valley, and his path to becoming CEO of Google was just beginning. Pichai got his start with McKinsey and Company. To this day, it's ranked among the top consulting firms, and its former employees, like Pichai, have held high ranks in government and business. Pichai joined Google in 2004 as the president of product management. He was handed the keys to the Google suite and was tasked with maintaining and advancing everything Google. We can thank Sundar for innovations like Google Drive, something Fortune 500 companies use and rely on for their day-to-day operations. From Gmail to Maps, Sundar had his hands and brain attached to everything Google. That same year, Google went public, offering 19 million shares at $85 per share. After selling $1.6 billion worth of public stock, Google's market cap peaked at $24 billion. With Chrome, Android OS, and the purchase of YouTube, there's no questioning Google's current stock value. The Chrome Project, the building of their own search engine, put Google and Pichai on the map. Before Chrome, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was against the idea of developing an independent web browser. Pichai spearheaded the Chrome Project in 2006 and debuted the world's leading search engine in 2008. The verb, to Google, was soon added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, defined as, to use the Google search engine to obtain information about someone or something on the World Wide Web. Pichai didn't stop at Chrome. He'd soon take the Google's OS and answer to Apple's iOS. Pichai's Google career climaxed in 2015 when he was appointed CEO of the company. After its parent company, Alphabet, was formed. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, stepped into their new roles at Alphabet, and Pichai filled their shoes as CEO of Google. However, things could have been quite different for Pichai, as he was also a candidate to take over the CEO position at Microsoft after Bill Gates stepped down in 2014. However, the role was filled by Satya Nadella, a fellow Indian American immigrant. A relatively new company, Alphabet was actually inspired by the way Warren Buffett operates Berkshire Hathaway. Berkshire is a holding company and has majority ownership of several business ventures, like Dairy Queen and Geico. They also hold minor stakes in Coca-Cola, American Express, and Kraft Heinz. Google founders wanted to take Warren's operation and apply it to Google and their subsidiaries. Google is obviously the largest subsidiary, but other projects include Waymo, Calico, Sidewalk Labs, DeepMind, Wing, and Fitbit. Pichai soon found himself on Alphabet's board of directors and assumed the CEO position in 2019 after Page and Brin stepped down. In a blog posting announcing the change in management, Page and Brin stated that there was no need for two CEOs and a president. They handed the keys to Pichai, trusting him to run both Alphabet and Google. Sundar hit the ground running as CEO, pumping $7 billion into new offices around the US, creating 10,000 Google jobs. He admitted to being taken by surprise when asked to take over. However, he expressed how grateful he was and what a true privilege it was to be the CEO of both companies. You might think being the CEO of Google involves making earth-shattering decisions on a regular basis. However, Pichai assured that's hardly true at all. Instead, Pichai states that running Google is more like moving a fine needle. Instead of making major, high-stake decisions, ones that, if mistakes were made, could ruin the company, Pichai engages in tiny discussions and incremental decisions. Of course, with 130,000 employees under their wing, not all decisions come to an agreed conclusion. Some get stuck in limbo, deadlocked between executives, and in desperate need of a tiebreaker. Pichai has learned to be the tiebreaker. He adopted that mentality from his mentor, Bill Campbell, chairman of the board of trustees and football coach for Columbia University. If anything, Campbell taught Pichai, leadership is decision-making, moving forward. COVID-19 left a needy world in its wake. Google pledged to donate $5 million to San Francisco Bay Area families. The goal is to raise $1,000 each for the 5,000 families enrolled in the SNAP food program. $1 million came out of Pichai's pocket. Pichai, of course, has never forgotten his humble beginning in his home country of India. Amid the worsening COVID situation in India, Google pledged $18 million to buy medical supplies and help communities that were suffering the most.