The Rise of Sundar Pichai

There are people and then there are remarkable people.

Formerly known as Pichai Sundararajan, the Indian-American business executive has a lot of surprises he is yet to give. Earlier this morning he was announced as the CEO of both Google and Alphabet which calls for a lot of responsibility as well as a great deal of trust. But, he has earned it, hasn’t he? His relationship with Google began early and not once did he switch onto other platforms. More than this, his initiatives at Google have really expanded Google’s presence across the world. 

Where does his story begin?

Pichai was inclined towards numbers and computers as a child

The story of Sundar Pichai begins in a small two-room apartment at Madurai, Chennai. A huge part of his childhood was spent here with memories of his immense fascination for numbers. He finished schooling in CBSE board and eventually went on to achieve every Indian engineer’s dream of getting selected into the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). To amplify this, his work at IIT Kharagpur won him a scholarship at Stanford University for his Master of Science in Material Sciences and Engineering. But that’s not where he stopped studying, he also completed his MBA from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Quite the ideal child, don’t you think? 

While academically he stayed on top of his game, his presence of mind and practical applications has led him up the ladder at Google. 

He was performing his best academically

His engineering dream was realized when he began working in the engineering department of Product Management at Applied Materials. He also went on to work in Management consulting at Mckinsey and Company. 

His entry into Google

It was the year 2004 when his life aligned with Google as he led the product management and innovation efforts for a string of Google’s software. He overlooked operations for Chrome, Google Maps, Google Drive and Gmail which are Google’s most used applications. Within 5 years of his joining, the chrome OS was introduced and went public by 2012.  He convinced the parent company’s owners, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, to create an in-house browser that sets it apart from or becomes a competition to Internet Explorer. We all know how that worked out. 

Pichai’s loyalty that eventually made him CEO

While Google did stand out impressively, Sundar Pichai believes more in getting good results. His ability to tap potential opportunities and use them aptly for Google’s progress. It is no surprise he was made CEO of Google in October 2015. He was also a strong contender for the position of CEO at Microsoft which is now headed by Satya Nadella. 

Recent development at Google 

Under his leadership, Google announced Quantum Supremacy earlier this year. They claim to have developed a chip that could perform complex computations in 200 seconds which would otherwise take a supercomputer 10,000 years.

Read here: Sundar Pichai, CEO Of Google, Becomes CEO Of Both Google And Alphabet

Pichai’s astounding bagging of CEO position for parent company

As of today, he has also become the CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet after the co-founders stepped down. To be trusted with the management for two companies is a very big responsibility and by Pichai’s progress record so far, it is definitely achievable. 

His journey is one that has only rushed upwards and after an acceptable amount of time. He worked at every position for more than 3 years to make the jump for promotion. To be enshrined with the control of the world’s biggest internet company is a lot of power in one hand and Pichai seems to definitely have it under control. The online world has just found one of its biggest stories today.