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Sundar Pichai

Sundar Pichai

Net Worth

$600,000,000

Born in (City)

Chennai

Born in (Country)

India

Date of Birth

12th December, 1972

Date of Death

-

Mother

Lakshmi Pichai

Father

Regunatha Pichai

Children

  • Kiran Pichai
  • Kavya Pichai

About

Sundar Pichai is an Indian-American Business figure, who is currently the Chief Executive officer of Google Inc. and its parent company Alphabet Inc. The journey of a simple middle class guy from Chennai, to becoming the leader of one of the top brands in the world is definitely quite an interesting and inspiring story that we all should know. Born in Chennai, India,[1] Pichai earned his degree from IIT Kharagpur in metallurgical engineering. Moving to the United States, he attained an M.S. from Stanford University in materials science and engineering and further attained an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar, respectively.

Early Life

Pichai was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. His mother, Lakshmi, was a stenographer, and his father, Regunatha Pichai, was an electrical engineer at GEC, the British conglomerate. His father also had a manufacturing plant that produced electrical components.Pichai grew up in a two-room apartment in Ashok Nagar, Chennai and had a Hindu upbringing. Pichai completed schooling in Jawahar Vidyalaya, a Central Board of Secondary Education school in Ashok Nagar, Chennai and completed the Class XII from Vana Vani school at IIT Madras. He earned his degree from IIT Kharagpur in metallurgical engineering and is a distinguished alumnus from that institution. He holds an M.S. from Stanford University in materials science and engineering, and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar, respectively.

Road to Success

Pichai worked in engineering and product management at Applied Materials and in management consulting at McKinsey & Company. Pichai joined Google in 2004, where he led the product management and innovation efforts for a suite of Google's client software products, including Google Chrome and Chrome OS, as well as being largely responsible for Google Drive. He went on to oversee the development of other applications such as Gmail and Google Maps. On November 19, 2009, Pichai gave a demonstration of Chrome OS; the Chromebook was released for trial and testing in 2011, and released to the public in 2012. On May 20, 2010, he announced the open-sourcing of the new video codec VP8 by Google and introduced the new video format, WebM. On March 13, 2013, Pichai added Android to the list of Google products that he oversaw. Android was formerly managed by Andy Rubin. He was a director of Jive Software from April 2011 to July 30, 2013. Pichai was selected to become the next CEO of Google on August 10, 2015 after previously being appointed Product Chief by CEO, Larry Page. On October 24, 2015 he stepped into the new position at the completion of the formation of Alphabet Inc., the new holding company for the Google company family. Pichai had been suggested as a contender for Microsoft's CEO in 2014, a position that was eventually given to Satya Nadella. In August 2017, Pichai drew publicity for firing a Google employee who wrote a ten-page manifesto criticizing the company's diversity policies and arguing that "distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and ... these differences may explain why we don't see equal representation of women in tech and leadership". While noting that the manifesto raised a number of issues that are open to debate, Pichai said in a memo to Google employees that "to suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK".

Challenges

Taking the reins as chief executive of Google parent Alphabet, the soft-spoken, Indian-born Sundar Pichai faces a host of challenges at one of the world's most valuable companies, which has become besieged by activists and political leaders. The 47-year-old Pichai, who will remain as Google CEO in addition to taking up the new post, is seen as a steadying influence at a time when the Silicon Valley titan faces an onslaught from regulators and others. The move comes as Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are stepping away from their roles at the company they founded two decades ago in a California garage. "His temperament seems very calm and measured, but I don't think that is the reason he is getting the top position," said Avi Greengart, of the research consultancy Techsponential. Greengart said that Pichai was selected to be the public face of the larger company with Page and Brin fading into the background. "As the big tech companies get in the crosshairs, you need someone who is willing to sit in that seat, and I don't think Sergey and Larry were all that interested," he said. Greengart said putting Pichai in charge of both Alphabet and Google may be an acknowledgment that the 2015 reorganization was a mistake and that the various operations need to be more tightly integrated. "I don't understand the Alphabet structure," Greengart said. "There are technology platforms (within Alphabet) that need to work together." Pichai's low-key style has kept him out of the public limelight. With interests in football and cricket, he is married to a fellow IIT student, Anjali Pichai, with whom he has two children. He joins a long list of India-born CEOs of major global companies. Among the most notable are Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Rajeev Suri of Nokia, Shantanu Narayen of Adobe and, until her departure last year, Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo. Manu Kumar Jain, the Indian-born vice president of Chinese tech firm Xiaomi, welcomed the news. "From learning alphabets in Jawahar Vidyalaya to leading "#Alphabet", one of the most valued tech companies. Congratulations @sundarpichai. You are an inspiration to all," Jain tweeted. Indian billionaire Anand Mahindra, whose business empire spans everything from cars to real estate, congratulated Pichai, joking that India's "most robust export product is probably the 'Global CEO.'"

Failures

When Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified before Congress on Tuesday, he remained cool but managed to dodge or evade tough questions. The hearing felt like the perfect culmination of Google’s rough year, which was rife with high-profile controversies. Like many of Pichai’s responses to Congress, management’s reactions to Google’s various issues have at times felt lackluster or unclear, too. During his three and a half hours in the Congressional hot seat earlier last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai managed to play it cool. He was well-rehearsed and responded to questions evenly, with patience and without the provocativeness or peculiarities which were characteristic of previous Google CEOs Eric Schmidt or Larry Page. Still, the hearing disappointed many viewers, who felt like it was a missed opportunity to press Pichai to explain more directly how the company plans to protect users’ privacy or reckon with its societal impact. As Pichai dodged pointed questions or provided evasive answers, the spectacle felt emblematic of his and the company’s tough year. Google faced numerous high-profile public controversies and failures in 2018, and its responses have often felt similarly lackluster or unclear. Yet as Pichai skated by in Congress, Google, too, has dodged arrows overall thanks to the more intense scrutiny that Facebook received for its own truly disastrous year. On Nov. 1, more than 20,000 employees walked out of their offices around the world in the wake of an explosive New York Times’ report that detailed how Google shielded executives accused of sexual misconduct, either by keeping them on staff or allowing them amicable departures. While Pichai made some changes based on that message, organizers of that protest say that large issues were ignored and continued to push for demands like equity for Google’s contract workers and an end to all cases of forced arbitration.

Achievements

On 10 August 2015, Sundar Pichai was named the new CEO of Google.|In February 2016, he was awarded 273,328 shares of Google's holding company Alphabet, which led to a rise in his net worth.

Quotes

  • Wear your failures as a badge of honor.
  • A person who is happy is not because everything is right in his life, he is happy because his attitude towards everything in his life is right.
  • India has been, has long been, an exporter of talent to tech companies. But it is in India that’s now undergoing its own revolution.