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The incredible rise of Sundar Pichai, one of the most powerful CEOs in the world

Sundar Pichai Google
Sundar Pichai Google

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai

Google CEO Sundar Pichai just got a big payday:

He received roughly $183 million in company stock, which will vest over the next four years.

Bloomberg reports that this is the highest pay package that Google has ever given to an exec whose equity grants have been reported in filings.

Although Larry Page is still the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, Pichai has the incredibly important job of making sure that the company’s core businesses and cash cow stay strong.

Who exactly is Pichai and how did he scale the ranks to get one of the most important job at one of the most important companies in the world?

Here’s his story:

Pichai grew up in Chennai, India. His father worked as an electrical engineer and his mother had been a stenographer before having he and his younger brother. The family wasn’t wealthy, and the boys slept together in the living room of their two-room apartment.

Source: Bloomberg

From early on, Pichai has had a talent for remembering numbers — which his family realized when he could recall every phone number he had ever dialed on their rotary phone. He will still sometimes whip out his numerical memorization skills at meetings, to the awe of his colleagues.

Source: Bloomberg 

After becoming interested in computers (the first software program he wrote was a chess game) Pichai studied metallurgical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. His success there won him a scholarship to Stanford.

Source: YouTube 

Moving to California was a huge leap. “I always loved technology and while growing up I had dreams of Silicon Valley,” Pichai said in a recent interview. “I used to read about it, hear stories from my uncle.”

Source: Business Insider, Bloomberg

When he got to America, he couldn’t believe how expensive everything was — a backpack for $60! He also missed his girlfriend Anjali. The two eventually got married and have a son and daughter.

At Stanford, Pichai earned his MS, then attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School for his MBA. Before Google, he had stints at both Applied Materials and consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

He interviewed at the Googleplex on April Fools Day in 2004 — the same day that the company launched Gmail. Everyone, Pichai included, initially thought that the free email service was one Google’s infamous pranks. He started working on Google’s search toolbar.

Source: Bloomberg

That product ended up being very important in 2006 when Microsoft created a “Doomsday” scenario for Google by making Bing the new default search engine on Internet Explorer. Pichai helped convince computer manufacturers to pre-install the Google Toolbar on their hardware to mitigate the effect of this change.

Source: Quora

That problem led him to one of his other biggest early achievements: Convincing cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin that Google should build its own browser. The result, Chrome, is now the most-used option out there.

Source: Bloomberg 

As a leader, Pichai was always well-liked and more focused on results instead of standing out. That “substance over overt style” attitude did attract attention though, and he started getting more and more responsibility.

Source: Business Insider

Like Android. Pichai took over the division in 2013.

Source: Business Insider

One of the major efforts he spearheaded was Android One, Google’s push to make low-cost smartphones for “the next five billion” people coming online.

Another landmark in Pichai’s rise: He was reportedly instrumental in helping put together Google’s $3.2 billion Nest acquisition in 2014.

Here’s a prophetic post from way back in 2011: 

RAW Embed

 Source: Bloomberg

Pichai was also behind the Chrome OS operating system that powers Google’s inexpensive Chromebook laptops.

He has remained a loyal Googler despite being approached by Twitter for high-ranking roles a couple of times.

Source: Business Insider 

We’ve been told he could often act as Larry Page’s “interpreter” — understanding Page’s vision and then helping to communicate it to other teams.

Source: Business Insider 

That knack and his success with Chrome, Apps, and Android led to his next important promotion in late 2014, when Page put him in charge of almost all of the company’s product areas, including search, maps, Google+, commerce and ads, and infrastructure. He essentially became Page’s second in command.

Source: Business Insider 

Page respects Pichai completely. “Sundar has a tremendous ability to see what’s ahead and mobilize teams around the super important stuff,” he wrote in a memo announcing Pichai’s promotion. “We very much see eye-to-eye when it comes to product, which makes him the perfect fit for this role.”

When the company blew up its corporate structure almost a year later, it was no surprise that Pichai got tapped to lead Google, since he had already been responsible for its core products.

Although he’s a relatively private individual, Pichai is willing to speak out about certain causes that he believes in. Following some of Donald Trump’s comments about immigration, he wrote a public post expressing his views: “Let’s not let fear defeat our values. We must support Muslim and other minority communities in the US and around the world.”

Source: Medium 

And although Pichai doesn’t use Instagram and rarely tweets, he has been a pretty active Google Plus poster over the years, which gives us a little more insight into his personality…

His posts mostly highlight various Chrome roll-outs, but they also reveal that he admires people like Nelson Mandela, Anthony Shadid, Dennis Ritchie, Wangari Maathai, John McCarthy, and Aaron Swartz

We also know that he loves cricket:

And the game Flappy Bird. Here he is meeting with creator Dong Nguyen:

In his home country, Pichai is seen as something of a hero. “You’ve done what everyone has dreamed of doing,” interviewer Harsha Bhogle said while Pichai did a Q&A session with students at a Delhi University.

Source: YouTube

Here he is meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Throughout his meteoric rise, he’s remained incredibly humble: “It is always good to work with people who make you feel insecure about yourself. That way, you will constantly keep pushing your limits.”

Source: The Hindu

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