From A Lower Middle-Class Family To Being Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai's Story
Indians have always loved to chase the America Dream- a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the USA. A simpler and rather newer definition of the same is Sundar Pichai, the first India-born CEO of Google. Ever since the news broke about Pichai’s rise to the throne, Indians have gone berserk. But very little has been spoken about the hard work and tough times Pichai went through. Here’s how he became an example of the great American Dream Indians love to chase.
While every Indian is ecstatic at the thought of Sundar Pichai becoming the newly appointed CEO of Google, how much do we really know about the whizkid who made it to the top ranks of the $66-billion revenue, $16-billion profit, company?
Here are a few things we should know about the Indian who made it to the top, for the sake of making our morning a little inspiring.
1. He was born in Chennai and did his schooling in PSBB Jawahar Vidyalay. He belonged to a modest family where his dad managed a warehouse that made electric components. It is from there that Pichai developed an inclination towards technology and went on to pursue an undergraduate degree in metallurgical engineering from IIT Kharagpur.
Pichai also has an MS degree from Stanford University and an MBA from the prestigious Wharton School of Business (where he was awarded the Siebel scholar and the Palmer scholar). So he was always at the top of his class and continues to be so, even to this day. He’s only 43, after all.
2. Before the super high-tech cabins at Google and the merits of the American citizenship, Pichai “the most powerful man in mobile” lived in a small two-room apartment with his parents and brother, in Chennai. Pichai and his brother slept in the living room.
3. Pichai’s father was a foreman at the electrical appliance giant GEC while his mother was a stenographer. Belonging to a rather lower middle-class family, Sundar for much of his childhood had no television. For travel, the family owned an old and haggard Lambretta scooter, while local buses were the next best option.
4. It was only when Sundar was 12 years old that his father bought a rotary telephone for the family. Sundar was such a numeric genius that he would remember all the numbers that were dialled in a day. Even today, top Google executives vouch for his superhuman mathematical abilities.
5. In IIT Kharagpur he outdid all competition and got himself a scholarship to Stanford University to study materials science and semiconductor physics. To fund the flight ticket to US, Pichai’s father tried taking a loan but it didn’t work out, and they had to take out over Rs 50,000 from family savings. In 1993, Pichai was finally at Stanford looking at a new world full of possibilities. He was, of course, terribly missing his girlfriend, who was back in India, and is now his wife.
6. While work politics play a huge role in most offices, and ego clashes occur on a regular basis, the reason that Pichai stood out so much is due to his simplicity and his ability to create brilliant teams. Caesar Sengupta, a Vice President at Google who worked with Pichai for eight years said, “I would challenge you to find anyone at Google who doesn’t like Sundar or who thinks Sundar is a jerk.” How many of us can find one person like that at our respective workplaces?
7. He dropped the idea of pursuing a PhD at Stanford, and instead took up a job as an engineer and product manager at Applied Materials, a Silicon Valley semiconductor maker. An MBA degree and a few years later, Pichai stepped into the Google headquarters on April 1, 2004. Little did he know that almost a decade later, he would be running the place, and would become a living example of the American Dream come true.
8. Pichai made a breakthrough in Google after he was given the opportunity to handle Toolbar. Although he joined in 2004, he created a lot of revenue for the company as the toolbar was a huge success and made Google come up with its own Browser in 2008.
9. Pichai almost left Google in 2011 to become the Product Head at Twitter. However, his work and reputation had reached such heights that Google offered him a whooping 50 million dollars to stay back in the company. Naturally, he declined Twitter’s offer and look where he is today!
Pichai is a family man with a wife and two children and enjoys playing chess in his free time. He isn’t known to be a workaholic and is popular for his impeccable work ethics. While we as Indians, feel extremely proud of his accomplishment.
Let’s be inspired by his success.
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