BENGALURU | NEW DELHI: Madurai-born, IIT Kharagpur-educated Sundar Pichai<\/a>, CEO of Google<\/a>, was appointed CEO of parent company Alphabet<\/a> on Wednesday as founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page stepped down from active roles.
The world’s second and third most valuable companies, respectively, Satya Nadella-run Microsoft<\/a> and Sundar Pichai-run Alphabet, now have India-born chiefs. Microsoft’s market capitalisation was $1.14 trillion at close of trade in the US on Tuesday while Alphabet closed at $893.3 billion. Apple is globally the most valuable firm and Amazon occupies the fourth place.
Mahindra Group<\/a> chairman Anand Mahindra tweeted: “India’s most robust export product is probably the ‘Global CEO.’ It’s now a universal perception that Indian executives are leadership material. If only there was some way of monetising these ‘exports,’ India would have a perpetual balance of payments surplus!”
Observers said the decision of Google founders to hand over Alphabet’s reins to Pichai, who will also continue as Google chief executive, is a mark of the huge faith Brin and Page have in the India-born executive.
“There is no one that we have relied on more since Alphabet was founded, and no better person to lead Google and Alphabet into the future,” Brin and Page wrote in a blog announcing Pichai’s ascension to the top job.
New Role, New Challenges<\/strong>
Brin and Page in their blog pointed to Pichai’s “humility” and his “passion for technology”. “He’s worked closely with us for 15 years, through the formation of Alphabet, as CEO of Google, and a member of the Alphabet Board of Directors. He shares our confidence in the value of the Alphabet structure, and the ability it provides us to tackle big challenges through technology,” they wrote.
Pichai, winner in the Global Indian of the Year category at the 2016 Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence, said he was excited about Alphabet’s long-term focus on tackling big challenges through technology. “Thanks to Larry & Sergey, we have a timeless mission, enduring values and a culture of collaboration & exploration — a strong foundation we’ll continue to build on,” he wrote on his twitter handle.
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BENGALURU | NEW DELHI: Madurai-born, IIT Kharagpur-educated Sundar Pichai<\/a>, CEO of Google<\/a>, was appointed CEO of parent company Alphabet<\/a> on Wednesday as founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page stepped down from active roles.
The world’s second and third most valuable companies, respectively, Satya Nadella-run Microsoft<\/a> and Sundar Pichai-run Alphabet, now have India-born chiefs. Microsoft’s market capitalisation was $1.14 trillion at close of trade in the US on Tuesday while Alphabet closed at $893.3 billion. Apple is globally the most valuable firm and Amazon occupies the fourth place.
Mahindra Group<\/a> chairman Anand Mahindra tweeted: “India’s most robust export product is probably the ‘Global CEO.’ It’s now a universal perception that Indian executives are leadership material. If only there was some way of monetising these ‘exports,’ India would have a perpetual balance of payments surplus!”
Observers said the decision of Google founders to hand over Alphabet’s reins to Pichai, who will also continue as Google chief executive, is a mark of the huge faith Brin and Page have in the India-born executive.
“There is no one that we have relied on more since Alphabet was founded, and no better person to lead Google and Alphabet into the future,” Brin and Page wrote in a blog announcing Pichai’s ascension to the top job.
New Role, New Challenges<\/strong>
Brin and Page in their blog pointed to Pichai’s “humility” and his “passion for technology”. “He’s worked closely with us for 15 years, through the formation of Alphabet, as CEO of Google, and a member of the Alphabet Board of Directors. He shares our confidence in the value of the Alphabet structure, and the ability it provides us to tackle big challenges through technology,” they wrote.
Pichai, winner in the Global Indian of the Year category at the 2016 Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence, said he was excited about Alphabet’s long-term focus on tackling big challenges through technology. “Thanks to Larry & Sergey, we have a timeless mission, enduring values and a culture of collaboration & exploration — a strong foundation we’ll continue to build on,” he wrote on his twitter handle.
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Pichai’s new role will also be a testing one, with Google’s many commercial and data practices under scrutiny in multiple geographies and with recent controversies over proposed entry to China yet to die down.
Since October 2015, when he took over as Google CEO, Pichai has increased the company’s focus on cloud computing, machine learning and, significantly for India, on mobile-first emerging markets. His emphasis on the ‘next billion’ – mostly non-English speakers who access the internet<\/a> in limited connectivity areas – has led to Google focusing on products aimed at this group.
Investors have rewarded Google stock, with the company’s market cap doubling to nearly $900 billion since he took over.
Industry peers in India are of the view that the Indian-origin CEO is uniquely qualified to deal with these challenges. “Sundar will make an excellent CEO, he is a great collaborator and coalition builder,” said Nandan Nilekani, nonexecutive chairman and cofounder Infosys, who said he first met Alphabet’s newly anointed CEO in 2013 at a fireside chat with Google employees at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View.
Rajan Anandan, former Google India chief, said, “Sundar Pichai combines great vision, great ability to build teams, humility and ability to connect with teams. Pichai is an extraordinary consensus builder.” He added: “Within Alphabet, businesses can be very large. Waymo can be $150 billion. He has the ability of taking on something large and making it massive.”
Pichai studied in IIT-Kharagpur before moving to Stanford University for his Masters in Material Science and Engineering, followed by an MBA at Wharton. He joined semiconductor company Applied Materials, worked with McKinsey as a consultant before joining Google in 2004 to work on toolbar, a search engine for desktops that the internet company had pioneered. Since then, he led the division for Android, the operating system for smartphones that eventually became the largest rival for Apple.
Nilekani said Pichai’s tech prowess is another reason why he is the right fit for the top job at Alphabet. “He (Pichai) has great product sense,” said Nilekani pointing to the larger bets that Alphabet has taken with self-driving technology developer Waymo, anti-aging research venture Calico, life sciences Verily and AI company Deep Mind among others. “Sundar will take a hard look at these and work out a strategy,” said the Aadhaar architect.
“It is also the rise of the tech guys. Earlier tech companies were run more by business minds — John Chambers or Eric Schmidt. Now it’s the geek. Just in September we saw Sundar showcasing Google’s quantum computing prowess,” said Vineet Nayar, former chief executive of HCL Technologies. “Sundar is also one of the rare people who understands the core of Chrome and search. Google’s heart beats on search and he knows that very well,” says Nayar, who is now chairman of Sampark Foundation.
Pichai has a special interest in India. Since the last few years, Google has made efforts to increase its reach in the country: From Internet Saathi that aims to take internet to rural parts of India to tying up with Indian Railways for high-speed internet at large stations and building India-specific products such as Neighbourly, Google Go and Files Go.
CP Gurnani, managing director, Tech Mahindra, said, “This is a true testimony of the fact that for professionals who have great entrepreneurial skills, sky is the limit.”
National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom<\/a>) president Debjani Ghosh says that Pichai’s contribution is not just limited to his work at Google. “His contribution to technology is not only limited to his work with Google but he has also inspired thousands of leaders from India and around the world to continue to innovate and achieve more,” she said.
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