We all are proud of Sundar Pichai. A guy from a middle-class family to become a CEO of one of the world’s largest technology giants, Google. His journey is full of inspiration, dedication, and hard work. Today, we will be learning about Sundar Pichai biography and his struggles.
Sundar Pichai is a computer engineer, and currently, he is Google Inc’s CEO. Google is a technology giant that is known for Internet-related products and services. In 2015, Google experienced a major corporate restructuring. Alphabet Inc was started as its parent company and co-founders Larry Page as its CEO and Sergey Brin as President. Earlier, Pichai was serving as Google’s head of Products and Engineering, was named the new CEO of Google, the largest company under Alphabet Inc.
Sundar Pichai joined Google in 2004 as a product manager. Later, he led many innovative efforts for several Google products, that includes Google Chrome and Chrome OS, which became highly successful. Moreover, he managed other Google products like Google Docs and Gmail and grew through the ranks quickly. Sundar Pichai was born in Chennai, India. He was intelligent and creative from a very young age. He has completed his education from most prestigious institutions globally. He served at Applied Materials in engineering and product management and at McKinsey & Company in management consulting before becoming Google’s part.
Childhood & Early Life
On July 12, 1972, Pichai Sundararajan was born in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. His father’s name is Regunatha Pichai, who worked as an electrical engineer for the British conglomerate GEC and led a factory that produced electrical elements. His mother’s name is Lakshmi Pichai, who used to be a stenographer before having children. He has one brother.
Pichai used to belong to a middle-class family and was a brilliant student. He excelled at academics at his school, Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan. He got a seat in the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, one of India’s most reputed engineering institutions.
From IIT Kharagpur, he completed his B.Tech in Metallurgical Engineering. He then received a scholarship to study materials science and semiconductor physics from Stanford University, from where he ultimately got his MS.
Career
Initially, he intended to pursue a Ph.D. from Stanford and start an academic career. However, he left out and joined Applied Materials—a Silicon Valley semiconductor maker—as an engineer and product manager. In 2002, he completed his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar.
After MBA completion, he was selected as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. In 2004, he joined Google; earlier, he worked as a part of a small team in Google’s search toolbar. The toolbar provided users of Internet Explorer and Firefox secure access to Google search. He also served on other Google products like Google Gears and Google Pack. The progress of Google’s toolbar gave Pichai the idea that Google should develop its browser. He presented his idea among his seniors and met with an objection from then-CEO Eric Schmidt, who believed that developing a browser would be extremely costly.
However, Pichai emphasized and persuaded Google, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin to begin Google’s browser. In 2008, Pichai played a crucial role in the browser’s final launch, Google Chrome. Chrome proved to be a great success as it enabled the users to access Google’s search engine directly.
Sundar Pichai became a popular figure worldwide after the remarkable success of chrome, which eventually became the No. 1 browser worldwide, beating competitors such as Firefox and Internet Explorer. Chrome also paved the way for a series of other relevant products like Chrome OS, Chromebooks, and Chromecast.
He became Vice President of product development in 2008. In this position, he began frequently appearing at Google presentations and continued growing Google ranks. By 2012, he grew as the Senior Vice President of Chrome and apps.
In 2013, Andy Rubin, the inventor of Android, left to work on another project; even, later on, Larry Page made Pichai in-charge of Android. His power continued to increase, and in October 2014, he was selected as the Product Chief.
In 2015, Google built a company, Alphabet Inc., to work as a holding company and conglomerate to keep the subsidiaries previously owned by Google, including a new “slimmed down” version of Google itself. On August 10, 2015, Sundar Pichai was selected as the new CEO of Google. In February 2016, he was awarded 273,328 Google’s holding company Alphabet shares, which rose in his net worth.
Major Works
He is a genius who is known for his innovative ideas; Sundar Pichai is popularly known for his idea of launching a Chrome browser in 2008. He played a crucial role in influencing his seniors at Google to launch the browser, which grew as the most popular browser on the internet and directed to the Chrome operating system’s launch.
Personal Life & Legacy
His wife is Anjali Pichai, and he is the father of two children.
Net Worth
His net worth is estimated at around $1.2 Billion.
Some interesting facts About Sundar Pichai
- He was a huge fan of cricket and used to be the captain of his school cricket team.
- Since he was from a middle-class family, his family did not own a telephone until he was 12.
- He frequently communicates with students at IIT-Kharagpur over Skype
- He was one of the top competitors for the CEO’s post at Microsoft, which eventually went to Satya Nadella.
- Sundar Pichai joined Google when the company did not even go public.
- He is pretty good at memorizing numbers and could memorize every telephone number he dialed when he was young.
- .The Google CEO is not at all “nerdy” as his image might infer! He is very grounded, kind, and friendly.
- It is rumored that Twitter attempted to poach Sundar Pichai a few years back, while he was serving at Google, but Google paid him an exorbitantly higher pay to hold him.
Conclusion
After going through Sundar Pichai biography, just one thing that came to our mind that is when there is a will, there is always a way. His dedication and efforts made him an inspiration for all of us.
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