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The engineer behind Chrome and Android who is steering Google into the AI era
Sundar Pichai is the chief executive of Google and Alphabet, one of the world's most valuable and influential companies. Known for a calm, consensus-driven leadership style, he rose from product manager to CEO in just over a decade and now oversees Search, YouTube, Android, Google Cloud and Google DeepMind. For many in India, he is a symbol of what a middle-class engineering graduate can achieve on the global stage.
Pichai was born Pichai Sundararajan on 10 June 1972 in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, and grew up in a two-room apartment in Chennai. His father was an electrical engineer at a British company and his mother worked as a stenographer before raising the family. Pichai has often recalled the family's excitement when they first got a telephone — an experience he says shaped his belief in technology's power to change lives.
| Degree | Institution |
|---|---|
| B.Tech, Metallurgical Engineering | IIT Kharagpur |
| MS, Materials Science and Engineering | Stanford University |
| MBA | Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (Siebel Scholar, Palmer Scholar) |
After Stanford, Pichai worked in engineering and product management at Applied Materials, a semiconductor equipment maker, and then as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.
Pichai joined Google in 2004 as a product manager working on the Google Toolbar. His biggest early success was leading the development of Google Chrome, launched in 2008, which became the world's most widely used web browser. He also led Chrome OS and played a key role in Google Drive.
In 2013, he took charge of Android, the world's most popular mobile operating system. In 2014 he became head of product for nearly all of Google's major products.
When Google restructured under Alphabet in August 2015, Pichai was named CEO of Google. In December 2019, co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped back, and Pichai became CEO of Alphabet as well.
Under his leadership, Google has:
Pichai has steered Google through major antitrust cases in the United States and Europe, scrutiny of its advertising and search businesses, employee activism and intense competition in generative AI. Balancing innovation with regulatory pressure remains one of his biggest tasks.
Pichai received the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian honour, in 2022. He is married to Anjali Pichai, whom he met at IIT Kharagpur, and they have two children. He is a well-known cricket and football fan.
His birth name is Pichai Sundararajan.
In August 2015. He became CEO of Alphabet in December 2019.
He led the development of Google Chrome and Chrome OS and later oversaw Android.
IIT Kharagpur, Stanford University and the Wharton School.
Sundar Pichai's rise from a modest Chennai home to the top of Alphabet is one of technology's most inspiring stories. As Google reinvents its core products around AI, his steady leadership will determine whether the company that organised the world's information can remain dominant in the age of intelligent assistants.
