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Got Into Google Because Larry Didn’t Interview Me, Sundar Pichai Jokes

Google is focusing on introducing a $30 entry level smartphone in India, Pichai says.



Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google Inc. (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google Inc. (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

Google’s Chief Executive Officer, Sundar Pichai, has a word of advice for students – take risks and be creative but, most importantly, loosen up and have some fun.

The Google chief returned to his alma matter, Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur, on Thursday, where the “campus rockstar” engaged in a light-hearted chat with Hitesh Oberoi, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at Info Edge and thousands of IIT-ians. The 1993 IIT-Kharagpur graduate spoke about everything from being ‘ragged’ in college, to how he thought Gmail was an April Fools’ joke. But what enthused the audience the most was his leadership lessons.

For Pichai, leadership is less about trying to run something and more about removing roadblocks for the talented people in a team.

When you’re trying to run something at the scale of Google, 60,000 people, you depend on a lot of different leaders...As a leader, your job is more about making such people more successful and that’s why I value teamwork quite a bit.
Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer, Google

As for students who aspire to be tomorrow’s leaders, Pichai said an elite institution is not a necessity for success, “People do well from all walks of life.”

After graduating from IIT in 1993, Pichai studied at Stanford University and the Wharton School of Business in the U.S., joined the search giant in 2004 and was appointed chief executive in 2015.

‘India Is A Great Place To Be In’

India has the potential to be a “global player in the digital economy,” with more and more people getting online for the first time, especially on inexpensive smartphones, Pichai told the students. But he noted that only a small portion of India’s population has yet to connect to the web, especially women in rural areas.

Google is looking to introduce a $30 entry level smartphone in India, Pichai said. But to really make a difference in India, Google also needs to work in as many languages as possible and the technology major is already making strides in that direction, he added.

Google Translate has made more progress in the past year than in previous 10.
Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer, Google

The leading technology company has partnered with the Indian Railways to provide free Wi-Fi services to 400 railway stations across the country. Google has also tied up with the National Payment Corporation of India for the UPI scheme, and the Government of India for Aadhaar.

The Interview With Google

“My interview with Google was when Gmail had launched in April”, Pichai recalled. “When people asked me about Gmail, I thought it was an April Fools’ joke.” It was only after the fourth phase of the interview, when he was shown the product, that he provided his feedback.

Incidentally, at the time when Pichai interviewed with Google, Co-founder and Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Larry Page had stopped interviewing people himself.

I still joke that I got into Google because Larry didn’t interview me.
Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer, Google