Is Google CEO Sundar Pichai Ready for Washington?

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- After Google’s chief executive officer turned down a U.S. Senate request to testify about election interference in September, some company subordinates justified it as a strategic move. Google’s leader would have sat next to top executives from Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. And just being lumped in with the social networks, these people say, would have impugned Google, wrapping the company up with the baggage of troll armies, tech addiction, and Cambridge Analytica. Ultimately, though, Google sat out for a simpler reason, according to a person familiar with the final call. Sundar Pichai, a conflict-averse boss, didn’t want to testify.

That turned out to be a mistake. With a place card, microphone, and empty chair set out for Google, the assembled senators teed off on the company for what they deemed its outrageous arrogance. Silicon Valley’s tensions with Washington haven’t exactly eased in the intervening three months. And this time, during Tuesday’s hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Google’s CEO will be all alone.

Remarkably, given the 20-year-old company’s importance to the internet, it will mark the first time a sitting Google CEO has appeared before Congress. Pichai will face charges of search bias from Republicans and antitrust abuse from Democrats. He will also probably be asked about subjects of furious debate inside Google: data privacy, muck on YouTube, military contracts, and China. Pichai’s foes are hoping for an overdue reckoning. “Google is unquestionably the most powerful company on the planet,” says Luther Lowe, a Yelp Inc. vice president. “So far, it’s been able to hide behind Facebook’s missteps.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s seemingly endless series of unforced errors has certainly given cover to the rest of the technology industry, but Google’s path has a lot to do with Pichai’s style, too. In three years as CEO, Pichai has built a reputation as Silicon Valley’s great conciliator, a leader who prizes feedback and consensus. Feedback, however, is beginning to frustrate some of his grandest ambitions, which thousands of protesting employees have said run counter to the “Don’t be evil” spirit they signed up for. And what happens if the Washington consensus is that Google, as it currently exists, is bad for America?

“Google has a long history of engaging with Congress on important issues, including testifying seven times this year,” a spokeswoman says in a statement. The company declined to make Pichai available for comment.

To some extent, the hearing may offer an echo of Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony in the spring. The Facebook CEO was able to dodge many of the more serious questions about his company’s actions and liabilities by nitpicking lawmakers’ questions on technical grounds, and it’s a lot easier for members of Congress to understand a Facebook news feed than to explain the Google Plus hack or trace the path of a conspiracy theory on YouTube.

Google’s workers have been outspoken in criticizing some of the company’s bigger goals and murkier tactics. In recent months, employee outrage and copious leaks have led Pichai to bow out of a lucrative artificial intelligence development contract with the U.S. Department of Defense and forced into the open his plans to build a censored search engine that would meet the requirements of the Chinese government. Last month a global staff walkout followed a New York Times report that Google had protected and given generous severance to several executives who were pushed out of the company following credible allegations of sexual misconduct. The most stunning: Former Android chief Andy Rubin received a $90 million exit package over four years.

“Google is too powerful not to be held accountable,” reads a public letter that more than 600 of Pichai’s employees have signed.

Pichai took several months to decide the fate of the Pentagon contract and is still weighing what to do in China. (So far, the latter project, code-named Dragonfly, appears to be continuing.) Some staff welcome this deliberation. But two former executives and two current employees, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, say Pichai’s penchant for appeasing Google employees is hurting the company. On Tuesday, he’ll be forced to get more specific about his plans for China, and the heat will come from both sides: Both parties have blasted Google for walking away from the U.S. government while rushing into China.

Historically, Google executives have mollified employees with what one former executive equated with pork-barrel spending in Congress. If a manager expresses outrage about a business move, a higher-up will dole out perks to keep the peace—a new title or funds to hire more engineers for a project.

In 14 years at Google, Pichai has mastered this system, but one employee said the CEO has voiced resentment at staff meetings about political grievances spilling out into the open, distracting people from doing their jobs.

Political grievances will be very much on the menu on Tuesday, as Pichai defends his vision of Google’s future on a much larger stage. “Right now, everyone is portraying big tech companies as enemies of the people,” says Sameet Sinha, an analyst at investment bank B. Riley FBR Inc. “Much of the future depends on how regulators think about large tech companies from now on.” That could mean the company needs to respond with more aggression than Pichai is used to dealing out—or it could be an ideal moment for consensus-building. —With Alistair Barr, Gerrit De Vynck, and Naomi Nix

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeff Muskus at jmuskus@bloomberg.net, Jillian Ward

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