Sundar Pichai Is One Of TIME's 100 Most Influential People In World
Pichai has been named as one of the most influential people in the world by TIME magazine in their TIME 100 list of the year 2020. People around the world are lauding his determination and hard work to come to this level.
Whenever we look at tech personalities from Indian origin who have reached sky-high recognition in their field, a few people surely come to our mind -- Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft), Indra Nooyi (CEO of Pepsico), Arvind Krishna (CEO of IBM) and of course, Sundar Pichai (CEO of Alphabet & Google).
Reuters
And today, Sundar Pichai has been named as one of the most influential people in the world by TIME magazine in their TIME 100 list of the year 2020. People around the world are lauding Google and Alphabet CEO's determination and hard work to come to this level.
JPMorgan Chase¡¯s CEO Jamie Dimon said in a statement, ¡°Sundar Pichai¡¯s uniquely American story¡ªemigrating from India as a young adult and working his way to become CEO of a $1 trillion corporation¡ªrepresents the best of what we aspire for our society. The challenges Sundar faces in his role are among the most important of our time ¡ª issues of innovation, privacy, regulation and competition. But his analytical, humble and inclusive leadership will position Google to meet the moment.¡±
In a recent commencement speech that Pichai gave to the students who were graduating during the pandemic from their homes, he revealed how he embarked on his life¡¯s journey, coming to the US from the small town of Madurai, Tamil Nadu and making necessary sacrifices to get to the position he is in today.
The rise of Sundar Pichai
He said, ¡°My father spent the equivalent of a year¡¯s salary on my plane ticket to the U.S. so I could attend Stanford. It was my first time ever on a plane. But when I eventually landed in California, things weren¡¯t as I had imagined. America was expensive. A phone call back home was more than $2 a minute, and a backpack cost the same as my dad¡¯s monthly salary in India.¡±
He added, ¡°It took me a while to realize that the internet would be the single best way to make technology accessible to more people. As soon as I did, I changed course and decided to pursue my dreams at Google. Inspired by the wonder that first browser created in me, I led the effort to launch one¡ªcalled Chrome¡ªin 2009, and drove the effort to help Google develop affordable laptops and phones so that a student growing up, in any neighborhood or village, in any part of the world, could have the same access to information as all of you.¡±
When he was leading the Android project and saw its popularity rise to over a billion users mark, Sundar Pichai strived to make Android more accessible to people who weren¡¯t so rich, by bringing the next 5 billion people online with Android One project.
Reuters
He became CEO of Google in 2015 and in four years the CEO of the parent company Alphabet.
Along with him, other Indians in the list include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bollywood actor Ayushman Khurana, Bilkis, the 82 year old Shaheen Baug protester and Dr Ravindra Gupta, whose research led to saving of the life of a man diagnosed with HIV -- the second man in the world to do so.
