Pichai Sundararajan (born June 10, 1972), better known as Sundar Pichai (pronounced: ), is an American business executive. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. Pichai began his career as a materials engineer. Following a short stint at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., Pichai joined Google in 2004, where he led the product management and innovation efforts for a suite of Google's client software products, including

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...

and

ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is an operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source operating system and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user ...

, as well as being largely responsible for

Google Drive Google Drive is a file-hosting service and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud (on Google servers), synchronize files across devices, and share files ...

. In addition, he went on to oversee the development of other applications such as

Gmail Gmail is the email service provided by Google. it had 1.5 billion active user (computing), users worldwide, making it the largest email service in the world. It also provides a webmail interface, accessible through a web browser, and is also ...

and

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

. Pichai was selected to become the next CEO of Google on August 10, 2015, after previously being appointed chief product officer by then CEO

Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American businessman, computer engineer and computer scientist best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was chief executive officer of Google from 1997 until August 2001 when ...

. On October 24, 2015, he stepped into the new position at the completion of the formation of Alphabet Inc., the new holding company for the Google company family. He was appointed to the Alphabet Board of Directors in 2017. As of May 2025, his net worth is estimated at US$1.1 billion.

Early life and education

Pichai was born on June 10, 1972 in

Madurai Madurai ( , , ), formerly known as Madura, is a major city in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District, which is ...

, Tamil Nadu, India, to a Tamil Hindu family. His mother, Lakshmi, was a stenographer, and his father, Regunatha Pichai, was an

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at GEC, the British conglomerate. Pichai completed schooling in Jawahar Vidyalaya Senior Secondary School in Ashok Nagar, Chennai and completed the Class XII from Vana Vani school at

IIT Madras The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras or IIT-M) is a public technical university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the eight public Institutes of Eminence of India. As an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), ...

. He earned a B.Tech in metallurgical engineering from IIT Kharagpur. He holds an MS from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in materials science and engineering and an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

from the

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School ( ) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia. Established in 1881 through a donation from Joseph Wharton, a co-founder of Bethlehem Steel, the Wharton ...

, where he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar, respectively.

Career

Pichai worked in engineering and

product management Product management is the business process of planning, developing, launching, and managing a product or service. It includes the entire lifecycle of a product, from ideation to development to go to market. Product managers are responsible for ...

Applied Materials Applied Materials, Inc. is an American corporation that supplies equipment, services and software for the manufacture of semiconductor (integrated circuit) chips for electronics, flat panel displays for computers, smartphones, televisions, and ...

and in

management consulting Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultant ...

McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company (informally McKinsey or McK) is an American multinational strategy and management consulting firm that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. Founded in 1926 by James O. McKinse ...

. Pichai joined

in 2004, where he led the product management and innovation efforts for a suite of Google's client software products, including

and

, as well as being largely responsible for

. He went on to oversee the development of other applications such as

and

. On November 19, 2009, Pichai gave a demonstration of ChromeOS; the

Chromebook Chromebook (sometimes stylized in lowercase as chromebook) is a line of laptops, desktops, tablets and all-in-one computers that run ChromeOS, a proprietary operating system developed by Google. Chromebooks are optimised for web access. They al ...

was released for trial and testing in 2011, and released to the public in 2012. On May 20, 2010, he announced the open-sourcing of the new video codec

VP8 VP8 is an open format, open and royalty-free Video coding format, video compression format released by On2 Technologies in 2008. Initially released as a Proprietary software, proprietary successor to On2's previous VP7 format, VP8 was released a ...

by Google and introduced the new video format,

WebM WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML video and the HTML audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored by ...

. On March 13, 2013, Pichai added Android to the list of Google products that he oversaw. Android was formerly managed by Andy Rubin, who was a director of Jive Software from April 2011 to July 30, 2013. Pichai was selected to become the next CEO of Google on August 10, 2015, after previously being appointed Product Chief by CEO,

. On October 24, 2015, he stepped into the new position at the completion of the formation of Alphabet Inc., the new

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

for the Google company family. Pichai had been suggested as a contender for

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

's CEO in 2014, a position that was eventually given to

Satya Nadella Satya Narayana Nadella (; born 19 August 1967) is an Indian-born American business executive who is the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 as CEO and John W. Thompson in 2021 as chairman. B ...

. In August 2017, Pichai drew publicity for firing a Google employee who wrote a ten-page manifesto criticizing the company's pro-diversity policies. On December 11, 2018, Sundar Pichai was questioned by the United States House Judiciary Committee on a range of Google-related issues such as possible political bias on Google's platforms, the company's alleged plans for a "censored search app" in China, and its privacy practices. In response, Pichai told the committee that Google employees cannot influence search results. He also stated that Google users can opt out of having their data collected and that "there are no current plans for a censored search engine" in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. In December 2019, Pichai became the CEO of

Alphabet Inc Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Alphabet is the world's third-largest technology company by revenue, after Amazon and Apple, the largest techno ...

. His compensation from the company topped $200 million in 2022, which many employees criticized in light of large scale layoffs that Google undertook in 2023. In April 2024, after 28 Google employees were fired for protesting against Project Nimbus, Pichai stated that the office is not a place "to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics", and warned against using the company "as a personal platform".

Awards and recognition

Pichai was included in ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

''s annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2016 and 2020. He was also included in the Time 100 AI list in 2024. In 2022, Pichai received the Padma Bhushan in the category of Trade and Industry from the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

, the country's third-highest civilian award.

Personal life

Pichai is married to Anjali Pichai (née Haryani) and has two children. Anjali is originally from Kota, India. They became close while studying together at IIT Kharagpur. His recreational interests include

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

and

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

. He lives in Los Altos Hills, California.

References

External links

*
"Sundar Pichai's rise to fame in 90 seconds"
Tech Gurus, ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...