[News Inside] The Most Successful Indian in Silicon Valley, Shaken by 'Leadership Controversy'

Sundar Pichai Google CEO

▲Sundar Pichai, Google CEO [Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] The most successful Indian in Silicon Valley.

This is the story of Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google. However, he recently faced lawsuits from 36 U.S. state governments and internally, employee departures have accelerated due to dissatisfaction with his leadership, putting him in a dire crisis.

Pichai was born in 1972 in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu in southern India, to a British electrical company engineer father and a stenographer mother. The family of four, including his younger brother, lived in a two-room apartment and was so poor that he had never even seen a computer before entering university. Instead, he had a genius memory. When he memorized all the phone numbers of people around him and was called a "prodigy," his parents decided to send him to college despite their limited means. Pichai entered the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur campus, located in Kharagpur, one of India's leading industrial cities.

Although his major was metallurgical engineering, unrelated to computers, he became fascinated with computer science by teaching himself programming after encountering computers.

In 1993, Pichai graduated with excellent grades and was selected as a scholarship student at Stanford University. At Stanford, he completed a master's degree in materials science and engineering, started his career as an engineer at a semiconductor equipment company, then earned an MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, worked in semiconductor consulting at McKinsey & Company, and finally joined Google in 2004.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

Pichai joined Google on April 1, 2004, April Fools' Day. Immediately after joining, he worked on the team operating Google's search toolbar, aiming to increase Google's search share on Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox, which were the market leaders at the time. Microsoft had set its own search service 'Bing' as the default search engine on IE to curb Google, but Pichai worked to promote the usefulness of Google's search toolbar and have it pre-installed on manufacturer PCs. Through this process, Pichai realized the importance of web browsers and persuaded executives Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt that Google needed to develop its own web browser.

At the time, Schmidt opposed entering the browser war, citing high costs. Pichai did not give up. He convinced his superiors that without developing its own browser, Google's business could be at risk, hired several Firefox developers, and produced a prototype of Chrome. Seeing this, Schmidt eventually had no choice but to approve the development.

Thus, in September 2008, Google launched the Chrome browser to great success.

Afterward, Pichai took charge of Google Apps such as Gmail and in 2013, the smartphone operating system Android, gaining the trust of founder Larry Page. Page highly praised Pichai, saying he "possesses deep expertise, excellent insight, and entrepreneurial sensibility."

Recognized for his abilities at Google, Pichai finally became Google's CEO in August 2015. Major foreign media, including The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), noted that Pichai's quiet leadership shone after he took the CEO position.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

However, this quiet leadership has recently backfired. Pichai, known for not showing himself much and caring for those around him, has faced criticism that his "passive decision-making is indecisive and unsuitable for a leader." According to a survey conducted last month by The New York Times (NYT), 15 current and former Google executives pointed out that long-standing characteristics of large corporations?such as stereotypical fixed mindsets, unproductive discussion culture, and lethargic bureaucracy?are now evident at Google. They answered that CEO Pichai is at the center of this.

David Baker, a former Google engineering executive, said, "Pichai's courage to take risks has disappeared due to Google's organizational culture, and the passion for work has faded," adding, "The more financially secure Google becomes, the more it tends to avoid risks."

There are also criticisms that dynamic management is needed at Google, but Pichai does not fit this. In the case of the attempted acquisition of e-commerce platform Shopify, Google considered the acquisition to challenge Amazon, but after Pichai's careful consideration, it was ultimately abandoned. However, as Shopify's stock price soared tenfold, some criticized that Pichai's caution held Google back.

He is also known for not making swift decisions in personnel matters. It took over a year to fill the vacant position of Google's legal counsel through internal promotion in 2018. Due to Pichai's leadership, many executives and employees have turned their backs on Google. The NYT reported that at least 36 vice presidents have left Google since last year.