Does the Indian populace that is buoyant over the meteoric rise of Indian techie Sundarajan Pichai, as the top boss of the world’s largest search engine Google, know who actually he is? Do they know how did he manage to achieve what he was destined to get? The answer, though partially, is “No”.
He is not the one who was born with a silver spoon. Nor he has any blue blood! On the contrary, he is one among us. Yes, the typical Indian lower middle class. He hails from a humble household where his parents (both of them) worked to make both ends meet.
Though Raghunath Pichai, his father, was an Electrical Engineer, still his mother Lakshmi worked as a stenographer to support her family economically. Does anybody know that present Google boss and father of Google Chrome had no car or even TV at his residence during his own childhood? Handful, maybe!
Among all of those who are quite jubilant over his meteoric rise, know that he pursued his Masters in engineering and materials science at Stanford University and MBA from the Wharton School of Business, hardly a few know that the cost of living in the US was a shocker for the modest Pichai.
But, as the Book says, “Hard work always pays.” The wheel of time turned and so did is fate.
Powered by the engine of perseverance, Pichai, in his early 40s, will succeed its co-founder Larry Page a decade after joining the Silicon Valley giant. Page, though, will head the new enterprise. This IIT graduate symbolizes new India, representing talent, diligence, innovation, technology and managerial expertise.
It is not at all surprising that yet another Indian techie made it to the top, a year after Satya Nadella held the helms of Microsoft. Both of them represent the best of talent, creativity and managerial ability to run global companies.
Pichai, who earlier headed Chrome and Android, will now head the newly constituted umbrella company Alphabet, floated to run its other subsidiaries such as Life Sciences and Calico. Sergey Brin, Google’s other co-founder, will be the president of Alphabet.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi too grabbed the opportunity to wish him luck and was the first to greet Pichai for heading one of the most valued technology firms in the world.
The elevation of Pichai and Nadella to top posts underscored the fact that India has become a storehouse of global talent in technology and management besides strengthening Indian and American tech partnership and acting as an inspiration for the budding Indian techies.
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