Sunder Pichai is the new chief executive of Alphabet
Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, has been put in charge of its parent company Alphabet, after co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced they were stepping down.
The 47-year-old said the pair had set up a "strong foundation" on which he would "continue to build".
Pichai's life story is remarkable, and his rise to the top of Google is an endorsement of India's standing in the global technology industry - and equally, a reassuring reminder of the so-called "American Dream".
Pichai was born and schooled in Chennai, India. He captained his school's cricket team, leading it to win regional competitions.
Sunder Pichai gave a presentation in 2021
He studied Metallurgical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur). According to one of his tutors, quoted in the Times of India, Pichai was the "brightest of his batch".
He has evidently used his talent to great effect at Google, which he joined in 2004. Products under his watch include Google's web browser, Chrome, as well as the Android mobile operating system.
Android is by far the world's most popular mobile operating system (OS) - a fact made perhaps more startling by the fact that Pichai's family did not possess a telephone until he was 12 years old.
According to a profile in Bloomberg magazine, Pichai's upbringing was humble. His family lived in a two-room apartment. Pichai didn't have a room - he slept on the living room floor, as did his younger brother.
Anjali Pichai and Sunder Pichai have two children
The family did not own a television or a car.
But Pichai's father planted the seeds of technology into his boy's mind, partly thanks to his job at British conglomerate General Electric Company (not to be confused with the American General Electric).
"I used to come home and talk to him a lot about my workday and the challenges I faced," Regunatha Pichai told Bloomberg, adding that Sundar had a remarkable talent for remembering telephone numbers.
After graduating from IIT Kharagpur, Pichai was offered a scholarship at the ultimate breeding ground of tech geniuses - Stanford. The plane ticket to America cost more than his father's annual salary.
At Google, Pichai is described as soft-spoken and well-liked. He is also very popular among developers - he runs Google's annual developer event, I/O.
Until now, his remit was best summed up as Google's core products - the bits that make the real money. They include things like search, advertising, and maps.
But Pichai's father planted the seeds of technology into his boy's mind, partly thanks to his job at British conglomerate General Electric Company (not to be confused with the American General Electric).
"I used to come home and talk to him a lot about my workday and the challenges I faced," Regunatha Pichai told Bloomberg, adding that Sundar had a remarkable talent for remembering telephone numbers.
After graduating from IIT Kharagpur, Pichai was offered a scholarship at the ultimate breeding ground of tech geniuses - Stanford. The plane ticket to America cost more than his father's annual salary.
At Google, Pichai is described as soft-spoken and well-liked. He is also very popular among developers - he runs Google's annual developer event, I/O.
Until now, his remit was best summed up as Google's core products - the bits that make the real money. They include things like search, advertising, and maps.
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