Sundar Pichai’s Profession Rise to Google and Alphabet CEO

However the prime job at Alphabet additionally comes with elevated public and inner scrutiny.

In 2018, the Home Judiciary Committee grilled the CEO about Google’s information privateness practices and plans with China.

Two years later, Pichai testified in entrance of Congress once more over antitrust issues. Two different main Google lawsuits have been later filed by the US authorities over its alleged monopoly ways.

Google has additionally handled inner turmoil after letting go of one in every of its prime AI ethicists.

In December 2020, Google fired Timnit Gebru. Her exit got here weeks after she was requested to retract a paper on the hazards of enormous language fashions and spoke out in opposition to the corporate’s remedy of minority staff. 

Google staff have been “critically pissed” over how the firing was dealt with, one instructed BI on the time, and Gebru mentioned that Pichai and different managers helped create “hostile work environments.”

Pichai finally apologized for the way the corporate handled it.

“I wish to say how sorry I’m for that, and I settle for the duty of working to revive your belief,” he wrote.

Additionally in 2020, Pichai was on the forefront of Google’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Underneath his management, Google launched initiatives to assist search customers discover correct, helpful details about the coronavirus. 

And like many massive tech firms, Alphabet recruited quickly firstly of the pandemic. Alphabet employed practically 37,000 new staff within the 12 months main as much as October 2022.

However from late 2022, Pichai needed to oversee an period of cost-cutting on the firm.

That culminated in job losses in January 2023, when Google layoffs affected 12,000 staff or 6% of its world workforce. Pichai mentioned he took “full duty for the selections that led us right here.”

Over 1,400 Google staff wrote an open letter to Pichai about how the layoffs have been dealt with. 

“Do not be evil,” it learn, a reference to the corporate’s authentic motto.

Googlers additionally criticized Pichai’s large payday within the face of the job cuts, accusing him of “destroying morale and tradition” at Google.

Google additionally laid off lots of extra staff in its central engineering division and {hardware} workforce in early 2024.

Pichai has additionally needed to take care of European regulatory points. French regulators hit Google with a roughly $270 million tremendous in March 2024, accusing the corporate of utilizing information outlet articles to coach its Gemini AI mannequin.