Meet Google’s New CEO Sundar Pichai
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LLUIS GENE/AFP/Getty Images(MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.) — Google’s reorganization under a new parent company called Alphabet came as a surprise but the appointment of Sundar Pichai as the CEO of the search giant is something many people believed would happen one day.
Well-liked, sharp and with a knack for solving problems, Pinchai, 43, has had a meteoric rise at Google where he started in 2004, first managing Chrome and Drive. One decade later, as senior vice president of product, Pichai has largely taken charge of daily operations at Google as founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped back to focus on the big-picture ideas.
Born in Chennai, India, Pichai lived with his family of four in a two-room apartment, where he and his brother slept in the living room, according to a Bloomberg magazine profile published in June.
The Pichai family didn’t own a television or car for much of Sundar’s childhood and didn’t get their first telephone, which was a rotary, until he was 12, according to the report.
The star student earned a spot at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. He then came to the United States on a scholarship to Stanford University, where he earned a master’s degree studying materials science and semiconductor physics. He followed it up with an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Under the newly slimmed down Google, Pichai will be able to help focus the company on what he knows best: product and engineering.
“Sergey and I have been super excited about his progress and dedication to the company. And it is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google,” Larry Page, who is now the CEO of the newly formed parent company Alphabet, said in a blog post. “I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google.”
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