“Wear your failures as a badge of honor”

This famous quote is by Sundar Pichai, the current CEO of Google.  On his birthday, let’s take a look back at how he changed the face of Google.

Sundar was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He completed his degree in metallurgical engineering from IIT Kharagpur and was seen as a distinguished alumni. He went ahead to do his MS in material sciences from Stanford University. He also hold an MBA degree from Wharton University.

Fast forward to 2004. when Sundar Pichai joined Google. He started working on Google’s search toolbar, where he led the product management. He soon got involved with various Google search products including Firefox, Desktop Search, Gadgets. Fun fact, the day Pichai joined Google, Gmail was also introduced to the world.

Whenever you want to browse something or want answers to literally any topic under the sun, most of us think this,’Let’s Google it’. Well, you can thank Pichai for this as well.

In 2008, Pichai was motivated to push the idea of Google having its own web browser and that’s how Chrome was born. He led the launch of Chrome and it went on to become the best web browser in the world, surpassing both Internet Explorer and Firefox. At the time of Chrome’s announcement Google made a 40 page comic explaining how Chrome worked.  He was the pioneer of the Chrome Age.

Under Pichai’s direction, Chrome became more than just a browser. ChromeOS was launched for Chromebooks and Chromecast was introduced as a way to connect phones to TV’s. As per Fortune, Pichai pushed the company to enter the browser wars.

He is the man at the helm. In 2010, Pichai announced the open-sourcing of the new video codec VP8 by Google and introduced the new video format. WebM. In 2011, he was considered to be the head of product development at Twitter. However, he decided to stay with Google.

He introduced the concept of Android for everyone. After taking over the management of Android from the group’s founder, Andy Rubin in 2013, one of the major efforts he spearheaded was Android One. It was the company’s push to make low cost smartphones for the next 5 billion people coming online. Previously, the Android division worked separately under Rubin but Pichai brought it under Google again.

He was appointed CEO in 2015 for Google, as per reports in 2019, Alphabet’s revenue was up by 80%. Alphabet’s share prices have also soared up to 126% in 2020 since 2015 according to Yahoo finance. In 2019. Sundar Pichai’s CEO  approval rating was 94% according to a top CEO index report.

In 2020, Sundar Pichai announced Google for India Digitization Fund with an effort to boost technological future of India and it’s digital economy. Google has planned to invest 75,000 crores into India over the next 5-7 years.

He has played a powerful role in the company, and for people all around the world. He is a shining example of how Indians equipped with right education and skills can accomplish anything in the world. We wish him a very happy birthday.