HIBT Lab! Google: Sundar Pichai (2022)

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1:51Any business can use AI. IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business. Let's create smarter business, IBM Hey, it's Guy here So it seems like every day there's another story about AI And about people freaking out about what it might mean for the future Congress just had a series of hearings with Sam Altman from OpenAI To talk about how to regulate artificial intelligence And if you missed Sam on this show, just scroll back in the queue to find that episode Even the writer's strike in Hollywood is partially centered around whether tools like ChatGPT might one day replace human screenwriters.

2:30Anyway, back in the spring of 2022, I spoke with Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, and he talked about how in the early days of the Internet, there wasn't enough thought put into its potential dangers, especially with things like social media. But he did say there has been a lot of proactive work around these issues when it comes to artificial intelligence. Since our conversation, Google has made giant leaps in AI development. Earlier this year, the company released its own chatbot called Bard. And while the technology is far from perfect, it does give us a sense of where AI is headed. And for better or worse, it will transform our lives.

3:09So with that said, I wanted to replay this conversation with Sundar from last year because I think it's even more relevant today than when it first aired. Okay, here it is.

3:25Hello and welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. So depending on the day, Google is either the third or fourth most valuable company in the world. Now, just to add some perspective, even with the recent slide in the stock market, if Google were a separate country, it would be among the 10 biggest economies in the world. Google's value is roughly similar to the economic output of countries like Brazil, Australia, or South Korea. So to call Google powerful, well, that's an understatement. Its products and services touch billions of humans on the planet. The email systems we use, our cloud storage servers, even the platform I'm typing this introduction on right now.

4:13It's a Google Doc. A part of me, and I hope a part of you, is kind of terrified about that. And I believe that a part of Google is also terrified about that. Because what started as a project, famously in a Palo Alto garage, is now one of the most dominant corporate forces in the world. And yet, it is led by an unlikely leader. Sundar Pichai, the company's CEO, had never left India until age 21. In fact, he'd never flown on an airplane until 1993, the year he made the long journey from his home in Chennai, India, to the Silicon Valley to attend Stanford on a full scholarship. And even after a successful run as a product manager overseeing everything from Google Chrome to Google Drive, Sundar never saw himself as a future CEO of the company.

5:05He was happy digging into the hard technical problems he faced. But in 2015, he was appointed CEO. And today, it's not just technical challenges he faces, but the challenges of trying to lead one of the biggest, most visible brands on Earth at a time of culture wars, employee revolts, and greater scrutiny of tech companies. A few weeks ago, Google held its annual I.O. conference where it unveils new products and technology. And one of the main topics this year? Artificial intelligence. It is, according to Sundar Pichai, one of the single most important areas of focus for Google and its future.

5:47Sundar is here to talk about AI, the future of work, how to encourage innovation by allowing for failure, and how he's learning to lead at a very front moment in our history. Sundar Pichai, welcome to the show. Thanks so much. So Sundar, let's start with your life before Google, before you came to the U.S. You grew up in mainly in what is now Chennai in India. And I know you were a student at the Indian Institute of Technology. And this was in the sort of the early days of what we now call Web 1.0, right? In sort of the late 80s, early 90s. You were a promising engineering student. And I read that already as a student, you were sort of focused on microchips and on how computers work.

6:30That's right. That's right. And literally fascinated by it. And I was fascinated by the PC revolution. I was studying material science, but I was interested in semiconductors as a material. So I was definitely interested in computers and how semiconductors make computers happen, chip technology, chip fabrication. And so those were my areas of interest. But I definitely didn't see working on consumer internet as where I would end up. I had envisioned you could think of something like Intel as more along the lines of what I was thinking about. Was any part of you thinking, my next step is coming to the United States?

7:13Was that even on your radar? It was. By the time I was in college, given where my interests were shaping up to be in my junior and senior year, I'd started doing some research on semiconductors. And so literally being in Silicon Valley, working on silicon, wanting to come to Silicon Valley was something naturally I was fascinated about. And so it was definitely in my radar by that time. Had you ever been to the United States before 1993? No. I mean, in fact, my first flight ever in my life was to come to the U.S. So, no, I had never been on a plane before the first journey which took me to the U.S.

7:58I went to Pittsburgh first. It's where my uncle was. And, you know, he was faculty at Carnegie Mellon. He was the first person in my family to kind of make it there. And so that played a part in me thinking about coming to the U.S. and hearing from him about the opportunities, how well-classed the universities were. But I first came to Pittsburgh, and I stayed there for two to three weeks before I headed down to California. Right to California, to Stanford, where you got a scholarship to study. That's right. I know that you did not have access to a computer growing up. So really, your first exposure to a personal computer was not until you got to Stanford in 1993?

8:39In the Indian Institute of Technology, IIT, as we call it, there was definitely a lab. You know, I didn't have full access to it, but I had maybe used it. I would say I can count the number of hours, maybe in one or two hands. So that's how much I'd seen it. I'd used it for a few hours. But only when I came to Stanford, there were these labs in which I could go and work and have unlimited access and program. And so it was like an entire new world opened up for me. I was so enamored with it. I didn't quite realize at the time the internet was fully underway. I was just fascinated by just having access to so many computers.

9:15What was that? I mean, 1993 is like, God, just seems like a millennium ago. I mean, it's just such a long time ago. I remember being overseas in the mid-90s, and it was different. Calling my parents in Los Angeles, for example, was a big deal. You know, you'd quickly get on the phone, have a quick chat, and maybe they would pick up and, you know, that was it. You read letters. This was your first time in the United States. You were away from your family in India. What do you remember about being in the United States at Stanford at the time? Was it lonely? Were you homesick? Yeah, I was definitely lonely.

9:47You know, my girlfriend was back in India. And you mentioned, you know, what it is to communicate. And it was about in Stanford from within campus at that time to call back to India was around$2.50. approximately a minute. And so within about a week of every month, I probably was broke, mostly calling my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, and a lot of letters, et cetera. But definitely it was tough to communicate what we take for granted, what's probably impossible to explain to the current generation, but communication was really hard. And so I definitely felt lonely, but it was an extraordinary place.

10:30And I made a lot of friends and soon I settled in, but it was a definite transition coming in and settling down into the country. You would stay on for an MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton. By the time you got here and started studying here, was it clear to you that you were going to make your future in the United States, that this was where you were going to establish your life? Or did you think maybe you'd go back to India? I think for me, academically, coming to a place like Stanford and seeing the access and I wanted to be cutting edge in terms of the research I wanted to pursue.

11:06So for me, there was naturally a part of me, which is like, this was my dream, and I wanted to continue doing it here. But I wasn't fully sure as to where things would end up. So I didn't think too far ahead. When you started at Google, it's just 2004, Google was a completely different company. I mean, it was a fraction of what it is now, obviously growing and becoming more influential, but still tiny compared to what it is now. I mean, you were involved in some of the biggest product rollouts and, I mean, Google Chrome, right? Google Drive, things that are now almost indispensable for so many people.

11:42How did you kind of see your place in the company, you know, at that time? I mean, And did it feel like you were part of something really big? Was it hard to have that kind of perspective? What do you remember about that time? Definitely Google felt like a special place. I got exposure to the founders early on and very clearly talking to them. You had a sense they were very, I would call, unique thinkers. As a pair of them, they would always come at problems with a very, very different viewpoint. And so it felt unique. They were very ambitious in everything they set out to do. And at Google, at any given time, there were a lot of projects.

12:23Some of them were crazy. And so you had a sense that this was different. But at the same time, I always sensed the power of the internet. That's why I came to Google. And so I realized for the first time, you're going to have a technology which is really going to touch billions of people. And over time, can it really be accessible to more people than prior versions of computing and technology? So, you know, you had the sense that this was going to be something really big and you were part of, I'm talking about the internet now, and you were part of a bigger movement too. So a combination of all that made it feel pretty unique.

12:57Did you see yourself at that time as a leader or did you have ambitions to be a leader or were you more focused on being a product guy and focusing on the technical side and just sort of being a good employee? More of the latter for sure. I definitely was focused on rolling up my sleeves, building products and shipping them, and just the thrill of trying to build something and put it out and see how users respond to it and do they adopt it. And so for me, a lot of it was about that craft, if you will. And so it's what I was focused on, loved the company. People were incredibly optimistic. And so definitely nothing beyond that.

13:46We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, Sundar shares how he eventually did start thinking about leadership and what he's focused on as the CEO of Google today. Stay tuned. You're listening to How I Built This Lab.

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18:18Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy and I'm talking with Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. Sundar, at what point did you start to see yourself as somebody who could be the CEO of Google and Alphabet? I mean, based on your description of your early days, that would never have crossed your mind. But at some point, you must have at least mentally had to become prepared to do that. Do you remember what enabled you to prepare to actually see yourself in that role? I think there was some point at which Larry Page, who was the CEO at the time and one of our co-founders, asked me to manage our entire product portfolio.

18:59So to be the head of products in a technology company, in a product-focused company like Google, it is the essence of the job. And so in some ways, when I started working on it, I naturally felt the accountability for the company, if you will. So not that I thought of myself as a CEO, but the natural role demanded you end-to-end think about everything. And so I actually started working that way. Right. So that's where it began. But I never thought much about being a CEO as much as, given I loved building products, the chance to do it at scale and to build products for the entire company was more than what I wanted and would have been happy doing that part.

19:37But I think that probably was the beginning of the transition when both Larry and I started thinking about it. When you joined Google in 2004, it was just a few years after Jack Welch retired from GE, and he was like the sort of iconic CEO who sort of represented in the minds of people what a CEO should be, sort of fist pounding the table. And that's been reassessed now, and it's definitely not a model I think a lot of CEOs would adopt. But you had and have a reputation for being a quiet leader. Before I get to that, I want to understand how you kind of learned to become a leader because you are running a company that's much bigger than GE ever was today and much bigger than what Jack Welch had to do.

20:23And you had to become that person over time. So tell me when you started to think of yourself as a leader. You know, one of my mentors was someone called Bill Campbell. He was a football coach at Columbia and later, you know, mentored a lot of CEOs. He was a CEO himself. And he had this famous saying, I may quote it wrongly now, but it's basically, you know, you don't become a leader of people. It's your people who make you a leader. I think for me, that always resonated. So I didn't focus much on how I'm going to be a leader as much as whatever I was doing, you know, was fully committed to making it successful, including the people who work for me.

21:03So always approached it as trying to help make what we are working on be more successful, including particularly the people I worked with. So being really vested in their success and their outcomes and going the distance to do that. And so I guess that's the process by which it unfolded. And so maybe somewhere along the line, I realized I was making this transition, but it was more natural for me. And the second thing was I realized being a leader also allowed you to scale and work on more than one problem at a time. And so that appealed a lot to me as well. So it's probably a combination of both of those things.

21:43I want to focus on what was kind of been your North Star, I guess, or really a central focus of your ambitions for Google, and that's artificial intelligence. We've been hearing about artificial intelligence for a long time. It goes back to Alan Turing in World War II and before. And even over the past 10 years, anybody who's seen TED talks or, you know, you hear about, oh, AI is going to change medicine. AI is going to change the way we consume energy and AI is going to solve climate change. It's going to make government smarter, more efficient. That hasn't happened quite yet. None of those things have happened.

22:16And I'm talking about things I heard eight, nine years ago. Tell me where you see now glimmers of light coming through that are within grasp. Because I know Google is investing so much money into this technology, and it encompasses so many different things. So give me sort of the 35 ,000-foot view of what AI will do. What's it going to mean to us? Look, I always thought the company should be, and that's how the founders said it to be, should be focused on deep computer science and technology to help solve problems. And AI just happens to be one of the most important technological advances, so hence the focus on AI.

22:56You know, when I look at the journey, one of the great things about AI is, in some ways, it's an abstract concept. And the more AI starts doing things, we kind of take it for granted, right? And so it kind of bakes into the system and the expectations keep shifting. And, you know, we recently had an event called Google I.O. where, as a company, we talk about all the things we do. Leading up to the event, I was reflecting on how AI is impacting all our products, right? Countless ways. and if you're in Gmail and you're typing something and we give all these suggestions for you to complete or to send quick replies back that actually works on machine learning and AI, we now translate across many, many languages and it is seamless.

23:41And in fact, now we are going deep and adding some of the rarer languages in the world, but very, very important for the people who speak it. And the fact now you can seamlessly translate it into hundreds of languages is an example of progress. If you use YouTube, we automatically generate chapters now based on a creator's video and also show transcripts of the video to people. So that's all AI kind of working and it's automatic and it just works. If you're a small medium business and you come to Google and say, look, I want to grow my business, but I only have a few hundred dollars to spend, you can go through the process and custom design and create everything, or you can give your budget and our AI systems can optimize and run a campaign for you.

24:26We are mapping buildings in Africa, and these are hard to do. And we're using AI to really scale up the number of buildings we are mapping. We are sharing the data with the World Bank and the United Nations to use for nonprofit purposes. You mentioned areas like healthcare. It's obviously a very regulated industry, rightfully so, and things take time. But just the fact that AI system will help triage images for radiologists to scan and maybe reprioritize them in the right order. I see companies beginning to do that. And something we will take for granted 10 years from now is how it'll all work.

25:05And so you see the progress and it's baked into our products. So if you talk to Google and ask a question and we give you an answer back, there's a lot of AI underneath all those layers. And I think you'll see it more in the fabric of what we do every day in countless things. In the future, do you see AI being a greater source of revenue for a company like Google over, say, advertising? You know, as I became CEO, I wanted the company to think of its technology approach as AI first is because I see that long-term opportunity. And so when you look at our business, for example, like Google Cloud, through which we are offering technology to other companies, we will give them AI capabilities as well.

25:52So I think that'll be a big business opportunity. But above all, I think AI is a foundational technology which equally will make search better to maybe one day make self-driving cars work safer and much better. And so it kind of cuts across everything we do. And so I think these are two different dimensions. How we make money over time will be different than the fact that AI will power a lot of what we do as a company, but it will help us both diversify and create new businesses. And that's part of our long-term view on it, which is why I'm excited about both the amount of work we do there, but also the fact that we lead the way in many of the foundational areas there.

26:35You know, I wonder about the ethical side of this, because the question is, if you could take Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey 15 years ago and say, this is one of the things that could happen with this amazing thing that you're about to put into the world. What do you want to do now to prevent those things from happening? Now, Google, the most powerful company in the world, or one of two or three, has that opportunity to ask those questions, knowing what we know about the promise and peril of technology that we use today. So help me understand how you think about that and how you can preempt and anticipate the downsides, the sort of the darker parts of AI, because it is also potentially an inevitable result.