'Dear Mr Pichai': Google CEO recalls first email his father had sent him

Sundar Pichai recalled the time when he sent his father an email message when he was a student in the US

As Google turned 25 this month, Alphabet's chief executive officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai recounted how he had to wait for two days for a response from his father in India to a mail he sent from the US. In a blog post, Pichai recalled the time when he sent his father an email message when he was a student in the US.

"Years ago, when I was studying in the US, my dad -- who was back in India -- got his first email address. I was really excited to have a faster (and cheaper) way to communicate with him, so I sent a message," Pichai wrote in his blog. "And then I waited... and waited. It was two full days before I got this reply: "Dear Mr Pichai, email received. All is well."

Confused by the delay, the Google CEO asked his father why it took him so long to reply to his mail. Pichai's father told him that a colleague had to bring up the email on their office computer, print it out, and then deliver it to him.

 "My dad dictated a response, which the guy wrote down and eventually typed up to send back to me," Sundar Pichai wrote in the blog.

Discussing the advances technology has made over the years, Pichai said he sees his son exchange photos and messages with his friends "faster than the time it would take me just to pull out my phone".

"How I communicated with my dad all those years ago compared with how my son communicates today shows just how much change can happen across generations," he added.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google while they were PhD students at Stanford University in California. It was launched in September, 1998. Google is one of the most visited websites worldwide in the world.