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Until a few days before information technology (IT) behemoth Microsoft in February last year named Satya Nadella its global chief executive officer, Sundar Pichai, then a senior vice-president at search giant Google, was considered one of the contenders for the Microsoft post.
Even as that position went to Nadella, an India-born technology executive and a company insider, it was quite clear that Pichai, another India-born techie, was cut for the top job at an IT company. That he was indeed being groomed for the big role became apparent on Tuesday, with Google appointing Pichai its global CEO, while also announcing a surprise restructuring exercise for the company.
Nadella, now CEO of Microsoft, was one of the first to congratulate Pichai on Tuesday. "Congrats @sundarpichai well deserved!" Nadella said in a post on microblogging site Twitter. Pichai responded to this message a couple of hours later: "@satyanadella thanks for the wishes ."
Besides naming Pichai as the successor to incumbent Larry Page, Google announced creating a parent (holding) company, Alphabet. Google will be the largest subsidiary of Alphabet, which will have other affiliated companies like the life-extension project Calico Labs, and Google X, the arm looking after futuristic technology projects, including drone delivery venture Wing. Co-founders Page and Sergey Brin will oversee Alphabet.
In a blog post, Page explained why Pichai was a natural choice for the top post at Google. "Sundar has been saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!), for quite some time now, and I've been tremendously enjoying our work together. He has really stepped up since October last year, when he took on product and engineering responsibility for our internet businesses."
"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. I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as him to run the slightly slimmed down Google, and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations," Page said.
Pichai's elevation at Google is seen as a big recognition of Indian techies' technological and managerial depth and maturity at the global level. It is also a big achievement for a country that is often seen as the world's back-office, mostly providing IT services like application development and testing. India's $120-billion IT services industry employs three million people.
Besides Nadella, who is at the helm of affairs at the world's largest software company; and Pichai, now CEO of Google; other Indian-origin techies steering global organisations include George Kurien, who was last month named CEO of NetApp, a storage solutions provider. There also is Rajeev Suri, an alumnus of Karnataka-based Manipal Institute of Technology, who is heading Nokia as its chief executive.
"My congratulations to Mr Pichai on becoming CEO of an aspirational company like Google. He and Nadella have raised the image of India and become role models for every young Indian," said N R Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys, India's second-largest IT services company.
"To all youngsters in India, here is evidence that there is no limit to what you can achieve," tweeted Vishal Sikka, the former SAP chief technology officer who now heads Infosys, congratulating Pichai on his elevation.
According to Kiran Karnik, the former president of Indian software industry body Nasscom, the rise of Indian or India-born talent in global technology companies is a sign of maturity of the industry, as well as the strong educational foundation that the country offered to them. "We started on this journey in the 1980s and it became something desirable. It began to attract very bright young students into that area. It gave them challenging jobs with the kind of growth that the IT industry provided them. I think many of them did well, many spent years abroad. Some spent time here and then went abroad. Of course, most of those who went abroad benefited from the ecosystem there," said, Karnik.
"But I think it is also important to remember the foundation for their education, which they received in India. These things they picked from India. Overall, it shows the stage of maturity of the industry," he added.
GOOGLE'S NEW BOSS
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Schooling from Chennai
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Graduated from IIT Kharagpur
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Masters degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Wharton
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2004: Joined Google as a manager on Google Toolbar, a desktop search tool
2008: Led the launch of chrome browser that has been a huge success
2014: Chief product officer supervising all Google apps including Gmail, Google Drive & Android. Launched Google Photos & Google Now using machine learning
2015: CEO of Google
