Google CEO Sundar Pichai has delivered what he described as his “most timeless advice,” addressing a crowd of new graduates at Stanford University. Choosing not to speak on artificial intelligence, his commencement address focused on the fast-paced evolution of Silicon Valley tech and the most important lessons in life that are completely independent of technology.
The tech executive eased the immense pressure felt by the high-achieving crowd, assuring them that very few moments in life are genuinely “make or break.”
“In all honesty, that topic is truly immaterial to what I want to share with you. The most timeless advice, I’ve learned, is technology agnostic. It’s about you, the life you want to build for yourself, and the choices that help you pursue that life,” he said to the crowd.
Pichai, a Stanford alumnus who earned his MS in materials science and engineering there, acknowledged the anxiety that often accompanies graduation day, recalling his own feelings of uncertainty when he stood in their shoes. He noted that student overachievers often feel immense pressure to get every single decision exactly right.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s ‘Secret to Success’
“I’m going to let you in on a little secret: While these things matter in the moment, they are much less consequential than you might think,” Pichai explained, adding, “You could have failed that biology test, skipped a class... and you’d still probably be here today.”
He compared this with major life decisions like picking a partner or making a massive career pivot, which require deep intention. Pichai explained that thousands of other moments only seem monumental, and decisions regarding a first job or what city to move to rarely determine life’s ultimate course.
Sundar Pichai’s Advice to Be Successful
To help graduates filter out daily noise, Pichai shared three personal filters that shaped his own journey from Chennai, India, to the helm of Google.
Choose Optimism
Pichai urged graduates to frame their circumstances positively, despite global conflict and economic anxiety. Recalling his childhood in Chennai, Pichai described a life where water had to be rationed from trucks and families waited years just to acquire a telephone or refrigerator. When he finally received a call from Stanford, his father spent an entire year's salary to buy him a plane ticket to California.
Work on Hard Things
The Google CEO admitted that his path after Stanford was far from an overnight success, noting that it took him a decade to truly find his footing. He joined Google in 2004, interviewing on the exact day Gmail launched. A few years later, he took on the challenge of building a new web browser with a team of just ten engineers. When Google Chrome first launched in 2008, user growth stagnated at 2%, prompting then-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to publicly dismiss Chrome as a “rounding error.”
“It could have been demoralizing. But with that California optimism, I told the team that the fact he went out of his way to dismiss us meant we were doing something right,” Pichai added. Chrome went on to become the most popular browser in the world. Pichai encouraged graduates to always say yes to difficult problems.
Do What Excites You
Finally, Pichai told the graduates to follow their excitement rather than yielding to the expectations of parents, friends, or society. For Pichai, that excitement has always been expanding access to technology. He recalled his awe upon arriving at Stanford in 1993 and seeing rows of computers he could use freely. Decades later, that same passion brought him full circle when he witnessed women in rural India using Android smartphones to learn new trades, and students in Pittsburgh utilising Google products.
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