Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet | Lex Fridman Podcast #471

- It was a five year waiting list,

and we got a rotary telephone,

but it dramatically changed our lives.

You know, people would come to our house

to make calls to their loved ones.

You know, I would have to go all the way to the hospital

to get blood test records,

and it would take two hours to go,

and they would say, "Sorry, it's not ready.

Come back the next day."

Two hours to come back.

And that became a five-minute thing.

So as a kid, like,

I mean, this light bulb went in my head,

you know, this power of technology

to kind of change people's lives.

We had no running water, you know, it was a massive drought,

so they would get water in these trucks,

maybe eight buckets per household.

So me and my brother, sometimes my mom,

we would wait in line, get that, and bring it back home.

Many years later, like, we had running water,

and we had a water heater,

and you could get hot water to take a shower.

I mean, like,

so, you know, for me, everything was discreet like that.

And so I've always had this thing,

you know, first-time feeling of like

how technology can dramatically change like your life,

and the opportunity it brings.

I think if p doom is actually high,

at some point, all of humanity is like aligned

and making sure that's not the case, right?

And so we'll actually make more progress against it,

I think.

So the irony is,

so there is a self-modulating aspect there.

Like I think if humanity collectively puts their mind

to solving a problem, whatever it is,

I think we can get there.

So, because of that,

I think I'm optimistic on the p doom scenarios,

but that doesn't mean,

I think the underlying risk is actually pretty high,

but, you know, I have a lot of faith in humanity

kind of rising up to meet that moment.

- Take me through that experience,

when there's all these articles saying

you're the wrong guy to lead Google through this,

Google is lost, is done, it's over.

(heavy air whooshing)

The following is a conversation with Sundar Pichai,

the CEO of Google and Alphabet

on this, "The Lex Friedman Podcast."

Your life story's inspiring to a lot of people,

it's inspiring to me.

You grew up in India,

whole family living in a humble two-room apartment,

very little, almost no access to technology.

And from those humble beginnings,

you rose to lead a $2 trillion technology company.

So if you could travel back in time,

and told that, let's say 12-year-old Sundar,

that you're now leading

one of the largest companies in human history,

what do you think that young kid would say?

- I would've probably laughed it off.

You know, probably too farfetched to imagine

or believe at that time.

- You would have to explain the internet first.

- For sure.

I mean, computers to me, at that time,

you know, I was 12 in 1984,

so probably by then I'd started reading about them,

I hadn't seen one.

- What was that place like?

Take me to your childhood.

- You know, I grew up in Chennai,

it's in south of India, it's a beautiful bustling city.

Lots of people, lots of energy.

You know, simple life,

definitely like fond memories of playing cricket

outside the home.

We just used to play on the streets.

All the neighborhood kids would come out,

and we would play till it got dark

and we couldn't play anymore, barefoot.

Traffic would come, we would just stop the game,

everything would drive through,

and you would just continue playing, right?

Just to kind of get the visual in your head.

You know, pre-computers, there's a lot of free time,

now that I think about it.

Now you have to go and seek

that quiet solitude or something.

Newspapers, books is how I gained access

to the world's information at the time, if you will.

My grandfather was a big influence,

he worked in the post office.

He was so good with language,

his English, you know,

his handwriting, till today,

is the most beautiful handwriting I've ever seen.

He would write so clearly, he was so articulate,

and so he kind of got me introduced into books,

he loved politics, so we could talk about anything.

And, you know, that was there in my family throughout,

so lots of books, trashy books,

good books,

everything from Ayn Rand, to books on philosophy,

to stupid crime novels.

So books was a big part of my life.

But that kind of, this soul,

it's not surprising I ended up at Google,

because Google's mission

kind of always resonated deeply with me,

this access to knowledge, I was hungry for it.

But definitely have, you know,

fond memories of my childhood.

Access to knowledge was there,

so that's developed, we had.

You know, every aspect of technology,

I had to wait for a while.

I've obviously spoken before

about how long it took for us to get a phone,

about five years, but it's not the only thing.

- A telephone?

- There was a five-year waiting list,

and we got a rotary telephone,

but it dramatically changed our lives.

You know, people would come to our house

to make calls to their loved ones.

You know, I would have to go all the way to the hospital

to get blood test records,

and it would take two hours to go,

and they would say, "Sorry, it's not ready.

Come back the next day."

Two hours to come back.

And that became a five-minute thing.

So as a kid, like,

I mean, this light bulb went in my head,

you know, this power of technology

to kind of change people's lives.

We had no running water, you know,

it was a massive drought.

So they would get water in these trucks,

maybe eight buckets per household.

So me and my brother, sometimes my mom,

we would wait in line,

get that and bring it back home.

Many years later, like,

we had running water, and we had a water heater,

and you could get hot water to take a shower.

I mean, like,

so, you know, for me,

everything was discrete like that.

And so I've always had this thing,

you know, first-time feeling

of how technology can dramatically change like, your life,

and the opportunity it brings.

So, you know, that was kind of a subliminal takeaway for me

throughout growing up.

And, you know,

I kind of actually observed it and felt it.

You know, so we had to convince my dad for a long time

to get a VCR.

Do you know what a VCR is, yeah?

(Lex laughing)

I'm trying to date you now.

- [Lex] Yeah.

- But, you know, because before that,

you only had like kind of one TV channel.

Right? That's it.

And so, you know, you can watch movies

or something like that,

but this was by the time I was in 12th grade, we got a VCR,

you know, it was like a Panasonic,

which we had to go to some like shop

which had kind of smuggled it in, I guess,

and that's where we bought a VCR.

But then being able to record,

like a World Cup football game,

or like get bootlegged videotapes and watch movies,

like all that.

So like, you know, I had these discrete memories growing up.

And so, you know, always left me with the feeling of like,

how getting access to technology

drives that step change in your life.

- I don't think you'll ever be able to equal

the first time you get hot water.

- To have that convenience of going and opening a tap,

and have hot water come out? Yeah.

- It's interesting.

We take for granted the progress we've made.

If you look at human history,

just those plots that look at GDP across 2,000 years,

and you see that exponential growth,

to where most of the progress happened

since the industrial revolution,

and we just take for granted,