Google CEO Sundar Pichai interacted with students at Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) in Delhi University in New Delhi on Thursday (17 December).
Pichai said as a young boy in Chennai he always, like many other Indians, dreamt of being a cricketer. "But on a more serious note, I was always interested in technology. And then I read a story about semiconductors. That interested me,” he added.
“When I first went to Google, I felt like a kid in a candy store. People were working on amazing things all around,” he says, adding that to stay relevant, in a world where technology changes so fast, Google was always thinking about what to do next. “To stay on top, at Google, we are constantly thinking about what is next. Like currently we are looking at virtual reality.”
So what exactly is Google doing next? Many things, according to Pichai, and machine learning, in particular, is something that he and the company are very excited by. Giving the example of self-driving cars, he says that he is positive that machine learning will apply to healthcare and many other fields in the coming future.
"At Google, we always thought about solving problems. We always want to solve problems that would affect a billion people. For google books, the approach was what if we could bring all of the books online. We would always think about scale," says Pichai.
When asked where he sees Google in the next 30 years, Pichai says, “In the next 30 years, I hope we are able to work on problems that will help people on a daily basis in a profound way.” He further explains, “Being able to reach everyone is a foundational part of what we(Google) do.”
The Google CEO had also announced on Wednesday that they would be providing free WiFi on 500 railway stations, as had been promised on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Silicon Valley visit earlier this year. Speaking about the same, Pichai claims that the search engine giant was very excited about the same “the reason being, that when we bring access to the internet, it literally changes people’s lives”.
The Google CEO also said that the way the startup space is blowing up in India is something that he had been waiting to see and now does. “It's only when I came here last year I felt that startup culture has taken hold here, it's incredible to see. You do need entrepreneurs to build things for India and globally. All the elements which you need are already here. India very well equipped for entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs here are no different from those in the Valley,” he states, adding that as internet would become more mainstream, entrepreneurs would become more confident.
Pichai said that he believes that India is unique in the sense that people are more interested in software development. “Developers are the bloodline of software. The more developers you have, the more problems are solved.”
BW Reporters
Simar Singh is one of the youngest members of the BW team. A fresh graduate from IIMC, she also holds a degree in political science from LSR. She enjoys covering power, startups, lifestyle and a little bit of tech.
