Sundar Pichai, an Indian born CEO in the Tech industry. Sundar Pichai, a name well-known across the globe has his mark of struggle before coming to the top. Sundar Pichai, The CEO of Google.
Recently in visit to India Sundar Pichai, recalled his interview experience at Google, the company whose CEO he now is. He said, he interviewed at Google on April 1, 2004, the same day that the company launched Gmail. He thought gmail as a April Fool's prank until the interviewer asked him about his thoughts on the new email service. Started as a prank, rest of the interview saw him talking about how Gmail could be improved upon.
Google interview experience in his words
"I interviewed in Google in April 1, 2004, which is April Fool's Day, and Google had just announced Gmail, and it was invite only, but people still weren't sure if it was an April Fool's joke. And I remember doing my interviews through the day, and people kept asking me, 'What do you think of Gmail?', but I hadn't had a chance to use it. I thought it was an April Fool's joke"
"My first three interviews, I couldn’t answer well because I hadn’t used the product. It was only in the fourth interview when someone asked me, 'Have you seen Gmail?' and I said no then he showed it to me, and then the fifth interview I was finally able to start answering."
"So for the final four interviews I was able to finally tell them what I think of Gmail and how to improve Gmail, and that's my interview experience"
"Someone in the middle also took me to have ice cream, which showed me it was a fun place."
His amazing four years at IIT-Kharagpur in his words "It been phenomenal to come back".
"I met Anjali at IIT-K and she was my classmate. Just to go get someone at the girl’s hostel, you had to walk in the front and request someone to call them. And they’d go in and loudly say – Anjali, Sundar is here. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience"
"We didn’t have phones back then. I remember waiting for a long time to get a rotary phone at home. Didn’t have access to computers growing up. Clearly the progress has been phenomenal."
"As a freshman, couple of weeks into being here I came from Chennai. I had learnt Hindi in school but never spoke much. Just listening to other people, I thought that’s how you address people. One day there was someone in the mess, and I had to call him, and I called him Abey Saale. In my first couple of weeks I thought you call people that way. Next thing, I know folks in the mess were quite upset, and they closed down the mess temporarily."
He said Infosys founder Narayana Murthy was his ideal during his college days with quote "I admire people like that who put India on the map". He loves watching Tendulkar play.
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