YouSaid · the spoken record

Sundar Pichai

lines on the record: 101
first: 2025-06-05
most recent: 2025-06-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Look I mean, lots to unpack. Obviously Like the main bet I made as a CEO was to really Make sure the company was approaching everything in AI first way, really setting ourselves up to develop AGI responsibly and make sure we're putting out products which embodies that. That are very, very useful for people. So look, I knew even through moments like that last year. I had a good sense of what we were building internally. Had already made many important decisions bringing together teams of the caliber of brain and deep mind and setting up Google DeepMind. There were things like we made the decision to invest in TPUs 10 years ago. So we knew we were scaling up and building big models. Anytime you're in a situation like that,”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now it is, and obviously we'll work hard over the years to make it more and more accessible. But yeah, even on a personal front outside of work meetings, a grandmother who's far away from our grandchild and being able to have that kind of an interaction, all that I think will end up being very, nothing substitutes being in person. It's not always possible. You could be a soldier deployed trying to talk to your loved ones. So I think that's what inspires us.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's one of the toughest products you can't quite describe it to people even when we show it in slides, et cetera. You don't know what it is. You have to kind of experience it”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My boss was like, can you imagine the US president and the Chinese president being able to do something like Beam with the live meat translation working well? So they're both sitting and talking, make progress a bit more.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I agree with you. I think it's insightful. Look, I felt. To make progress on some of the toughest problems would be good to have AI, like PAR helping you. So that resonates with me for sure.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of humanity is aligned in 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 PDOM scenarios. But that doesn't mean I think the underlying risk is actually pretty high. I have a lot of faith in humanity kind of rising up to meet that moment.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, for sure. Look, I've both been very excited about AI, but I've always felt this is a technology we have to actively think about the risks and work very, very hard to harness it in a way that it all works out well. On the PDOM question, look, it wouldn't surprise you to say that's probably another micro kitchen conversation that pops up once in a while, right? Given how powerful the technology is. Maybe stepping back, when you're running a large organization, if you can kind of align the incentives of the organization, you can achieve pretty much anything. If you can get kind of people all marching towards a goal in a very focused way, in a mission-driven way, you can pretty much achieve anything. But it's very tough to organize all of humanity that way. But I think if PDOM is actually high, at some point, all”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“These models are natively multimodal, they can easily take content from any format, put it in any format. They can write a good user interface. They probably understand your preferences better over time. So all this is like the evolution ahead, right? And so that goes back to where we started the conversation. I think there'll be dramatic evolutions in the years ahead.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hugely self. There are simple UI innovations which have changed the world, right? And I absolutely think so. We will see a lot more progress in the next couple of years, I think. AI itself on a self improving track for UI itself. Today we are constraining the models. The models can't quite express themselves in terms of the UI too to people. But that is like, you know, if you think about it, we've kind of boxed them in that way. But given these models can code, they should be able to write the best interfaces to express their ideas. Over time”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For me the whole thing seeing what Google Brain did in 2012 and when we acquired DeepMind in 2014, right close to where we're sitting in 2012, Jeff Dean showed the image of when the neural networks could recognize a picture of a cat, right, and identify it. There's the early versions of brain, right? And so we all talked about a couple decades. I don't think we'll quite get there by 2030. So my sense is it's slightly after that. But I would stress it doesn't matter what that definition is because you will have mind-blowing progress on many dimensions. Maybe AI can create videos. We have to figure out as a society how do we need some system by which we all agree that this is AI generated and we have to disclose it in a certain way because how do you distinguish reality otherwise?”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I think the progress will be dramatic, right? So that I believe in. Well, the AI think it has reached AGI by 2030. I would say we will just fall short of that timeline, right? So I think it'll take a bit longer. It's amazing in the early days of Google DeepMine. In 2010, they talked about a 20-year timeframe to achieve AGI, which is kind of fascinating to see.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You see glimpses. That's why I use the word AJI, because then you see stuff which obviously we are far from AGI too. So you have both experiences simultaneously happening to you. I'll answer your question, but I'll also throw this. I almost feel the term doesn't matter. What I know is by 2030 there'll be such dramatic progress. Will be dealing with the consequences of that progress, both the positives, both the positive externalities and the negative externalities that come with it in a big way by 2030. So that I strongly feel, right? We may be arguing about the term or maybe Gemini can answer what that moment is in time in 2030.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's one other term we should throw in there. I don't know who used it first. Maybe Karpati did AJI. Have you heard AJI, the artificial jagged intelligence? Sometimes feels that way, right? Both there are progress and you see what they can do. And then you can trivially find they make numerical errors or counting R's and strawberry or something, which seems to trip up most models or whatever it is. So maybe we should throw that term in there. I feel like we are in the AJI phase where dramatic progress, some things don't work well, but overall you're seeing lots of progress. But if your question is, will it happen by 2030? Look, we constantly move the line of what it means to be AGI. There are moments today, you know, like sitting in a Waymo in a San Francisco street with all the crowds and the people and kind of work its way through. I see glimpses of it there. The car is sometimes kind of impatient, trying to work its way using Astra, like in Gemini Live or seeing.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's compute limited in this sense, right? Like, you know, we can all, part of the reason you've seen as to flash, nano flash, and pro models But not an ultra model. It's like for each generation, we feel like we've been able to get the pro model at like, I don't know, 80, 90% of Ultra's capability, but Ultra would be a lot more slow and a lot more expensive to serve. But what we've been able to do is to go to the next generation and make the next generations pro as good as the previous generations Ultra. Be able to serve it in a way that it's fast and you can use it and so on. So I do think scaling laws are working. It's tough to get at any given time. The models we all use the most. Is maybe like a few months behind the maximum capability we can deliver, right? Because that won't be the fastest, easiest to use, et cetera.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think we have an exciting trajectory ahead. It's tougher to say each year I sit and say, okay, we are going to throw 10x more compute over the course of next year at it, and will we see progress? Sitting here today, I feel like the year ahead will have a lot of progress.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, we see a lot of headroom ahead, right? I think we've been able to optimize and improve on all fronts, right? Pre-training, post-training, test time, compute, tool use, over time, making these more authentic. So getting these models to be more general world models in that direction like VO3, the physics understanding is dramatically better than what VO1 or something like that was. So you kind of see on all those dimensions, I feel progress is very obvious to see. And I feel like there is significant headroom. More importantly, fortunate to work with some of the best researchers on the planet, right? They think there is more headroom to be had here.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a cherished micro kitchen conversation once in a while. I have with, you know, Like when Demis is visiting or if Demos, Korai, Jeff, Noam, Sergei, a bunch of other people, we sit and talk about this, right?”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it is. It is accurate. I'm glad it got it right. That number was 9.7 trillion tokens per month 12 months ago. It's gone up to 480. It's a 50x increase. So there's no limit to human curiosity. And I think it's one of those moments. Maybe I don't think it is there today, but maybe one day there's a five-word phrase which says what the actual universe is or something like that and something very meaningful, but I don't think we are quite there yet.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You do is say, Look, you know, I had the same feeling about search many, many years ago, you definitely, you know, these tokens per month has grown 50 times in the last 12 months.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From first principles, having the models reason about the world, be nuanced, etc. From the ground up is the right way to build these things, not like some subset of humans kind of hard coding things on top of it. So I think it's the direction we've been taking, and I think you'll see us continue to push in that direction.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I think with 2.5, what we particularly found is once the models cross a certain level of intelligence and sophistication, they are able to reason through these nuanced issues pretty well. And I think users really want that, right? You want as much access to the raw model as possible. I think it's a great area to think about over time, we should allow more and more closer access to it, maybe obviously let people custom prompts if they wanted to and experiment with it, et cetera. I think that's an important direction. But look, the first principles we want to think about is from a scientific standpoint, Making sure the models, and I'm saying scientific in the sense of how you would approach math or physics or something like that”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the good insights here has been. As the models are getting more capable, Models are really good at this stuff, right? And so I think in some ways, maybe a year ago, the models weren't fully there, so they would also do stupid things more often. So, you know, you're trying to handle those edge cases, but then you make a mistake in how you handle those edge cases and it compounds.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so I think that's how obviously there have to be some things and society needs to decide at a fundamental level what's okay, what's not, will be responsible with it. But I do think when it comes to artistic free expression, I think that's one of those values we should work hard to defend.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Those APIs, I mean, I almost think of that as infrastructure, just like when you provide electricity to people or something, you want them to use it and you're not thinking about the use cases on top of it.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a great question. Look, part of, you mentioned Darren. He's a clear visionary, right? Part of the reason we started working with him early on VO is he's one of those people who's able to kind of see that future get inspired by it and kind of showing the way for how creative people can express themselves with it. Look, I think when it comes to allowing artistic free expression as one of the most important values in a society, right? I think artists have always been the ones to Push boundaries, expand the frontiers of thought. And so, look, I think that's going to be an important value we have. So I think we will provide tools and put it in the hands of artists for them to use and put out their work.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I think it depends on what it is for. Like maybe if you look at movies today with CGI, there are great filmmakers. You still look at who the directors are and who use it. There are filmmakers who don't use it at all. You value that. There are people who use it incredibly. Think about somebody like James Cameron, like what you would do with these tools in his hands. But I think tells me a lot more content created, like just like writers today use Google Docs and not think about the fact that they are using a tool like that. People will be using the future versions of these things. Like, it won't be a big deal at all to them.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, YouTube enabled, I mean, you know this better than anyone else. It's enabled so many creators. There is no doubt in me that we will enable more filmmakers than I've ever been. You can empower a lot more people. So I think there's an expansionary aspect of this, which is underestimated, I think. I think it'll unleash human creativity in a way that hasn't been seen before. It's tough to internalize. The only way is if you brought someone from the 50s or 40s and just put them in front of YouTube, I think it would blow their mind away. Similarly, I think we would get blown away by what's possible in a 10 to 20 year time frame.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Might be a version of the human essence, wherever it comes through, going back to what we talked earlier about watching Messi drivel the ball. I don't know, one day I'm sure a machine will dribble much better than Messi, but I don't know whether it would evoke that same emotion in us. So I think that would be fascinating to see.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The only thing I may say is I do think in a world in which there are two AI, I think people value and choose Just like in chess, you and I would never watch stockfish 10 or whatever, an Alpha Go play against each other. Like, it would be boring for us to watch. But Magnus Carlson and Gukesh, that game would be much more fascinating to watch. So it's tough to say, like one way to say is, you'll have a lot more content, and so you will be listening to AI-generated content because sometimes it's efficient, et cetera. The premium experiences you value”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I agree. Look, think about 40 years ago. Maybe in the US, there were five people who could do what you were doing Like, go do an interview. But today, think about with YouTube and other products, et cetera, like how many more people are doing it. So, I think this is what technology does, right? Like when the internet created blogs, you heard from so many more people. So I think But with AI, I think that number won't be in the few hundreds of thousands. It'll be tens of millions of people, maybe even a billion people. Like putting out things into the world in a deeper way”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Software creation? Are you creating a program, a piece of content to be shared with others? Games down the line, all of that just becomes infinitely more possible.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, most of it probably we don't know today, but the one thing which we can tangibly start seeing now is. Obviously, with the coding progress, you got a sense of it. It's going to be so easy to imagine thoughts in your head translating that into things that exist. That'll be part of the package, right? Like it's going to empower almost all of humanity. And I express themselves Maybe in the past he could have expressed with words Like you could kind of will things into existence, right? You know, maybe not fully today. We are at the early stages of vibe coding. You know, I've been amazed at what people have put out online with VO3 It takes a bit of work, right? You have to stitch together a set of prompts. All this is going to get better. The thing I always think about this is the worst it'll ever be. Like at any given moment”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like the Mo 37 of Alpha Research or whatever it is, right? And you're right when it can do. Novel self-directed research obviously for a long time we'll have hopefully always humans in the loop and all that stuff and these are complex questions to talk about but yes I think the underlying technology you know I've said this like if you watched seeing AlphaGo start from scratch Be clueless and become better through the course of a day hits you when you see that happen. Even the VO3 models, if you sample the models when they were 30% done and 60% done and looked at what they were generating. And you kind of see how it all comes together Kind of like, I would say kind of inspiring a little bit unsettling, right? As a human. So all of that is true, I think.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously, with that comes a lot of important things to think and wrestle with, but I definitely think that'll end up being the case.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, we don't know what it is to have lived through those times But many of what you're talking about, where kind of this general things which pretty much affected everything, electricity or internet, et cetera. But I don't think we've ever dealt with the technology, both which is progressing so fast, becoming so capable. It's not clear what the ceiling is. And the main unique, it's recursively self improving, right? It's capable of that. And so the fact is the first technology will kind of dramatically accelerate creation itself, like creating things, building new things can improve and achieve things on its own. I think it puts it in a different league. And so different league. And so I think the impact it'll end up having will far surpass everything we've seen before.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Player, right? And so is there a recency bias? And I do think from first principles, I would argue AI will be bigger than all of those. I didn't live through those moments two years ago. I had to go through surgery. And then I processed that. There was a point in time people didn't have anesthesia when they went through these procedures. At that moment, I was like, that has got to be the greatest invention humanity has ever done, right?”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A great question. Look, many years ago, I think it might have been 2017 or 2018, I said at the time, AI is the most profound technology humanity will ever work on. It'll be more profound than fire or electricity. So I have to back myself. I still think that's the case. When he asked this question, I was thinking, well, do we have a recency bias, right? In sports, it's very tempting to call the current person you're seeing the greatest.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The chance to see him a couple weeks ago. He played in San Jose against the Quakes. So I went to see it, see the game. I was a fan Had good seats knew where he would play in the second half, hopefully. Even at his age, just watching him when he gets the ball, that movement, you're right, that special quality, tough to describe, but you feel it when you see it, yeah.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cristiano Ronaldo fan. And so we've had to watch El Classicals together with that dynamic in there. I so admire CR7s. I mean, I've never seen an athlete more committed to that kind of excellence. And so he's one of the all-time greats. But for me, messy is it.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Also, sometimes the unspoken words. People can sometimes see that you're unhappy without you saying it. And so sometimes the silence can deliver that message even more.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“May do stuff to react to that, like what you actually want them to do the right thing. Maybe there's a bit of sports. I'm a sports fan in football coaches in soccer, that football. People often talk about management, right? Great coaches do. I think there is an element of that in our lives. How do you get the best out of the people you work with? At times you're working with people who are so committed to achieving if they've done something wrong, they feel it more than you do, right? So you treat them differently. And occasionally there are people who you need to clearly let them know like that wasn't okay or whatever it is. But I've often found that not to be the case.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do get angry. I do get frustrated. I have the same emotions all of us do right in the context of work and everything. But a few things, right? I think I Over time, I figured out the best way to get the most out of people. You kind of find mission-oriented people who are in the shad journey, who have this inner drive to excellence to do the best. And you kind of motivate people and you can achieve a lot that way. And so it often tends to work out that way. But have there been times like I lose it? Yeah. But maybe less often than others. And maybe over the years, less and less so, because I find it's not needed to achieve what you need to do.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of like you almost are sitting in a room talking to someone and they're like, wow, and you want that feeling a few times trying to get yourself in a position. You're working with people, who you feel are kind of like stretching your abilities is what helps you grow, I think. So putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. And I think often you'll surprise yourself. So I think being open-minded enough to kind of put yourself in those positions is maybe another thing I would say.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You have a lot of luck along the way, but you obviously have to make smart choices. You're thinking about what you want to do. Your brain is telling you something. But when you do things, I think it's important to kind of get that, listen to your heart and see whether you actually enjoy doing it, right? That feeling of if you love what you do, It's so much easier, and you're going to see the best version of yourself. It's easier said than done. I think it's tough to find things you love doing. But I think kind of listening to your heart a bit more than your mind in terms of figuring out what you want to do, I think is one of the best things I would tell people. Second thing is, I mean, trying to work with people who you feel at various points in my life, I've worked with people who I felt were better than me.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it's extraordinary. I go back to India now, the power of mobile, it's mind-blowing to see the progress through the arc of time. It's phenomenal.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because before that, you only had kind of one TV channel That's it. And see, you know, you can watch movies or something like that. But this is by the time I was in 12th grade, we got a VCR. Like a Panasonic, which we had to go to some 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 get put videotapes and watch movies, like all that. So I had these discrete memories growing up. And so it always left me with the feeling of how getting access to technology drives that step change in your life.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Many years later, like we had running water and we had a water heater, and you could get hot water to take a shower. So, you know, for me, everything was discrete like that. And so I've always had this thing, you know, firsthand feeling of like how technology can dramatically change your life and like the opportunity it brings. So, you know, that was kind of a subliminal takeaway for me throughout growing up. And I kind of actually observed it and felt it. So we had to convince my dad for a long time to get a VCR. Do you know what a VCR is? Yeah. I'm trying to date you now.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was a five year waiting list, and we got a rotary telephone. It dramatically changed our lives. People would come to our house to make calls to their loved ones. 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 this light bulb went in my head, you know, this power of technology to kind of change people's lives No running water. 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.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 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 fond memories of my childhood, access to knowledge was there. So that's the well we had.”
2025-06-05 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #471 – Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source