Google's unveiling Pixel smartphones could be Sundar Pichai's moment in the sun

Sundar Pichai, CEO of US tech gaint Google has been hogging the limelight in the media after Google launched two Pixel smartphones and a virtual reality headset on October 4  at San Francisco.

The cutting edge smartphones have been seen as Google's counter to Apple's recently launched flagship iPhone 7 models. Pichai has left an impression of sorts as he has been leading Google's efforts of continuosly churning out new products to stay ahead of the intense market competition.

Indian born techies have been making a mark in the information technology and engineering space in the world for a long time. Indians have been touted to be the best brains behind most of path breaking innovations and discoveries which are unearthed by the core research and development teams of leading tech major firms. 

The San Francisco Bay area in particular and the West coast region of the US is flooded with Indian tech geeks who have contributed immensely to the software boom in the so called 'IT Captial' of the world. Over the last decade, the Indians have taken a giant leap and made their positions inevitable by assuming top level managerial roles in leading US tech, research and software gaints.

A few names which instantly come to our minds are those of Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, both of whom have been heading leading US tech giants Google and Microsoft respectively. 

So let us look into the long journey which Sundar Pichai undertook to reach the pinnacle of his carrer as the CEO of Google.

Early Life and Education

Pichai Sundararajan better known as Sundar Pichai was born in Madurai Tamil Nadu, India, in a middle class Tamil family to Lakshmi and Regunatha Pichai. He spent his childhood in Chennai. His father was a Senior Electrical Engineer in electrical component division of General Electric factory.

Sundar completed his formative education in Chennai and thereafter earned a degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.

It is noteworthy that he holds an M.S. from Stanford University in Material Sciences and Engineering and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar, respectively.

Career

Pichai worked in the engineering space at Applied Materials and in management consultancy at McKinsey & Company.

He joined US tech giant Google in 2004. Pichai left his fist impression by successfully leading the product management and innovation efforts for their client software products,including Google Chrome and Chrome OS, as well as being largely responsible for Google Drive.

His initial success led him to assume challenging assignments such as leading the development drives for Gmail and Google Maps. In May 2010, he announced the open-sourcing of the new video codec VP8 by Google, and introduced the new video format, WebM.

In March 2013, Pichai added another feather to his cap when Android was added to the list of Google products he needed to oversee. 

Pichai's resounding efforts over a period of time paid off big time when he was selected to become the next CEO of Google on 10 August 2015.

He stepped into the new position upon the completion of the formation of Alphabet Inc., the new holding company for the Google company family.

Pichai was one of the top contenders for Microsoft's CEO in 2014, a position that was eventually given to Satya Nadella.