Google CEO Sundar Pichai sees immense potential in AI, viewing it as a transformative technology with the power to revolutionise various aspects of life, however, he also acknowledged that failure is an inevitable part of the process when it comes to developing ambitious technology like AI. He has spoken about this publicly, most recently in a talk at an event at Carnegie Mellon University.
Farnam Jahanian, the president of Carnegie Mellon University, used AI chatbots like Google Gemini, Perplexity AI and Microsoft Copilot to generate questions for a hypothetical elevator encounter with Pichai.
Jahanian particularly emphasised on questions by Microsoft Copilot:
- You could inquire, “Could each of you please explain why consumers wouldn’t benefit if we were to vote to break up Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon?”
- To address Google’s practices, ask Sundar Pichai, “How is it fair for Google to aggressively promote its own products alongside third-party products? Is this a level playing field for sellers?”
CMU President’s Lecture Series with Sundar Pichai
What was Google CEO’s response
Jahanian highlighted that in the first question, saying, “Microsoft is notably missing here, by the way, but this is all for good humour”.
When he was clarifying that the second question was “really what we got,” Pichai quipped saying the Microsoft Copilot AI may have confused Google with some other company.
“And the second one it’s confused about us and some other company, but I leave it up there,” Pichai said.
“Great rebuttal,” Jahanian replied.
Google CEO on failures in tech
Pichai also said that failures are a part of the tech industry and that unsuccessful ventures can yield valuable innovations and attract top talent.
“In tech, I think failures are an important part of your journey. When you want to work on really ambitious things, first of all, no one else is working on it, so you tend to have less competition,” Pichai responded to a question on “failure in the tech industry and how does he encourage his team to take risks.”
“It attracts the best people in the world… even if you fail in accomplishing what you set out to do, whatever you created in the process will still be incredibly valuable,” he added.
