SUNDAR PICHAI - A Journey from Chennai to Google

GOOGLE - The biggest search engine on the planet on 11th August,2015 announced that Sundar Pichai would be the CEO of Google under Alphabet. The 43-year-old joined the company in 2004, and formerly oversaw the development of many products like Gmail, Google Maps, Chrome OS and Android before becoming the CEO of one the biggest tech company’s in the world.   

Pichai Sundararajan was born in Chennai on July 12, 1972.He lived an average Indian life for most of his young days, with his father owning a two room apartment in Chennai. The family didn’t own a television set or a car till very late, and just had a blue Lambretta scooter as a vehicle to move about. 

He did his schooling from Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Nungambakkam, where he was considered as the brightest in his batch. Pichai developed his curiosity for tech from his father, who discussed his job as an electric engineer with his son everyday. He told him about his everyday challenges, seeding the initial interest in the engineering world.

 Pichai went on to study Metallurgical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur and then flew to Stanford University to study his MS in Material Sciences and Engineering. He previously worked in engineering and product management at Applied Materials and in management consulting at McKinsey & Company, before joining Google in 2004.

After gaining his new designation he gave a speech on a theory that is being massively shared for the past few weeks. It’s a speech about the ‘cockroach theory’ for self development. Here’s how the theory goes:

The cockroach theory for self development

"At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady.She started screaming out of fear.With a panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky.The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but ...it landed on another lady in the group.Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama.The waiter rushed forward to their rescue.In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter.The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behaviour of the cockroach on his shirt.When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behaviour?If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed?He handled it near to perfection, without any chaos.It is not the cockroach, but the inability of those people to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach, that disturbed the ladies.I realised that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, but it's my inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbs me.It's not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that disturbs me.More than the problem, it's my reaction to the problem that creates chaos in my life."

Lessons learnt from the story:   

I understood, I should not react in life.I should always respond.The women reacted, whereas the waiter responded.Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are always well thought of.A beautiful way to understand............LIFE.

Person who is HAPPY is not because Everything is RIGHT in his Life..He is HAPPY because his Attitude towards Everything in his Life is Right..!

So, tell us in the comments below, are you inspired by this theory?
More cool stuffs are to come.
Stay Tuned, Stay Funk'd Up.