Photo credit: Getty Images/Justin Sullivan

Hello, fam,

Today am bringing to you an interview done by BBC journalist Amol Rajan with Google and alphabet boss Sundar Pichai.

Amol Rajan: I have always wanted to build the boss of googling a googly. let's see if we can stick a Google search on this more than what your mind says you need to kind of figure out what your heart is excited by Sundar Pichai.

Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet owns YouTube.

He was born in 1972 in Tamil Nadu in south India and studied at the India Institute of Technology or ITT at Kharagpur before moving to the U.S. and Stanford University in 2004. He joined Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google, the company was just six years old.

Amol Rajan: So good to see you

Sundar Pichai; it’s very good to see you. 

Amol Rajan: how are you, let's get used to this new elbow bomb take one mark historically has Google paid enough tax in the right places

Sundar Pichai: we are one of the world’s largest taxpayers. Uh, you know if you look at it on average over the past decade. We have paid over 20 in taxes. We do pay the majority of our share of taxes in the U.S. where we originate and where our products are developed. I think there is good conservation and we support the global OECD conservation in figuring out, what is the right way to allocate taxes and you know this is beyond a single company to solve.

Amol Rajan: how do you think artificial intelligence and quantum computing are going to compare with the internet in terms of a total transformation of our lives?

Sundar Pichai: the progress in artificial intelligence, you know we’re still in very early stages but I viewed it as the most profound technology that humanity will ever you know develop and work on and we have to make sure we do it in a way that we can harness it to society’s benefit but I expect it to play a foundational role pretty much across every aspect of our lives. You know be it health care, be it education, be it how we manufacture things and how we consume information.

Amol Rajan: you know if you think about fire or electricity or the internet you know it’s like that but I think even more profound, the people who are listening to you now whose only intuitive grasp of artificial intelligence has been the dystopias created by films like blade runner or metropolis, what would you say to them about why they don’t necessarily need to worry about those dystopias coming true? 

Sundar Pichai: Look, I think it’s always good to worry about things, you know that the babies solve problems by worrying about it look at the countries which have you know over the past many decades adopted technology, they are the countries which have done better and including unemployment is very low in most of those countries so we’ve had a good track record of, you know building technology and adapting to it and we see the benefits it brings.

Amol Rajan: And you know that we should assume the likely case ahead but we have a lot of work left to do in preparation for this interview you’ll be pleased to know I spent many hours studying quantum computing mostly on YouTube actually which you're ultimately responsible for and as I understand it from my student days studying physics at the quantum level, subatomic level. Particles aren’t necessarily particular states of matter right, so computing today is based on this binary distinction between zeros and ones, in quantum computing uh, that’s gonna be based on the idea you can be both zero and one all the states in between at the same time does what I’ve just said make any sense at all and if it does how is that going to transform our lives.

Sundar Pichai: I think you did a good job of quantum computing 101, I  think it’s perfectly accurate and you know what it does now you can simulate. Uh you know you can capture the complexity because you can keep track of many more states at once rather than zero and one, a single qubit compared to a classical bit can take on many more possibilities and so that’s what gives us that computational advantage to better simulate and better understand the world.

Amol Rajan: 18 months ago, Google announced it achieved quantum supremacy uh in other words your quantum computer had carried out a calculation that would take a traditional around 10000 years to complete. 18 months on how much more progress have you made uh and what sort of advances have you made from that first milestone.

Sundar Pichai: you know I’m very excited at the progress I mean it is a long-term thing. What we are looking to do next is to build something called an error-corrected quantum computer all that means is we have shown it can work but we have to show it has to be stable enough, we know quantum is very fragile so we’re just trying to design stable uh quantum computers which are probably still a decade away so we’re building the state-of-the-art labs and we have a clear goal and hiring people and working to towards making progress.

Amol Rajan: people always want to know about the personal technology habits of those who run big technology firms do you let your children go on YouTube you’ve got two teenagers.

Sundar Pichai: I understand yeah, I do what’s your policy on screen time for kids, I think this generation needs to learn to adapt to technology it’s going to be a big part of their life so I’ve encouraged them to develop boundaries on their own but you know it’s I’ve approached it as a journey of personal responsibility because a lot of people worry that.

Amol Rajan: dependency on technology is destroying kids’ creativity and inhibits their ability to build relationships in the world.

Sundar Pichai:  look I think we should worry and I think you know I’m glad experts are looking at areas like mental health and all that but I would also say that you know throughout history we’ve always been worried about technology.

Amol Rajan: Okay I’m gonna end with some quick five questions, these are vaguely fun. Is your Google Home speaker always switched on at home?  

Sundar Pichai: yeah, it’s but you know I, it only listens when I address it so I know that.

Amol Rajan: How often do you change your passwords?

Sundar Pichai: oh, you know I use, I would encourage everyone to use two-factor authentication and you know I make sure so I don’t need to change my passwords that often because I have multiple productions in place. 

Amol Rajan: How many phones do you have? I imagine you have 20.

Sundar Pichai: You know it’s more that now that I have as many phones I’m constantly changing and trying out every new phone and I’m testing it out all the time.

Amol Rajan: Are you Indian or American

Sundar Pichai: Well I’m an American citizen but I’ve, you know India is deep within me and so it’s a big part of who I am.

Amol Rajan: Favorite Sportsman

Sundar Pichai: well I would say since you’re a cricket fan you know Tendulkar.

Amol Rajan: Sachin Tendulkar more so than solo quavasco

Sundar Pichai: now you’re making it very difficult for me.

Amol Rajan: Dickens or Shakespeare

Sundar Pichai: Dickens

Amol Rajan: Larry or Sergey

Sundar Pichai: Larry and Sergey as they always say.

Amol Rajan: Do you eat meat?

Sundar Pichai: I don’t 

Amol Rajan: Republican or Democrat

Sundar Pichai: I keep my politics to myself.

Amol Rajan: How often do you speak to Mark Zuckerberg

Sundar Pichai: you know Assam and uh there’s no periodicity to it.

Amol Rajan: That’s when we needed Jeff Bezos is go into space would you?

Sundar Pichai: well I’m jealous a bit I would love to look at Earth from space.

Amol Rajan: When did you last cry?

Sundar Pichai: oh you know seeing the more trucks parked around the world recovered and seeing what’s happened in India.

Amol Rajan: My final question is what advice would you give to someone from humble beginnings.

Sundar Pichai: who wants to run a great company, I’ve always felt you just need to do more than, what your mind says you need to kind of figure out what your heart is excited by and it’s a journey and you’ll know it when you find it and if you find that things tend to work out you