Is Sundar Pichai the Google CEO in waiting?

Post Google’s I/O address, the focus is squarely on one man in the team: Android and Chrome’s head and Senior VP at Google Sundar Pichai. Both The Information (paywall) and Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek had put out extensive profiles of the man who the media now sees as a strong contender to be the next Google CEO.

The Information’s piece is titled, “At Google, Larry Page Finds His Right-Hand Man.” The piece notes how, “If Larry Page stopped being Google’s CEO today, Sundar Pichai would undoubtedly be his replacement.” The author points out that Pichai is now a trust lieutenant for Google’s top boss and when Page wanted to convince WhatsApp founder Jan Koum to not sell to Facebook, Pichai accompanied him. He also helped broker the Nest deal for Google.

[caption id=“attachment_54486” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Google’s Sundar Pichai could be Microsoft’s next chief. Reuters.[/caption]

The report also points out how Pichai is a strong team player who gets the job done. One employee told the website, “He got s**t done without alienating the entire company.” It also points out how he’s stood by for his team. The report says that when Pichai reported to Marissa Mayer, he would wait for hours outside her office to make sure that she gave his team good work-performance scores.

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The BusinessWeek profile by Brad Stone points out how Pichai can also stand his ground and play the role of a tough and frank negotiator. The report points out how during Pichai helped broker peace with Samsung when the company had launched its own Magazine UX with the Galaxy Note 3 and thus taken the focus off Google Play products.

Stone write, “Pichai set up a series of meetings with J.K. Shin, chief executive officer of Samsung Mobile Communications, at the Wynn (WYNN) hotel on the Vegas strip, at Google’s offices in Mountain View, Calif., and again in February at the Mobile World Congress convention in Barcelona. Pichai says they held ‘frank conversations’ about the companies’ intertwined fates. A fragile peace was forged. Samsung agreed to scale back Magazine UX and, signaling a new era of cooperation, the two companies announced a broad patent cross-licensing arrangement.”

Pichai also has a strong supporter in Google CEO Larry Page. As the profile adds, “Page says Pichai ‘has deep technical expertise, a great product eye, and tremendous entrepreneurial flair. This is a rare combination, which is what makes him a great leader.’”

Pichai was born in Chennai and educated at IIT-Khargpur and later studied at Standford and Wharton. At Google, Pichai was initially a product manager at Google, who handled the ‘Google’ search bar in the upper right corner of Web browsers. This was before the days of Google Chrome, and when IE was dominant. Google Chrome was launched by his team in 2008. In 2011, when Larry Page returned as CEO, Pichai was promoted to Senior VP and also took charge of Gmail and Google Docs. In 2013, he replaced Andy Rubin as the head of Android and Chrome.

And it’s not like rivals haven’t tried to get him to join their team. During the Microsoft CEO race, Pichai’s name was also considered as a possible contender. In 2011, Twitter too tried to poach him as a head of product.

As Google’s I/O conference revealed, Android is the OS that will take the company forward and they intend to make it a part of everything else and not leave it at mobile. Since Pichai is currently the head of Android, there’s no doubt that this further cements his position as one of the most powerful men in Google.