Do we like Sundar Pichai?
Our score: 5 out of 10. A decent public record on LGBTQ+ staff and some real giving, set against Google's DEI rollback, its government contracts and the Trump inauguration donation.
Pichai grew up in Chennai, in Tamil Nadu, and ended up running Google, which is about as far from a quiet life as it gets. He's a Stanford alumnus and has said of his roots: “I'm an American citizen but India is deeply within me.” That's the immigrant-kid-makes-good story, and it's a big part of why people warm to him.
The latest stoush came at Stanford in June 2026. Graduates walked out of his commencement speech, and organisers accused Pichai and Google of enabling human rights violations through Project Nimbus, a US$1.2 billion cloud and AI contract with the Israeli government. They also objected to Google's cloud services for federal agencies. He didn't mention AI in the speech, and told the student paper he was glad the students could express their concerns peacefully. The Daily also noted Google recently fired 28 employees who took part in a sit-in against the contract.
On the harm test, we found no nasty words from him personally. The company is another matter. In February 2025 Google dropped its diversity hiring targets and said it was reviewing its DEI programs, citing court decisions and executive orders. The same month it rewrote its AI principles and removed the earlier language on weapons and surveillance. In January 2025 Google also donated US$1 million to Donald Trump's inauguration fund, as other tech giants did.
It isn't all one way. In 2019, after YouTube declined to remove videos by a commentator that contained homophobic remarks aimed at a Vox host, Pichai emailed LGBTQ+ staff. He said the community had felt “a lot of pain and frustration” and promised to review YouTube's harassment policies. That's a leader responding to the people hurt, though critics will say it was a response to a firestorm. Google also kept its employee groups, including Trans at Google, when it rolled back the targets.
The good stuff is real if not huge in our sources. In April 2020 he personally gave Rs 5 crore to Give India for cash help to daily-wage worker families during COVID, matching a Google.org grant. He's also been open to protesters on his own stage, which not every CEO manages. We found nothing in the reporting we read that shows him mistreating people in his own right, though the sackings and his silence on a staff petition about federal immigration contracts don't help.
Put together, he looks like a corporate steward more than a culture warrior. He hasn't campaigned against anyone, but the decisions made on his watch have gone the way of the powerful: fewer DEI commitments, looser AI limits, a donation to a president's inauguration. Where you land depends on whether you judge him by his own conduct or by what his company does. For us that's a mixed result on harm, with a small asterisk on being nice.