Sundar Pichai Reveals Surprising Criteria for Google’s Entry-Level Hires—It’s Not IQ

Sundar Pichai Reveals Surprising Criteria: Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, appeared on “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer to Peer Conversations” recently and shared what Google looks for in an entry level candidate. Pichai joined Google in 2004 as a product manager and rose to become the CEO. He gave a 3 word answer to what he looks for in candidates who want to join the company. In the interview recorded in New York, Rubenstein asks, “If someone is watching this and says I want to work at Google. What are you looking for?”

He says “High IQs, high work quotient” and notes that Google has “a very complicated inner interview process”. Rubenstein mentions Google’s free food policy and says he got to eat on the day he recorded the interview with Pichai. Pichai says the food is “very good”.

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Pichai says that it depends on a case-to-case basis. “If you’re in engineering, we are looking for really good programmers, people who understand computer science well and you know, can be dynamically willing to learn and grow, apply themselves into new situations and do well," Pichai explains.He asserts, “But we are really looking for ‘superstar software engineers’."

Rubenstein asks how Google makes sure the food spending translates into higher productivity and then asks “Why do you think other companies don’t give away food as much as you do?”

Pichai says, “In technology, if you go to the Bay Area, I think a set of things which Google has done as part of the now standard modern workplace in the Bay Area."

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“But people value in-person collaboration to us. I can recall several times when I was working at Google early on, being in cafes, meeting someone else, talking, and getting excited about something, so it sparks creativity. It creates community and I think the benefit that comes out of it far dwarfs the costs associated with it," he added.

Sundar Pichai was born on June 10, 1972 in Chennai, India. He graduated from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT KGP) with a degree in metallurgical engineering and met his future wife Anjali Pichai. Pichai then pursued higher education in the US, got a master’s degree in materials science and engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2015, Google co-founder Larry Page appointed Pichai as the CEO of Google and Page became the CEO of the newly created Alphabet. In 2019, when Page and Sergey Brin stepped back from day-to-day operations, Pichai became the CEO of Alphabet as well.

In 2022, Pichai got the Padma Bhushan, India’s 3rd highest civilian award for Trade and Industry. April this year – he was about to become a billionaire – a rare for a non-founder tech CEO.

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