The BBC’s interviewer found himself on a sticky wicket with Google’s CEO | John Naughton

Last weekend, in what the BBC clearly regarded as important news, the corporation announced that its media editor, Amol Rajan, had been granted an interview with Sundar Pichai, the current CEO of Alphabet (which basically means Google). It was billed as “the first of a series of interviews with global figures”. If the boss of Google counts as a global figure, one wonders who else is on the list, the CEO of ExxonMobil?

And the takeaway from watching this encounter? Simply this: Mr Pichai is a nice guy. He comes from a modest background in India, dropped out of Stanford in the time-honoured manner, has an MBA from Wharton and has worked for Google since 2004. He’s been CEO of Google (and Alphabet, its holding company) since 2015.

So sometimes nice guys finish first? In that respect, Pichai looks a lot like Tim Cook, the boss of Apple, who was the unlikely successor to the mercurial Steve Jobs. What both men have in common is that they worked in relatively obscure roles that were absolutely critical to ensuring the runaway success of their respective employers. Cook was the man who built the manufacturing and logistics systems that enabled Apple to continually create and deliver outstanding products, on time and budget. Pichai, for his part, oversaw or was involved in the development of Google Chrome, Chrome OS, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Maps, the Android operating system and the Chromebook. Both men have also overseen the growth of their companies into trillion-dollar…

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