One of the great things about India is its tremendous interest in education. People talk about it all the time. Most parents have spiteful of this for their children. So I think it’s a great foundation we have as a country. In my experience growing up here, I think there’s a lot of emphasis on spending time on books and learning things academically.
Sundar Pichai’s Eye-Opening Speech — Best Motivation Ever 2023
I think education needs to evolve and change just like everything else. I think working in the real world I would say it is important to be well-rounded. It’s important to try different things. Take some risks. You would encourage people to follow their passions a little bit more. All the great things about the Indian education system. I think there’s a lot of pressure to follow set lanes throughout your career. In high school, you’re thinking about college. I get surprised people start preparing for IIT in the eighth grade. That’s a bit shocking to me. I hope as people are approaching things they are taking the time to do things. Understanding things deeper. Learning by doing things. I think it’s important to remember it’s a long road. Setbacks don’t matter.
I think a lot of times when I was younger people would say this person didn’t get into this college or something. At the end of the road, life is so different from that. Keep your hopes, keep your dreams and try to follow them. I think most of how life plays out is up to you, not up to what happens outside of you. I think it’s important to keep that in mind and take the long-term view. It’s remarkable to be at IIT. Many, many great people don’t make it in. You will see this later in life. People do well from all walks of life. I think it’s important to remember getting into an elite institution doesn’t guarantee success. It matters a lot, but it doesn’t guarantee success. I think it’s important to keep that perspective in life. Life is a long road. You want to take it at the right pace and enjoy what you’re doing. I get very surprised people come to IITs and immediately they are thinking about IAMs and so on. I think it’s important to get real-world experience.
If you take the US for example at a place like Stanford, most students don’t choose their majors till their final year. People explore different things and find what they are passionate about. I think those are all good things to aspire to. I think I would like to see people value creativity, value experience of doing things, taking risks. And, you know, academics are important, but it is not as important as it’s also made out to be.
Had I stayed the course in graduate school, I probably have a PhD today, which would have made my parents proud. But I might have missed the opportunity to bring the benefits of technology to so many others. And I suddenly wouldn’t be standing here speaking to you as Google CEO. The only thing that got me from there to here, other than luck, was a deep passion for technology and an open mind.
So take the time to find the thing that excites you more than anything else in the world. Not the thing your parents want you to do, or the thing that all your friends are doing, or that society expects of you. I think that matters a lot. People should be encouraged to take risks a little bit more and try different things to find what they like doing.
Something I’ve noticed over time is you will have many, many opportunities to reinvent yourself. And so, you know, I think it’s worthwhile taking risks. I’m trying to do something you’re, you know, excited by. And if the first attempt you don’t do it, you know, you can try again and, you know, things tend to work out in the long run. So that’s the bar. So anything we try to do, we think of it that way. And so we aim high. And, you know, you want to aim high enough that you fail, you know, a few times.
I think that’s the natural part of the process. You know, Larry is to say, if you aim, if you work on really difficult things, you’re better off because you have no competition. Others aren’t working on that difficult problem. And even if you fail, you end up doing something great in the process. And so I think that’s the philosophy which is guided us all through these years. In Silicon Valley, you know, you know, part of the reason so many people start up a company is, you know, starting up a company and even having failed. You know, you can wear it like a badge of honour, right? And I think it’s important, you know, culturally, you know, the risk is rewarded. So it’s a culture of optimism. It’s a culture of risk-taking. And I think that’s important. This is such an important issue for our company, but also for our country and a community of entrepreneurs around the world. At Google, entrepreneurship is in our DNA.
Google was founded here at Stanford, and the company’s first home was in a garage just a couple miles from here. Like many of you in the audience, our founders were two young people with a vision of a better future, a better way. And they decided to follow their dreams.
You know, when I see entrepreneurs here, they seem no different to me than the kind of people I meet in the valley. So intrinsically, I think India can do the same kinds of things. And the one good thing about India is I think, you know, there’s always been, you know, whenever India used to walk around and go to some remote corner and find a T-stall.
I always felt that there is an entrepreneur there somewhere who saw that opportunity. So I think that streak has always existed. I think part of the problem is in India, you know, the potential is there and the market is developing. I think it’ll take a few more years for it to fully realize its potential. And some confidence in it. I think there’s a timing issue. But I think, you know, we are growing well as a country. I think we need to stay at it, continue doing all these things, and it’ll take a few more years and we’ll get there. The trend lines are strongly in favour. I think every year I can see the rate at which things are changing. So in about three to four years, you know, I’m pretty convinced at least in a five to ten-year time frame that there will be big global software companies coming out of India. And we will be very used to it.
You’re the ones building the next Google, the next Spotify, the next Tesla, the next, well, we don’t even know. But what I know is that someone in this room will build it. One revolutionary idea, one brilliant invention can unleash other entrepreneurs to revolutionize industries and ways you can never predict. I remember reading about that and thinking, it’s the idea that matters. It didn’t matter where you come from or what your background is. I felt welcomed and embraced. People didn’t care where I came from, only my ideas and hard work mattered. I’m not alone. I know how much hard work it takes to pursue the dream of building a business. The long hours, time away from family, the rejection, the ideas you know are brilliant that just don’t seem to catch on. There is a great quote from Thomas Edison that does the best job of defining what it’s like to be an entrepreneur. I have not failed. I have just found ten thousand ways that don’t work. I see hubs growing all over the world. Germany, Brazil, the UK, Israel, and China.
The latest figures say that 21% of adults across 60 countries intend to start a business in the next three years. I’m convinced that India will be a global player in the digital economy and it will be competitive with any country in the world. I’ve always felt that and I think it’s important to follow your dream and do something which you’re excited by. So I think if you follow your heart and do what you like, you will always do much better. So I don’t think it matters if you’re an engineer or you’re in science or it could be in any field.
There are many many different ways you can approach things. And what matters most is loving what you’re doing and trying to do well at it. We’re all looking to you. The world is counting on you and we can’t wait to see what you’re building next. Thank you.