Indian CEOs and America’s blessings

[Senthilkumar Gopal]

This is a tribute to all our parents who sacrifice their entire life just for our education. Bit
emotional and good read though from LinkedIN.

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Yesterday, all the news channels, social media platforms, and tabloids worldwide were splashed with the
news of Google announcing India-born and bred Sundar Pichai as its new CEO. It’s the second year in a
row that an Indian has been handed over the reins of one of the most powerful companies of the world
after Satya Nadella was made the CEO of Microsoft last year. Nothing can be more inspiring and
motivating than the fact that these guys who rose from the modest soils of the Indian middle class are
today poised to rule and impact the entire world.

While I was reading about Sundar’s achievements today, an unfortunate thought had dawned upon me - that
he would have never got this big an opportunity had he stayed in India. So, I subconsciously began to
admire America for being such a great country in supporting entrepreneurialism without which perhaps
there would not have been the Google as we know today and there would not have been a Sundar Pichai to
inspire millions.

And just about then, a sentence that popped out from my father (who was sitting beside me and listening
to my raving of Sundar’s life) exposed something that, in this hour of rejoice, may have been entirely
forgotten. It’s something that is slowly but surely fizzling out of this world. It’s something without
which there would not have been a Nadella or a Pichai, to ours and Google’s or Microsoft’s
disadvantage.

It’s the generation that we grew up holding hands of. It’s our parents.


When I was raving about the above to my wife, my father chipped in and said “It’s really great; his
parents’ hard work and sacrifice has paid off well"

When guys like Sundar, Satya and my own generation were growing up it was the period of pre-economic
liberalization - when India was considered as a Third world country. The middle class used to struggle
to meet ends. Going to a restaurant for that generation used to be a luxury – a once in a blue moon
affair. Telephones and cars used to be a few owners’ pride and a whole bunch of neighbours’ envy. And
foreign vacations? Phew! Those perhaps used to be the dreams of many from that generation but sadly for
a lot of them it never turned into a reality.

No. Not because that generation could not have afforded all of these. They surely could have saved and
used the money to realize some of their dreams and desires. But then they made a choice. They
sacrificed! And made us their dreams! And our education their desire! That entire generation had put
their blood, soul and money into just one thing - our education; at the expense of their own personal
desires; often passing away without ever seeing their own personal dreams come true. It was this
sacrifice that has made you and me, and from amongst us has emerged the Nooyis (Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi),
the Pichais and the Nadellas.

Our parents’ generation created a double ripple effect of sacrifice and education. Almost no one was
spared from that storm. No one family had the guts to make such sacrifice on their own. It was a
uniform and team act. Everyone one was into it together and influenced each other to do so. The entire
country was gripped by that fervour.

And for this reason, Sundar Pichai (or for that matter Satya Nadella, Indra Nooyi, Adobe CEO Shantanu
Narayen), does not just owe his success to his IIT engineering degree, or Stanford University or
Google. He owes it to that entire generation, including his parents, that created the culture of
extreme personal sacrifice in favour of educating us.

I owe it to that generation.

You owe it to that generation.

And today, Google owes it to that generation.

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