Sky News: Sunak and Google CEO to meet for talks on AI threats. “Rishi Sunak and Sundar Pichai will meet on Friday for talks amid an intensifying debate about the threats and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence, Sky News learns.”
CNBC: Google employees complain about CEO Sundar Pichai’s pay raise as cost cuts hit rest of the company. “Google CEO Sundar Pichai received a hefty pay raise last year, making him one of the highest-paid CEOs in America. Last week, his company announced the authorization of a $70 billion stock buyback. Meanwhile, Google parent Alphabet has been aggressively cutting costs, including the elimination of 12,000 jobs, in response to slowing revenue growth. That confluence of events has raised the ire of Google’s workforce.”
IANS: Sundar Pichai took home $226 mn in 2022 amid layoffs at Google. “Amid job cuts at Google’s parent company Alphabet, its CEO Sundar Pichai took home a whopping compensation of nearly $226 million in 2022. According to the tech giant’s filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Pichaia’s compensation included stock awards of about $218 million.”
Bloomberg: Google CEO Warns Against Rush to Deploy AI Without Oversight. “Alphabet Inc. and Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the push to adopt artificial intelligence technology must be well regulated to avoid potential harmful effects.”
Gizmodo: Google CEO Says an AI Chatbot Is Coming to Search… Eventually. “Following in the footsteps of competitor Microsoft—which added the same tech behind ChatGPT to Bing earlier this year—Google is on its own path to include a chatbot in its own search engine. When? Well, CEO Sundar Pichai was delightfully vague on the timeline.”
Bloomberg: Google Employees Petition Pichai for Better Handling of Job Cuts. “Almost 1,400 employees at Google parent Alphabet Inc. have signed a petition calling for better treatment of staff during the layoff process, after the company announced it was cutting 12,000 jobs.”
Moneycontrol: A Google Maps blunder in Chennai – CEO Sundar Pichai’s hometown – has internet in splits. “A Chennai resident tweeted about how Google Maps has been mispronouncing the name of a major road in the Chennai suburb of Adyar in Tamil Nadu. The Lattice Bridge Road is popularly shortened to LB Road, which has become the root cause of confusion for Google Maps. According to the Twitter user, Google Maps pronounces LB Road as ‘Pound Road’ – a blunder that certainly occurs because ‘pound’, a unit of mass, is abbreviated as ‘lb’.”
CNBC: Google CEO Pichai tells employees not to ‘equate fun with money’ in heated all-hands meeting. “As Google tries to navigate an unfamiliar environment of slowing growth, cost-cutting and employee dissent over cultural changes, CEO Sundar Pichai is finding himself on the defensive. At a companywide all-hands meeting this week, Pichai was faced with tough questions from employees related to cuts to travel and entertainment budgets, managing productivity, and potential layoffs, according to audio obtained by CNBC.”
CNBC: Google CEO says he hopes to make company ’20% more’ efficient, hints at potential cuts. “Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai gave more details about how he is thinking of making Google run ‘on fewer resources’ as it faces a slew of challenges to its businesses.”
CNBC: Google CEO tells employees productivity and focus must improve, launches ‘Simplicity Sprint’ to gather employee feedback on efficiency. “The Alphabet company had its regular all-hands last Wednesday, and the tone was somewhat urgent as employees expressed concern over layoffs and CEO Sundar Pichai asked employees for input, according to attendees and related internal documentation viewed by CNBC. Google’s productivity as a company isn’t where it needs to be even with the headcount it has, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in the meeting.”
Yahoo News: How Google is making inroads into the crypto ecosystem. “Google boss Sundar Pichai confirmed last week the company is exploring crypto and blockchain potential.”
Politico: Zuckerberg and Google CEO approved deal to carve up ad market, states allege in court. “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai personally approved a secret deal that gave the social network a leg up in the search giant’s online advertising auctions, attorneys for Texas and other states alleged in newly unsealed court filings.”
CNBC: Google CEO addresses employee concerns about loss of ‘candor, honesty, humility and frankness’ by execs. “Google employees are pressing executives to bring back a part of the company’s culture that, in the past, made it a desirable place to work: candor. At a year-end all-hands meeting, held virtually earlier this month, CEO Sundar Pichai read aloud one of the most popular questions from employees, based on the company’s internal system called Dory, which allows staffers to post questions and upvote the ones they want addressed.”
Reuters: Google CEO sought to keep Incognito mode issues out of spotlight, lawsuit alleges. “Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai in 2019 was warned that describing the company’s Incognito browsing mode as ‘private’ was problematic, yet it stayed the course because he did not want the feature ‘under the spotlight,’ according to a new court filing.”
Yahoo: Google CEO: Our ultimate moonshot is still Search. “For Google (GOOG, GOOGL) and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, his ‘ultimate moonshot’ is still Search, the company’s iconic and enormously successful search engine.” I’d comment but I’m afraid I’d melt the keyboard.
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