Sundar Pichai’s ‘think‑crazy’ drive: the trait powering a $7.2 bn AI CEO

Sundar Pichai’s “think‑crazy” leadership trait

Arvind Jain arrived at Google from a modest Indian town, feeling like an impostor amid a sea of MIT and Stanford alumni. Determined to decode success, he watched a newly hired product manager, Sundar Pichai, rise from individual contributor to CEO in just over a decade.

“The same attributes kept surfacing—intensity, hard work, and the willingness to think big,” Jain told Reuters.

Jain recalls Pichai championing a browser project that many dismissed as folly. At the time, Microsoft dominated the market, and even CEO Steve Ballmer called the idea a “rounding error.” Yet Chrome surged, eclipsing Internet Explorer and becoming the world’s dominant browser by 2012.

From Chrome to the corner office

The triumph cemented Pichai’s reputation, reinforcing the belief that daring concepts can outpace pure grind. Jain says the co‑founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin shared this same disregard for conventional limits.

Armed with these lessons, Jain left Google and co‑founded Rubrik, which IPO’d in 2024 at ↑ $5.6 bn. He then launched Glean, an AI‑driven enterprise search platform now valued at ↑ $7.2 bn. Today, he admits his freshest insights come from Gen‑Z hires, whose unfiltered perspectives keep him agile.

The story underscores a timeless formula for tech leaders: relentless work ethic paired with the courage to pursue ideas that seem absurd.

Words by Chloe Winters (Venture Capital & Innovation Reporter).