Lex Fridman PodcastSundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet | Lex Fridman Podcast #471
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,023 words- 0:00 – 2:08
Episode highlight
- SPSundar Pichai
There was a five-year waiting list and we got a rotary telephone, but it dramatically changed our lives. You know, people would come to our house to make calls to their loved ones. You know, I would, I would have to go all the way to the hospital to get blood test records and it would take two hours to go and they would say, "Sorry, it's not ready. Come back the next day." Two hours to come back. And that became a five-minute thing. So as a kid, like even this lightbulb went in my head, you know, this power of technology to kind of change people's lives. We had no running water. You know, it was a massive drought, so they would get water in these trucks, maybe eight buckets per household, so me and my brother, sometimes my mom, we would wait in line, get that and bring it back home. Many years later, like, we had running water and we had a water heater, and you could get hot water to take a shower. I mean, like, so, you know, for me, everything was discreet like that. Uh, and so I've always had this thing, you know, firsthand feeling of, like, how technology can dramatically change, like, your life and, like, the opportunity it brings. I think if PDOOM is actually high, at some point, all of humanity is, like, aligned in making sure that's not the case, right? And so we'll actually make more progress against it, I think. So the irony is... So there is a self-modulating aspect there, like, I think if humanity collectively puts their mind to solving a problem, whatever it is, I think we can get there. So because of that, I think I'm optimistic on the PDOOM scenarios, but that doesn't mean... I think the underlying risk is actually pretty high, but I'm... uh, you know, I have a lot of faith in humanity kind of rising up to the... to meet that moment.
- LFLex Fridman
Take me through that experience when there's all these articles saying, "You're the wrong guy to lead Google through this. Google is lost. It's done. It's over."
- 2:08 – 2:18
Introduction
- LFLex Fridman
The following is a conversation with Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and Alphabet, on this, The Lex Fridman Podcast.
- 2:18 – 8:27
Growing up in India
- LFLex Fridman
Your life story is inspiring to a lot of people. It's inspiring to me. You grew up in India, whole family living in a humble two-room apartment, very little, almost no access to technology. And from those humble beginnings, you rose to lead a $2 trillion technology company. So if you could travel back in time and told that, let's say, 12-year-old Sundar that you're now leading one of the largest companies in human history, what do you think that young kid would say?
- SPSundar Pichai
(laughs) I would have probably laughed it off, um, you know, uh, probably too far-fetched to imagine or believe at that time.
- LFLex Fridman
You would have to explain the internet first.
- SPSundar Pichai
For sure. I mean, computers to me at that time, you know, I was 12 in 1984, so probably, uh, you know, by then I'd started reading about them. I had seen one.
- LFLex Fridman
What was that place like? Take me to your childhood.
- SPSundar Pichai
No, I grew up in Chennai. Uh, it's in south of India. It's a beautiful bustling city. Lots of people, lots of energy, you know, simple life, definitely, like, fond memories of playing cricket outside the home. We just used to play on the streets. All the neighborhood kids would come out and we would play till it got dark and we couldn't play anymore, barefoot. Um, traffic would come, we would just stop the game. Everything would drive through and you would just continue playing, right? Just to kind of get the visual in your head. You know, pre-computers, there was a lot of free time. Now I, now that I think about it, now you have to go and seek that quiet solitude or something. Newspapers, books is how I gained access to the world's information at that time, if you will. Uh, my grandfather was a big influence. He worked in the post office. He was so good with language, his English, you know, his handwriting till today is the most beautiful handwriting I've ever seen. He would write so clearly, he was so articulate, and so he kind of got me introduced into books. He loved politics, so we, we could talk about anything, and, you know, that was there in my family throughout. So, uh, lots of books, trashy books, good books, everything from Ayn Rand to books on philosophy to stupid crime novels. So books was a big part of my life, but that kind of, this whole... It's not surprising I ended up at Google because school's mission kind of always resonated deeply with me, this access to knowledge. I was hungry for it, but definitely have, you know, fond memories of my childhood. Access to knowledge was there, so that development we had. Uh, you know, every aspect of technology, I had to wait for a while. I obviously spoken before about how long it took for us to get a phone, about five years, but it's not the only thing.
- LFLex Fridman
A telephone.
- SPSundar Pichai
There was a five-year waiting list, uh, and we got a rotary, uh, telephone, but it dramatically changed our lives. You know, people would come to our house to make calls to their loved ones. You know, I would, I would have to go all the way to the hospital to get blood test records and it would take two hours to go and they would say, "Sorry, it's not ready. Come back the next day." Two hours to come back. And that became a five-minute thing. So as a kid, like even this lightbulb went in my head, you know, this power of technology to kind of change people's lives. We had no running water, you know, it was a massive drought, so they would get water in these trucks, maybe eight buckets per household, so me and my brother, sometimes my mom, we would wait in line, get that and bring it back home.Many years later, like, we had running water and we had a water heater, and you could get hot water to take a shower. I mean, like, so, you know, for me, everything was discrete like that. Uh, and so I've always had this thing, you know, firsthand feeling of, like, how technology can dramatically change, like, your life and, like, the opportunity it brings. So, you know, that was kind of a subliminal takeaway for me throughout growing up. And, you know, I, I kind of actually observed it and felt it, you know? So we had to convince my dad for a long time to get a, a VCR. Do you know what a VCR is? Yeah?
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- SPSundar Pichai
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- SPSundar Pichai
I'm trying to date you now.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. (laughs)
- SPSundar Pichai
You know, because before that you only had, like, kind of one TV channel.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
Right? That's it. Um, and so, you know, you can watch movies or something like that, but this was by the time I was in 12th grade we got a VCR, you know? It was a, uh, like a Panasonic which we had to go to some, like, shop which had kind of smuggled it in, I guess, and that's where we bought a VCR. But then being able to record, like, a World Cup football game and then... or, like, get, put, like, videotapes and watch movies. Like, all that. So, like, you know, I had these discrete memories growing up, and so it always left me with the feeling of like how getting access to technology drives that step change in your life.
- LFLex Fridman
I don't think you'll ever be able to equal the first time you get hot water.
- SPSundar Pichai
To have that convenience of going and-
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- SPSundar Pichai
... opening a tap and have hot water come out? Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
It's interesting, we take for granted the progress we've made. If you look at human history, just those plots that look at GDP across 2,000 years and you see that exponential growth to where most of the progress happened since the Industrial Revolution. And we just take for granted, we forget how, how far we've gone. So our ability to understand how great we have it and also how quickly technology can improve is quite poor.
- SPSundar Pichai
Oh, I mean, it's, it's extraordinary. You know, I go back to India now, the power of mobile... You know, it's mind-blowing to see the progress through the arc of time. It's phenomenal.
- 8:27 – 10:09
Advice for young people
- SPSundar Pichai
- LFLex Fridman
What advice would you give to young folks listening to this all over the world who look up to you and, uh, find your story inspiring? Who wanna be maybe the next Sundar Pichai? Who wanna start, create companies, uh, build something that has a lot of impact in the world?
- SPSundar Pichai
Look, it's... You have a lot of luck along the way, but you obviously have to make smart choices. You're thinking about what you want to do, your brain is telling you something. But when you do things, I think it's important to kind of get that... Listen to your heart and see whether you actually enjoy doing it, right? That, that feeling of if you love what you do, it's so much easier and you're going to see the best version of yourself. And it's easier said than done, I think it's tough to find things, uh, you love doing, um, but I think kind of listening to your heart a bit more than your mind in terms of figuring out what you wanna do, I think, I think is one of the best things I would, uh, tell people. The second thing is, I mean, trying to work with people who you feel are... Various points in my life I worked with people who I felt were better than me, right? Kind of like, you know, you almost are sitting in a room talking to someone and they're like, "Wow." Like, you know, uh, uh... You know, and you want that feeling a few times. Trying to get yourself in a position where you're working with people who you feel are kind of, like, stretching your abilities is what helps you grow, I think. Uh, so putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. And I think often you'll surprise yourself, so I think being open-minded enough to kind of put yourself in those positions is maybe, uh, maybe another thing I would say.
- 10:09 – 14:29
Styles of leadership
- LFLex Fridman
What lessons can we learn, maybe from an outsider perspective, for me, looking at your story and gotten to know you a bit? You're humble, you're kind. Usually, when I think of somebody who has had a journey like yours and climbs to the very top of leadership they're us- in a cutthroat world, they're usually gonna be a bit of an asshole. So what wisdom are we supposed to draw from the fact that, uh, your general approach of, is of balance, of humility, of kindness, listening to everybody? What's, what's, what's your secret?
- SPSundar Pichai
(laughs) I do get angry, I do get frustrated. I, I have the same emotions. All, all of us do, right? In the context of work and everything. Uh, but a few things, right? I, I think, you know, I... Over time, I figured out the best way to get the most out of people. Uh, you know, you kind of find mission-oriented people who are on the shared journey, who have this inner drive to excellence, to do their best, and, and, you know, you kind of motivate people and, and, and you can, you can achieve a lot that way, right? And so it, it often tends to work out that way. But have there been times like, you know, I lo- lose it? Yeah. But, you know, not... Maybe less often than others, uh, and maybe over the years, uh, less and less so because, you know, I, I find it's not needed to achieve what you need to do.
- LFLex Fridman
So losing your shit has not been productive.
- SPSundar Pichai
Yeah, less often than not.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Okay.
- SPSundar Pichai
I think people respond to that.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- SPSundar Pichai
They may do stuff to react to that, like, but you, you actually want them to do the right thing. And, and, and so, you know, maybe there's a bit of, like sports, you know... You know, I'm a sports fan, in football coaches, uh, in soccer... Uh, not football.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- SPSundar Pichai
You know, people, people often talk about, like, man management, right? Great coaches do, right? I think there is an element of that in our lives, how do you get the best out of the people you work with?You know, at times you're working with people who, who are so committed to achieving, if they've done something wrong, they feel it more than you, uh, you do, right? So you treat them differently than... You know, occasionally there are people who you need to clearly let them know, like, that wasn't okay or whatever it is. But I've often found that not to be the case.
- LFLex Fridman
And sometimes the right words at the right time spoken firmly can reverberate through time.
- SPSundar Pichai
Also sometimes the unspoken words. You know, people can sometimes see that, like, you know, you're unhappy without you saying it. And so sometimes the silence can, uh, deliver that message even more.
- LFLex Fridman
Sometimes less is more. Um, who's the greatest, uh, soccer player of all time, Messi or Ronaldo or Pele or Maradona?
- SPSundar Pichai
I'm gonna make, uh, you know, in this question-
- LFLex Fridman
Is this gonna be a political answer? Is that-
- SPSundar Pichai
No, no, no, no.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- SPSundar Pichai
I, I, I will tell a truthful answer-
- LFLex Fridman
The truth.
- SPSundar Pichai
... because, uh, the truthful answer-
- LFLex Fridman
So it's Messi. Okay.
- SPSundar Pichai
It is. You know, it's been interesting because my son is a big Cristiano Ron- Ronaldo fan. And, uh, so we've had to watch El Clasicos together, you know, wi- with that dynamic in there. I so admire CR7's... I mean, I've never seen an athlete more committed to that kind of excellence. And so he's one of the all-time greats, but, you know, for me, Messi is it.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, when I see Lon- uh, Lionel Messi, you just are in awe that humans are able to achieve that level of greatness and genius and artistry. When we talk, we'll talk about AI, maybe robotics and this kind of stuff, that level of genius, I'm not sure you can possibly match by AI in a long time. He's just an example of greatness. And you have that kind of greatness in other disciplines, but in sport, you get to visually see it, unlike anything else, and just the, the timing, the movement, uh, it's just genius.
- SPSundar Pichai
I had the chance to see him couple weeks ago. He played in, uh, San Jose.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
So, um, against the Quakes, so I went to see it, see the game. I was a fan on the... had good seats-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- SPSundar Pichai
... knew where he would play in the second half hopefully, and, uh, even at his age, just watching him when he gets the ball, that movement. You know, you're right, that special quality. It's tough to describe, but you feel it when you see it. Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
He's still got it.
- 14:29 – 26:39
Impact of AI in human history
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, if we rank all the technological innovations throughout human history, let's go back, uh, maybe the history of human civilizations 12,000 years ago, and you rank them by the how much of a productivity multiplier they've been, so, uh, we can go to electricity or the labor mechanization for the Industrial Revolution, or we can go back to the first Agricultural Revolution 12,000 years ago. In that long list of inventions, do you think AI, when history is written 1,000 years from now, do you think it has a chance to be the number one productivity multiplier?
- SPSundar Pichai
It's a great question. Look, many years ago, I think it might have been 2017 or 2018, um, you know, I, I said at that time, like, you know, "AI is the most profound technology humanity will ever work on. It'll be more profound than fire or electricity." So I have to back myself, I, you know, I still think, uh, that's the case. You know, when you asked this question, I'm, I was thinking, "Well, do we have a recency bias," right? You know, like, in sports, it's very tempting to call the current person you're seeing the greatest-
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- SPSundar Pichai
... player, right? And, and so is there a recency bias? And, you know, I do think, uh, from first principles I would argue AI will be bigger than all of those. I didn't live through those moments. You know, two years ago, I had to go through a surgery and then I processed that there was a point in time people didn't have anesthesia when they went through these procedures. At that moment, I was like, "That has got to be the greatest invention-"
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Yeah.
- SPSundar Pichai
"... humanity has ever, ever done." Right? So, look, we don't know what it is to have, uh, uh, lived through those times. But, you know, and many of what you're talking about were kind of this general things which pretty much affected everything, you know, electricity or internet, et cetera. But I don't think we've ever dealt with a technology both which is progressing so fast, becoming so capable, it's not clear what the ceiling is, and the main uni- it's recursively self-improving, right? It's capable of that. And so the fact it is going, it's the first technology will kind of dramatically accelerate creation itself, like creating things, building new things, can, can improve and achieve things on its own, right? I think, like, puts it in a different league, right? And so, uh... Different league. And so I think the impact it'll end up having, uh, will far surpass everything we've seen before. Uh, obviously with that comes a lot of, uh, important things to think and wrestle with, but I definitely think that'll end up being the case.
- LFLex Fridman
Especially if you guess the point of where we can achieve superhuman performance on the AI research itself. So it's the technology that may... it's an open question, but it may be able to achieve a level to where the technology itself can create itself better than it, it could yesterday.
- SPSundar Pichai
It's like the Move 37 of AlphaResearch or whatever it is, right?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- SPSundar Pichai
Like, you know, and when, when... yeah, you're right, when, when it can do novel, self-directed research, obviously for a long time, we'll, we'll have hopefully always humans in the loop and all that stuff, and these are complex questions to talk about. But yes, I think the underlying technology, you know, I've said this, like, if you watched, seeing AlphaGo start from scratch, be clueless, and, like, become better through the course of a day, you know, like, you know, (laughs) kind of, like, kind of, like, you know, really hits you when you see that happen.Even our, like, the VO3 models, if you sample the models when they were, like, 30% done and 60% done and looked at what they were generating, and you kind of see how it all comes together, it's kind of like, I would say, it's kind of inspiring, a little bit unsettling, right, as, as a human. So all of that is true, I think.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, the interesting thing of the Industrial Revolution, electricity like you mentioned, it can go back to the, again, the Agriculture, the First Agricultural Revolution. There's, um, what's called the Neolithic package of the First Agricultural Revolution. It wasn't just that the nomads settled down and started planting food, but all this other kinds of technology was born from that and it's included in this package. There wasn't one piece of technology. It's, there's these ripple effects, second and third order effects that happen. Everything from something silly, like silly, profound like pottery, that can store liquids and food, uh, to s- something we kind of take for granted, but social hierarchies, uh, and political hierarchy. So like early government was formed 'cause it turns out if humans stop moving and have some surplus food, they start coming up with, uh, they get bored (laughs) and they start coming up with interesting systems, and then trade emerges, which turns out to be a really profound thing. And like I said, government. There, I mean there's just, uh, second and third order effects from that, including that package is incredible, and probably extremely difficult if, if you ask one of the people in the nomadic tribes to predict that, that would be impossible. It's difficult to predict. But all that said, what, what do you think are some of the early things we might see in the, quote unquote, "AI package"?
- SPSundar Pichai
I mean, most of it probably we don't know today, but like, you know, the one thing which we can tangibly start seeing now is, you know, obviously with the coding progress you got a sense of it. It's gonna be so easy to imagine, like thoughts in your head, translating that into things that exist, that'll be part of the package, right? Like, it's gonna empower almost all of humanity to kinda express themselves. Maybe in the past you could have expressed with words, but like you could kind of build things into existence, right? (laughs) You know, maybe not fully today. We are at the early stages of vibe coding. You know, I've been amazed at what people have put out online with VO3.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
But it takes a bit of work, right? You have to stitch together a set of prompts, but all this is gonna get better. The thing I always think about, this is the worst it'll ever be.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- SPSundar Pichai
Right? Like at any given moment in time.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, it's interesting you went there as kind of a first thought. So the exponential increase of access to creativity.
- SPSundar Pichai
Software creation. Are you creating a program, a piece of content for, to be shared with others, games down the line? All of that, like just becomes infinitely more possible.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, I think the big thing is that, uh, it makes it accessible. It unlocks the cognitive capabilities of the entire 8 billion.
- SPSundar Pichai
No, I agree. Look, think about 40 years ago, maybe in the US there were five people who could do what you were doing.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
Like go do a interview, you know, and you know. But today think about with YouTube and other, other products, et cetera, like how many more people are doing it. So I think this is what technology does, right? Like when the internet created blogs, you know, you heard from so many more people. So I think... But, but with AI I think that number won't be in the few hundreds of thousands. It'll be tens of millions of people, maybe even a billion people, like putting out things into the world in a, a, a deeper way.
- LFLex Fridman
And I think it'll change the landscape of creativity, and it makes a lot of people nervous. Like for example, uh, whatever, Fox, MSNBC, CNN are really nervous about this part. Like, y- you mean this dude in a suit could just do this? And, and you, and YouTube and, and, and thousands of others, tens of thousands, millions of other creators can do the same kind of thing? That makes me nervous. And now you, you get a podcast from NotebookLM that's about five to 10 times better than any podcasts (laughs) I've ever done. Um-
- SPSundar Pichai
Not true, but yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
I'm, I'm, I'm joking at this time, but maybe not, and that changes. You have to evolve because I, on the podcasting front, I'm a fan of podcasts much more than I am a fan of being a host or whatever. If there's great podcasts that are both AIs, I'll just stop doing this podcast, I'll listen to that podcast. But you have to evolve and you have to change, and that makes people really nervous, I think. But it's also really exciting future.
- SPSundar Pichai
The only thing I may say is I do think like in a world in which there are two AI, I think people value and, uh, choose... Just like in chess, you and I would never watch Stockfish 10 or whatever and AlphaGo play against each o- like it would be boring for us to watch. But Magnus Carlsen and Gukesh, that game would be much more fascinating to watch. So it's tough to say, like one way to say is you'll have a lot more content and so you will be listening to AI generated content-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
... because sometimes it's efficient, et cetera. But the premium experiences you value might be a version of like the human essence wherever it comes through. Going back to what we talked earlier about watching Messi dribble the ball. I dunno, one day I am sure a machine will dribble much better than Messi, but I don't know whether it would evoke that same emotion in us. So I think that'll be fascinating to see.
- LFLex Fridman
I think the element of podcasting or audiobooks that is about information gathering-
- SPSundar Pichai
Yeah.
- 26:39 – 34:24
Veo 3 and future of video
- SPSundar Pichai
- LFLex Fridman
I've gotten a chance to get to know Darren Aronofsky well. He's been really leaning in and trying to figure... It's, it's fun to watch a genius who came up before any of this was even remotely possible, he created Pi, one of my favorite movies, and from there just continued to create a really interesting variety of movies. And now he's trying to see how can AI be used to create compelling films. You have people like that, you have people... Uh, I've gotten a chance to know, uh, edgier folks, uh, that are AI first, like Dorr Brothers. Both Aronofsky and Dorr Brothers create at the edge of the Overton Window of society, you know, they push whether it's, uh, sexuality or, or violence. It's edgy like artists are, but it's still classy, doesn't cross that line, uh, whatever that line is. You know, um, Hunter S. Thompson has this line that the, uh, the only way to find out where the edge, where the line is, is by crossing it, uh, and I think for artists, that's true, that's kind of their purpose sometimes, comedians and artists just cross that line. I wonder if you can comment on the weird place that puts Google, (laughs) because Google's line is probably different than some of these artists. What, what's your... How do you think about specifically VO, um, and Flow, about like how to allow artists to do crazy shit, but also, like the responsibility of like, um, not... for it not to be too crazy?
- SPSundar Pichai
It's a great question. Look, part of... You mentioned Darren, uh, you know, he's a clear visionary, right? Part of the reason we work... started working with him early on VO is he's one of those people who's able to kind of see that future, get inspired by it, and kind of showing the way for how creative people can express themselves with it. Look, I think when it comes to allowing artistic free expression, it's one of the most important values in a society, right? I think, uh, you know, artists have always been the ones to push, push boundaries, expand the frontiers of thought, uh, and so, look, I think, I think that's going to be an important value we have. So I think we will provide tools and put it in the hands of artists for them to use and put out their work. Those APIs, I mean, I almost think of that as infrastructure, just like when you provide electricity to people or something, you want them to use it and like you're not thinking about the use cases on top of it, so-
- LFLex Fridman
It's a paintbrush.
- SPSundar Pichai
Yeah. And, and so I think that's how, obviously there have to be some things and, you know, society needs to decide at a fundamental level what's okay, what's not. Uh, we'll be responsible with it, um, but I do think, you know, when it comes to artistic free expression, I think that's one of those values we should work hard to defend.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, I wonder if you can comment on, uh, maybe earlier versions of Gemini were a little bit careful on the kind of things you would be willing to answer. I just want to comment on... I was really surprised and, uh, pleasantly surprised and en- enjoyed the fact that Gemini 2.5 Pro is a lot less careful in a good sense. Don't ask me why, but I've been doing a lot of research on Genghis Khan-
- SPSundar Pichai
(laughs) .
- LFLex Fridman
... and the, uh, the Aztecs, uh, so there's a lot of violence there in that history, it's a very violent history. I've also been doing a lot of research on World War I and World War II, and earlier versions of Gemini were very, um, basically this kind of sense, "Are you sure you want to learn about this?" And now it's actually very factual.... objective, uh, talks about very difficult parts of human history, and does so with nuance and depth. It's, it's been really nice. But there's a line there that I guess Google has to kinda walk. I wonder if it's ... And it's also an engineering challenge, how to, how to do that at scale across all the weird queries (laughs) that people ask. What, um ... Can you just speak to that challenge? How do you allow Gemini to say, again, forgive, pardon my French, crazy shit, but not too m- not, not too crazy?
- SPSundar Pichai
I think one of the good insights here has been, as the models are getting more capable, the models are really good at this stuff, right?
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
And so I think in some ways, maybe a year ago, the models weren't fully there, so they would also do stupid things more often. And so, you know, you're trying to handle those edge cases, but then you make a mistake in how you handle those edge cases and it compounds. But I think with 2.5, what we particularly found is once the model's crossed a certain level of intelligence and sophistication, you know, they are, they are able to reason through these nuanced issues-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
... pretty well, and I think users really want that, right? Like, you know, uh, you want as much access to the raw model as possible, right? But I think it's a great area to think about, like, you know, over time, you know, we should allow more and more closer access to it, maybe l- ma- o- obviously let people custom prompts if they wanted to, and, like, you know, and, you know, experiment with it, et cetera. Uh, I, I think that's an important direction. But look, the first principles we wanna think about it is, you know, from a scientific standpoint, like, making sure the models ... And I'm saying scientific in the sense of, like, how you would approach math or physics or something-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
... like that. From first principles, having the models reason about the world, be nuanced, et cetera, uh, you know, from the ground up is the right way to build these things, right? Not, like, some subset of humans kinda hard coding things on top of it. Uh, so I think it's the direction we've been taking, and I think you'll see us continue to push in that direction.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. I actually asked ... Uh, I gave these notes. I took extensive notes and I (laughs) gave them to Gemini and said, "Can you ask a novel question that's not in these notes?" And it wrote me ... Gemini continues to really surprise me, really surprise me. It's been really beautiful. It's an incredible model. Uh, the, the question its, it, it generated was, "You," meaning Sundar, "told the world Gemini's churning out 480 trillion tokens a month. Uh, what's the most life-changing five-word sentence hiding in that haystack?" That's a Gemini question.
- SPSundar Pichai
(laughs) .
- LFLex Fridman
But it made me, it gave me a sense ... I don't think you can answer that. But it gave me, it made, it woke me up to, like, all of these tokens are providing little aha moments for people across the globe. So that's like learning. That those tokens are ... People are curious, they ask a question, and they find something out, and it truly could be life changing.
- SPSundar Pichai
Oh, it is. I ... Look, you know, I had the same feeling about Search many, many years ago. You, y- you know, you, you definitely ... You know, these tokens per month has, like, grown 50 times in the last 12 months, so-
- LFLex Fridman
Is that accurate, by the way, the four-
- SPSundar Pichai
Yeah, it is.
- LFLex Fridman
Okay. (laughs)
- SPSundar Pichai
You know? It is, you know, it is, it is-
- LFLex Fridman
Okay. Good (laughs) .
- SPSundar Pichai
... accurate. I'm glad it got it right. Um, but, you know, that number was 9.7 trillion tokens per month 12 months ago, right? It's gone, gone up to 480. Uh, you know, it's a 50X increase. So there's no limit to human cur- curiosity, uh, and I think it's, it's one of those moments. Uh, maybe, I don't think it is there today, but maybe one day there's a five-word phrase which says what the actual universe is or something like that (laughs) and something very meaningful, but I don't think we are quite there yet.
- 34:24 – 38:09
Scaling laws
- SPSundar Pichai
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think the scaling laws are holding strong on, um ... There's a lot of ways to describe the scaling laws for AI, but on the pre-training, on the post-training fronts. So the flip side of that, do you anticipate AI progress will hit a wall? Is there a wall?
- SPSundar Pichai
You know, it's a cherished micro kitchen conversation.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Yes.
- SPSundar Pichai
Once in a while, I have it that, you know, like, when Demis is visiting, or, you know, if Demis, Koray, Geoff, Noam, Sergey, a bunch of our people, like-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- SPSundar Pichai
... you know, we sit and, uh, you know, sh- uh, uh, you know, talk about this, right? And, um, look, I ... We see a lot of headroom ahead, right? I think, uh, we've been able to optimize and improve on all fronts, right? Uh, pre-training, post-training, test time compute, tool use, right, over time, making these more agentic. So getting these models to be more general world models in that direction, like v03. Uh, you know, the physics understanding is dramatically better than what, like, the v01 or something like that was. So you kind of see on all those dimensions. I, I feel, you know, progress is very obvious to see, and I feel like there is significant headroom. More importantly, you know, I'm fortunate to work with some of the best researchers on the planet (laughs) , right? They think, uh, there is more headroom to be had here. Uh, and so I think we have an exciting trajectory ahead. It's tougher to say, you know ... Each year, I sit and say, "Okay, we are gonna throw 10X more compute over the course of next year at it, and, like, will we see progress?" Sitting here today, I feel like the year ahead will have a lot of progress.
- LFLex Fridman
And do you feel any limitations like, uh, that, uh, the bottlenecks compute-limited, uh, data-limited, idea-limited. Do you feel any of those limitations? Or is it full steam ahead on all fronts?
- SPSundar Pichai
I think it's compute-limited in this sense, right? Like, you know, we can all ... Part of the reason you've seen us do Flash, NanoFlash and Pro models-... but not an Ultra model. It's like for each generation, we feel like we've been able to get the Pro model at, like, I don't know, 80, 90% of Ultra's capability. But a Ultra would be a, a lot more, uh, like slow and a lot more expensive to sell. But what we've been able to do is to go to the next generation and make the next generation's Pro as good as the previous generation's Ultra-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- SPSundar Pichai
... but be able to serve it in a way that it's fast and you can use it and so on. So I do think scaling laws are working, but it's tough to get at any given time the models we all use the most. This may be, like, a few months behind the maximum capability we can deliver, right? Because that won't be the fastest, easiest to use, et cetera.
- LFLex Fridman
Also, that's in terms of intelligence. It becomes harder and harder to measure, uh, "performance" in quotes because, you know, you could argue Gemini Flash is much more impactful than Pro just because of the latency, it's super intelligent already. I mean, sometimes, like, latency is, uh, maybe more important than intelligence (laughs) , especially when the intelligence is just a little bit less in Flash. Not... It's still incredibly smart model.
- SPSundar Pichai
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And so you, you have to now start measuring impact and then it feels like benchmarks are less and less capable of capturing the intelligence of models, the effectiveness of models, the usefulness, the real world usefulness of models. Uh, another kitchen question.
- 38:09 – 44:33
AGI and ASI
- LFLex Fridman
So lots of folks are talking about, uh, timelines for AGI or ASI, artificial super intelligence. So AGI, loosely defined, is basically human expert level at a lot of the main fields of pursuit for humans. And ASI is what AGI becomes presumably quickly by being able to self-improve, so becoming far superior in intelligence across all these disciplines in humans. When do you think we'll have AGI? Is 2030 a possibility?
- SPSundar Pichai
Uh, there's one other term we should throw in there. I don't know who, who used it first. Maybe Karpathy did. AJI. Have you, have you heard AJI?
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
The artificial jagged intelligence. Sometimes feels that way, right? Both that are progress and you see what they can do, and then, like, you can trivially find they make numeric letters or, like, you know, counting R's in strawberry or something which seems to trip up most models or whatever it is, right? So, uh, so maybe we should throw that term in there. I, I feel like we are in the AJI phase where, like, dramatic progress, some things don't work well, but overall, you know, you're seeing, uh, lots of progress. But if your question is will, will it happen by 2030, look, we constantly move the line of what it means to be AGI. There are moments today, you know, like sitting in a Waymo in a San Francisco street with all the crowds and the people and kinda work its way through, I see glimpses of it there. The car is sometimes kinda impatient, trying to work its way, uh, using Astra, like in Gemini Live or seeing, uh, you know, a- asking questions about the world.
- LFLex Fridman
What's this skinny building doing in my neighborhood?
- NANarrator
It's a streetlight, not a building.
- SPSundar Pichai
You, you see glimpses. That's why I use the word AJI because then you see stuff which obviously, you know, we are far from AGI too. So you have both experiences simultaneously happening to you. I'll answer your question, but I'll also throw out this. I almost feel the term doesn't matter. What I know is by 2030, there'll be such dramatic progress. We'll be dealing with the consequences of that progress, both the positives, uh, both the positive externalities and the negative externalities that come with it in a big way by 2030. So that I strongly feel, right? Whatever we may be arguing about the term or maybe Gemini can answer what that moment is in time in 2030, but I think the progress will be dramatic, right? So that I believe in. Will the AI think it has reached AGI by 2030? I would say we will just fall short of that timeline, right? So I think it'll take a bit longer. It's amazing in the early days of Google DeepMind in 2010, they talked about a 20-year timeframe to achieve, uh, AGI. So which is, which is kind of fascinating to see. But, you know, I... For me the whole thing, seeing what Google Brain did in 2012 and when we acquired DeepMind in 2014, uh, right close to where we are sitting in 2012, you know, Jeff Dean showed the image of when the neural networks could recognize, uh, a picture of a cat, right? And identify it. You know, this is the early versions of Brain, right? And so, you know, we all talked about couple decades. I don't think we'll quite get there by 2030. So my sense is it's slightly after that. But I, I would stress it doesn't matter, like what the definition is because you will have mind-blowing progress on many dimensions. Maybe AI can create videos. We have to figure out as a society how do we... We need some system by which we all agree that this is AI generated and we have to disclose it in a certain way because how do you distinguish reality otherwise?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, there's so many interesting things you said. So first of all, just looking back at this recent, now feels like distant history, uh, with Google Brain. I mean, that was before TensorFlow, before TensorFlow was made public and open sourced. So the tooling matters too combined with GitHub ability to share code. Then you have the ideas of attention transformers and the diffusion now. And then, uh, there might be a new idea that seems simple in retrospect but will change everything, and that could be the post-training, the inference time innovations. And I think ShadCN tweeted that Google is just one great UI from completely winning the AI race (laughs) . Meaning, like-... UI is a huge part of it. Like, how that intelligence, uh, uh, I think Logan Cooper project likes to talk about this right now as an LLM, but it become, like when is it going to become a system, where you're sh- talking about shipping systems versus shipping a particular model. Yeah, it, that matters too. How the system is, um, manifest itself and how it presents itself to the world. That really, really matters.
- SPSundar Pichai
Oh, hugely so. There are simple UI innovations which have changed the world, right? And, uh, I absolutely think so. Um, we will see a lot more progress in the next couple of years as I think AI itself, uh, on a self-improving track for UI itself. Like, you know, today-
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- SPSundar Pichai
... we are, like constraining the models, the models can't quite express themselves in terms of the UI to, to people. Um, but that is, uh, like, you know, if you think about it, we've kind of boxed them in that way. But given these models can code, uh, you know, they should be able to write the best interfaces to express their ideas-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
... over time, right?
- LFLex Fridman
That is incredible idea. So the API is already open. So (laughs) you, you create a really nice agentic system that continuously improves the way you can be talking to an AI.
- SPSundar Pichai
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
But it, a lot of that is in the interface, and then, of course, the incredible multimodal aspect of the interface that Google's been pushing.
- SPSundar Pichai
These models are natively multimodal. They can easily take content from any format, put it in any format. They can write a good user interface. They probably understand your preferences better than over time. Like, you know, and so, so all this is like the evolution ahead, right? And so, um, that goes back to where we started the conversation, right? Like, I think there'll be dramatic evolutions in the years
- 44:33 – 51:24
P(doom)
- SPSundar Pichai
ahead.
- LFLex Fridman
Maybe one more kitchen question. Uh, this, even, even further ridiculous concept of PDOOM. So the philosophically minded folks in the AI community think about the probability that AGI and then ASI might destroy all of human civilization. I would say my PDOOM is about 10%. Do you ever think about this kind of long-term threat of ASI, and what would your PDOOM be?
- SPSundar Pichai
Look, I mean, for sure. Look, I've, uh, both been, uh, very excited about AI, uh, but I've always felt, uh, this is a technology, you know, we have to actively think about the risks and work very, very hard to harness it in a way that it, it all works out well. Um, on the PDOOM question, look, it's, uh, you know, won't surprise you to say that's probably another micro kitchen conversation that pops up once in a while, right? And given how powerful the technology is, maybe stepping back, you know, when you're running a large organization, if you can kinda align the incentives of the organization, you can achieve pretty much anything, right? Like, you know, if you can get kind of people all marching in towards like a goal, uh, in a very focused way, in a mission-driven way, you can pretty much achieve anything. But it's very tough to organize all of humanity that way. But I think if PDOOM is actually high, at some point all of humanity is like aligned and making sure that's not the case, right? And so we'll actually make more progress against it, I think. So the irony is, so there is a self-modulating aspect there. Like, I think if humanity collectively puts their mind to solving a problem, whatever it is, I think we can get there. So because of that, you know, I, I w- I, I, I think I'm optimistic on the PDOOM scenarios, but that doesn't mean... I think the underlying risk is actually pretty high. But I'm, uh, you know, I have a lot of faith in humanity kind of rising up to the, to meet that moment.
- LFLex Fridman
That's really, really well put. I mean, as the threat becomes more concrete and real, humans do really come together and get their shit together. Well, the other thing I think people don't often talk about is probability of doom without AI. So there's all these other ways that humans can destroy themselves and it's very possible, at least I believe so, that AI will help us become smarter, kinder to each other, uh, more efficient. Uh, it, it'll help more parts of the world flourish where it would be less resource constrained, which is often the source of military conflict and tensions and so on. So we al- also have to load into that what's the PDOOM without AI? With AI, PDOOM with AI and PDOOM without AI, 'cause it's very possible that AI will be the thing that saves us, saves human civilizations from all the other threats.
- SPSundar Pichai
I agree with you. I think, I think it's insightful. Uh, look, I felt like to make progress on some of the toughest problems would be good to have AI like pair helping you, right? And, and like, you know, so that resonates with me for sure, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Quick pause, bathroom break?
- SPSundar Pichai
Uh, you know what? (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- SPSundar Pichai
Yeah, let's do that.
- LFLex Fridman
If NotebookLM was the same comp- like what I saw today with Beam, if it was compelling in the same kind of way-
- SPSundar Pichai
How was Beam?
- NANarrator
It was good.
- LFLex Fridman
Blew my mind. It was incredible. I didn't think it's possible. I didn't think it was possible before.
- SPSundar Pichai
One day my hope is like, can you imagine like the US president and the Chinese president being able to do something like Beam with the LiveMe translation working well, so they're both sitting and talking, make progress a bit more. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, yeah, just, uh, for people listening, we took a quick bathroom break and now we're talking about the demo I did. We'll probably post it somewhere somehow, maybe here. The, uh, I got a chance to experience Beam and it was, uh, i- it's hard to, it's hard to describe it in words how real it felt with just, what is it, six cameras.It's incredible, it's incredible.
- SPSundar Pichai
It's, it's one of the toughest products of... You can't quite describe it to people. Even when we show i- it in slides, et cetera, like you don't know w- what it is. You have to kind of experience it.
- LFLex Fridman
On the world leaders front, um, politics, geopolitics, there, there's something really special, again with studying World War II and, uh, how much could've been saved if Chamberlain met Stalin in person. And I sometimes also struggle explaining to people, articulating why I believe meeting in person for world leaders is powerful. It just seems naive to say that. But there is something there in person and with Beam, I, I felt that same thing and then I'm unable to explain. All I kept doing was what like a child does-
- SPSundar Pichai
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
... "You look real." (laughs) You know? And I mean, I don't know if that makes meetings more productive or so on, but it certainly makes them more, uh... The s- the same reason you wanna show up to work versus remote sometimes, that human connection. I don't know what that is. It's hard to b- it's hard to put into words. Um, there's some, there's something beautiful about great teams collaborating on a thing that's, uh, that's n- not captured by the productivity of that team or by whatever on paper. There's, some of the most beautiful moments you experience in life is at work. Pursuing a difficult thing together for many months-
- SPSundar Pichai
Oh.
- LFLex Fridman
... there's nothing like it.
- SPSundar Pichai
You're in the trenches and-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- SPSundar Pichai
... yeah, you do form bonds that way, for sure.
- LFLex Fridman
And to be able to do that, like somewhat, uh, remotely in that same personal touch, I don't know, that's a deeply fulfilling thing. I know a lot of peop- I, I personally hate meetings because a significant percent of meetings when done, uh, poorly are, aren't, don't, don't serve a clear purpose. So but that's a meeting problem, that's not a communication problem. If you can improve the communication for the meetings that are useful, that's just incredible. So yeah, I was blown away by the great engineering behind it. And then we g- we get to see what impact that has that's really interesting, but just incredible engineering. Really impressive.
- SPSundar Pichai
Oh, it is, and obviously we'll work hard over the years to make it more and more accessible. But yeah, even on a personal front outside of work meetings, you know, a grandmother who's far away from her grandchild and being able to, you know, have that kind of an interaction, right? All that I think will end up being very mean- nothing substitutes being in person, but you know, it's not always possible. You know, you could be a soldier deployed try- trying to talk to your loved ones. So I think, uh, you know, so that's what inspires us.
- 51:24 – 1:02:32
Toughest leadership decisions
- SPSundar Pichai
- LFLex Fridman
When you and I hung out last year and took a walk, I remember, I don't think we talked about this but, (laughs) but I remember, uh, you know, outside of that seeing dozens of articles written by analysts and experts and so on that, um, Sundar Pichai should step down because the perception was that Google was definitively losing the AI race, has lost its magic touch in the, uh, rapidly evolving, uh, technological, uh, landscape. And now a year later, it's crazy, you showed this plot of all the things that were shipped over the past year. It's incredible. And Gemini Pro is winning across many benchmarks and products, uh, as we sit here today. So take me through that experience when there's all these articles saying, "You're the wrong guy to lead Google through this. Google is lost. It's done. It's over." To today where Google is winning again. What were some low points during that time?
- SPSundar Pichai
Look, I, um... I mean, lots to unpack. Um, you know, obviously, like, I mean, the m- the main bet I made as a CEO was to really, uh, you know, make sure the company was approaching everything in a AI first way, really, you know, setting ourselves up to develop AGI responsibly, right? And, and, and make sure we're putting out products, uh, which, which embodies that, things that are very, very useful for people. So look, I, I knew even through moments like that last year, uh, you know, I had a good sense of what we were building internally, right? So I'd already made, you know, many important decisions, you know, bringing together teams of the caliber of Brain and DeepMind and setting up Google DeepMind. There were things like we made the decision to invest in TPUs 10 years ago. So we knew we were scaling up and building big models. Anytime you're in a situation like that, a few aspects. Uh, I'm good at tuning out noise, right? Separating signal from noise. Do you scuba dive? Like have you-
- LFLex Fridman
No.
- SPSundar Pichai
No. You know, it's amazing like I'm not good at it, but I've done it a few times, but, but sometimes you jump in the ocean, it's so choppy, but you go down one feet under, it's the calmest thing in the entire, uh, universe, right? So there's a version of that, right? Like, you know, uh, running Google, you know, you may as well be coaching Barcelona or Real Madrid, right?
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- SPSundar Pichai
Like, you know?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- SPSundar Pichai
You have a bad season. So there are aspects to that. But you know, like, look, I, uh, I'm good at tuning out the noise. I do watch out for signals. You know, it's important to separate the signal from the noise. So there are good people sometimes making good points outside so you wanna listen to it, you wanna take that feedback in. But, you know, internally, like, you know, you're making a set of consequential decisions, right? As leaders, you're making a lot of decisions, many of them are like inconsequential.... like, it feels like, but over time you learn that. Most of the decisions you're making on a day-to-day basis doesn't matter. Like, you have to make them and you're making them just to keep things moving, but you have to make a few consequential decisions, right? And, and, uh, we had set up the right teams, right leaders, we had world-class researchers, we, uh, were training Gemini. Internally, there are factors which were, for example, outside people may not have appreciated. I mean, T-TPUs are amazing, but we had to ramp up TPUs too. That took time, right? And, and, uh, to scale actually having enough TPUs to get the compute needed. But I could see internally the trajectory we were on, and, and, be, you know, I was so excited internally about the possibility. To me, this moment felt like one of the biggest opportunities ahead for us as a company.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
That the opportunity space ahead over the next decade, next 20 years is bigger than what has happened in the past. Um, and I thought we were set up, like, better than most companies in the world to go, uh, realize that vision.
- LFLex Fridman
I mean, you had to make some consequential, bold decisions. Like, you mentioned the merger of DeepMind and Brain. Uh, maybe it's my perspective just knowing humans, I'm sure there's a lot of egos involved, it's very difficult to merge teams, and I'm sure there were some hard decisions to be made. Can you take me through your process of how you think through that? Do you go to pull the trigger and make that decision? Maybe what were some painful points? How do you navigate those turbulent waters?
- SPSundar Pichai
Look, we were fortunate to have two world-class teams. Uh, but you're right, like, it's like somebody coming and telling to you, "Take Stanford and MIT-"
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- SPSundar Pichai
"... and then put them together and create a great department," right? And, and easier said than done. Um, but we are fortunate, you know, phenomenal teams, both had their strengths, you know, but they were run very differently, right? Like, uh, Brain was kind of a lot of diverse projects, bottoms up, and out of it came a lot of important research breakthroughs. DeepMind at the time had a strong vision of how you wanna build AGI, and so they were pursuing their direction. But I think through those moments, luckily tapping into, um, you know, Geoff had expressed a desire to be more, to go back to more of a scientific-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
... individual contributor roots, you know? He felt like management was taking up too much of his time, uh, and, and, and Demis naturally, I think, uh, you know, uh, was running DeepMind and w- was a natural choice there. But I think it was, you're right, you know, it took us a while to bring the teams together, credit to Demis, Geoff, Koray, all the great people there. They worked super hard to combine the best of both worlds when you set up that team. A few sleepless nights here and there as we put that thing together. We were patient in how we did it, so that it works well for the long term, right? And, and some of that in that moment, I think, yes, with things moving fast, uh, I think you definitely, uh, felt the pressure, but I think we pulled off that, uh, transition well, and, you know, I think, I think, uh, you know, they've obviously, uh, doing incredible work and there's a lot more incredible things I heard coming from them.
- LFLex Fridman
Like we talked about, you have a very calm, even-tempered, respectful demeanor. During that time, whether it's the merger or just dealing with the noise, uh, did, w- were there times where frustration boiled over? Like, did you, uh, have to go a bit more intense on everybody than you usually would?
- SPSundar Pichai
Probably, uh, you know, probably, right? I think, I think in the sense that, you know, there was a moment where we were all driving hard, but when you're in the trenches working with passion, you're gonna have days, right? You disagree, you argue, but, like, all that, I mean, just part of the course of working intensely, right? And, uh, you know, at the end of the day, all of us are doing what we are doing because, uh, the, the impact it can have, we are motivated by it. It's like, uh, you know, for many of us, this has been a long-term, uh, journey, and so it's been super exciting. The positive moments far outweigh the kind of stressful moments. Just early this year, I had a chance to celebrate back-to-back over two days, like, uh, you know, Nobel Prize for Geoff Hinton, and the next day a, a Nobel Prize for, uh, Demis and John Jumper. You know, y- you work with people like that, all that is super inspiring.
- LFLex Fridman
Is there something, like, with you where you had to, like, put your foot down maybe with less, uh, versus more, or, like, "I'm the CEO and we're ma- we're doing this"?
- SPSundar Pichai
To my earlier point about consequential decisions you make, there are decisions you make people can disagree pretty vehemently, and, but at some point, like, you know, you make a clear decision and you, you just ask people to commit, right? Like, you know, you can disagree, but it's time to disagree and commit-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- SPSundar Pichai
... so that we can get moving. And whether it's put- putting the foot down or, you know, like, you know, it's, it's a natural part of what all of us have to do, and, you know, I think you can do that calmly and be very firm in the direction you are making the decision. And I think if you're clear, actually people over time respect that, right? Like, you know, if you can make decisions with clarity, I find it very effective in meetings where you're making such decisions to hear everyone out.I think it's important, when you can, to hear everyone out. Sometimes what you're hearing actually influences how you think about and you're wrestling with it and making a decision. Sometimes you have a clear conviction and you state so, "Look, I, uh, I, you know, this is how I feel and, you know, this is my conviction," and you kind of place the bet and you move on.
- LFLex Fridman
Are there big decisions like that? I'm kind of intuitively assume the merger was the big one.
- SPSundar Pichai
I think that was a very important decision, uh, you know, for, for the company to, to meet the moment. I think we had to make sure we were, uh, we were doing that and doing that well. I think that was a consequential decision. There were many other things. We set up a AI infrastructure team. Like, to really go meet the moment, to scale up the compute we needed to, and really brought teams from disparate parts of the company, kinda created it to, to move forward. Um, you know, bringing people, like getting people to kind of work together physically, both in London with DeepMind, and what we call Gradient Canopy, which is where the Mountain View Google DeepMind teams are. But one of my favorite moments is, I routinely walk, uh, like multiple times per week to the Gradient Canopy building where our top researchers are working on the models. Sergey is often there amongst them, right?
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- SPSundar Pichai
Like, you know, just, you know, loo- looking at, uh, you know, getting an update on the models, seeing the loss curves, so all that. I think that cultural part of getting the teams together back with that energy I think ended up playing a big role too.
- 1:02:32 – 1:15:22
AI mode vs Google Search
- SPSundar Pichai
- LFLex Fridman
What about the decision to recently add AI mode? So Google Search is the, uh, as they say, the front page of the internet. It's, like, a legendary minimalist thing, with 10 blue links. Like, that's, when people think internet, they think that page. And now you're starting to mess with that. So the AI mode, which is a separate tab, and then integrating AI in the results. I'm sure there were some battles in meetings on that one.
- SPSundar Pichai
Look, uh, it, it, you know, in some ways when mobile came, you know, people wanted answers to more questions. So we're kind of constantly evolving it. But you're right, this moment, you know, that evolution, because the underlying technology is becoming much more capable, you know, you can have AI give a lot of context, you know. But one of our important design goals though is when you come to Google Search, you're going to get a lot of context, but you're gonna go and find a lot of things out on the web. So that will be true in AI mode, in AI overviews, and so on. But I think to our earlier conversation, we are still giving you access to links, but think of the AI as a layer which is giving you context, summary, maybe even in AI mode you can have a dialogue with it back and forth-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
... on your journey, right? And, but through it all, you're kind of learning what's out there in the world. So those core principles don't change, but I think AI mode allows us to push the f- we have our best models there, right? Uh, models which are using search as a deep tool, really for every query you're asking, kind of fanning out, doing multiple searches, like kind of assembling that knowledge in a way so you can go and consume what you want to, right? And, and, and that's how we think about it.
- LFLex Fridman
I got a chance to listen to a bunch of, uh, Elizabeth "Liz" Reed-
- SPSundar Pichai
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... describe this. Two things stood out to me that she mentioned. One thing is what you were talking about is the query fan-out, which I didn't even think about before, uh, is the, the powerful aspect of integrating a bunch of stuff on the web for you in one place. So yes, it provides that context so that you can decide which page to then go on to. The other really, really big thing speaks to the earlier, in terms of productivity multiplier that we're talking about, that she mentioned, was, um, language. So one of the things you don't quite understand is it, through AI mode, you make, for non-English speakers, you make sort of, let's say, English language websites accessible by, in the reasoning process as you try to figure out what you're looking for. Of course, once you show up to a page, you can use a basic translate.
- SPSundar Pichai
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
But that process of figuring it out, if you empathize with a large part of the world that doesn't speak English, their, like, web, uh, is much smaller in that original language. And so it unlocks again, unlocks that huge cognitive capacity there that we don't, you know, you take for granted here with all the bloggers and the journalists writing about AI mode. You forget that this now unlocks, um, 'ca- 'ca- 'cause Gemini is really good at translation.
- SPSundar Pichai
Oh, it is. I mean, uh, the multimodality, the translation, uh, its ability to reason, we are dramatically improving tool use. Uh, like I, and so putting that power in the flow of search, I, I think, look, I'm, I'm super excited with the AI overviews we've, we've seen the product has gotten much better. We, you know, we measure it using all kinds of user metrics. It's obviously driven strong growth of the product. Uh, and, you know, we've been testing AI mode, you know, it's now in the hands of millions of people, and the early metrics are very encouraging. So, look, I, I, I'm excited about this next chap- chapter of Search.
- LFLex Fridman
For people who are not thinking through or are aware of this, so there's the 10 blue links with the AI overview on top that provides a nice summarization. You can expand it.
- SPSundar Pichai
And you have sources and links-
- LFLex Fridman
Links.
- SPSundar Pichai
... now-
- LFLex Fridman
Yep.
- SPSundar Pichai
... embedded. Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
I believe, at least Liz said so, I actually didn't notice it, but there's ads in the AI overview also. I don't think there's ads in AI mode.... uh, when ads in AI mode. So no. (laughs) When, when do you think... I mean, it's... Okay. We should say that in the '90s, I remember the animated GIFs, banner GIFs that take you to some shady websites that have nothing to do with anything. AdSense revolutionized advertisement. It's one of the greatest inventions, um, in, in, in recent history because it allows us, for free, to have access to all these kinds of services. So ads fuel a lot of really powerful services. And at, at its best, it's showing you relevant ads, but also very importantly, in a way that's not super annoying-
- SPSundar Pichai
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... right? In a classy way. So, uh, when do you think it's possible to add ads into AI mode, and what does that look like from a classy, non-annoying perspective?
- SPSundar Pichai
Two things. Early part of AI mode, uh, we'll obviously focus more on the organic experience to make sure we are getting it right. I think the fundamental value of ads are... It enables access to deploy the services to billions of people. Second is ads are... The reason we've always taken ads seriously is we view ads as commercial information, but it's still information, and so we bring the same quality metrics to it. I think with AI mode, to our earlier conversation about... I think AI itself will help us, over time, figure out, you know, the best way to do it. I, I think, given we are giving context around everything, we... I think it'll give us more opportunities to also explain, "Okay, here's some commercial information." Like today as a podcaster, you do that certain spots and you probably figure out what's best in your podcast. Um, I, I think... So, there are aspects of that. But, "I think," you know, I think the underlying need of people value commercial information, businesses are trying to connect to users, all that doesn't change in a AI moment. But look, we will rethink it. You've seen us in YouTube now do a mixture of subscription and ads. Like obviously, you know, we, we are now introducing subscription offerings, uh, across everything. And so as part of that, we can optimi-... The optimization point will end up being a different place as well.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you see a trajectory in the possible future where AI mode completely replaces the 10 blue links plus AI overview?
- SPSundar Pichai
Our current plan is AI mode is going to be there as a separate tab for people who really want to experience that. But it's not yet at the level where our main search page is. But as features work, we'll keep migrating it to the main page. And so you can view it as a continuum. AI mode will offer you the bleeding edge experience. But it'll... Things that work will keep overflowing to AI overviews in the main, main experience.
- LFLex Fridman
And the idea that AI mode will still take you to the web, to the human-created web.
- SPSundar Pichai
Yes. That's gonna be a core design principle for us.
- LFLex Fridman
So really users decide, right? They drive this.
- SPSundar Pichai
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
It's just exciting, a little bit scary that it might change the internet. 'Cause you... Google has been dominating with a very specific look and idea of what it means to have the internet and to... As you move to AI mode, I mean, I... It's just a different experience. Um, I think Liz was talking about, I think you've mentioned that you ask more questions, you ask longer questions.
- SPSundar Pichai
Dramatically different types of questions.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. Like it actually fuels curiosity. Like I think it's... For me, I've been asking just a much larger number of questions of this black box machine, let's say-
- 1:15:22 – 1:30:52
Google Chrome
- SPSundar Pichai
- LFLex Fridman
I have to ask you about Chrome. Uh, I have to say, for me personally, Google Chrome was probably... I don't know. I, I, I'd like to see where I would rank it. But in this temptation, and this is not recency bias, although it might be a little bit, but I think it's up there, top three, maybe the number one piece of software for me of all time. This is incredible. It's really incredible. The browser is our window to the web. And Chrome really continued for many years, but even initially to push the innovation on that front when it was stale, and it continues to challenge, it continues to make it more, uh, performant, so efficient, and just innovate constantly. Uh, and the, the, the Chromium aspect of it. Anyway, (laughs) uh, you were one of the pioneers of Chrome, pushing for it when it was an insane idea. Probably one of the ideas that was criticized and doubted and so on. So can you tell me, um, the story of what it took to push for Chrome? What was your vision?
- SPSundar Pichai
Look, it was, uh, such a dynamic t- time, uh, you know, around 2004, 2005 with AJAX, the web suddenly becoming dynamic. In a matter of few months, Flickr, Gmail, Google Maps, all kind of came into existence, right? Like, the fact that you have an interactive dynamic web, the web was evolving from simple, uh, text pages, simple HTML to rich dynamic applications. But at the same time, you could see the browser was never meant for that world, right? Like, JavaScript execution was super slow. Uh, you know, the browser was far away from being an operating system for that rich modern web which was coming into, uh, coming into place. So that's the opportunity we saw, like, uh, you know, it's an amazing early team. I still remember the day we got a shell on WebKit running and how fast it was. Uh, you know, we had a clear vision for building a browser, like, we wanted to bring core OS principles into the browser, right? Like, so we built a secure browser sandbox, each tab was its own. Not- these things are common now, but at the time, like, it was pretty unique. Uh, we found an amazing team in Aarhus, Denmark, uh, with the leader who built the J- V8, the JavaScript VM.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
Which at the time was 25 times faster than, uh, uh, any other JavaScript VM out there. And by the way, you're right, we open sourced it all and, you know, and put it in Chromium too. But we really thought the web could work much better, um, uh, you know, much faster, and you could be much safer browsing the web. And the name Chrome came was because we literally felt people were like the, the, the chrome of the browser was getting clunkier. We wanted to minimize it. And so that was the origins of the project. Definitely obviously a highly biased person here (laughs) talking about Chrome. Uh, but, uh, you know, it's the most fun I've had, uh, building a product from the ground up, and, you know, it, it was an extraordinary team. Uh, had, uh, my co-founders in the project, like, perfect, so definite fond memories.
- LFLex Fridman
So for people who don't know, Sundar, I mean, it's probably fair to say that y- you're the reason we have Chrome. Yes, I know there's a lot of incredible engineers, but pushing for it inside a company that probably was opposing it-... c- 'cause it's a crazy idea. Because, um, as everybody probably knows, it's incredibly difficult to build a browser.
- SPSundar Pichai
Yeah, look, I, uh, Eric, who was the CEO at the time, I think i- i- it was less that he was opposed to it, he kind of firsthand knew w- what a crazy thing it is to go build a browser. And so he definitely was like, this is, you know, there, there was a crazy aspect to actually wanting to go build a browser. But, um, he was very supportive. Uh, you know, everyone, all the founders were. I think once we started, you know, building something and we could use it and see how much better, from then on, like, you're really tinkering with the product and making it better. It came to life pretty fast.
- LFLex Fridman
What, uh, wisdom do you draw from that? From, um, pushing through on a crazy idea in the early days that ends up being revolutionary? W- what, for future crazy ideas like it?
- SPSundar Pichai
I mean, this, this is something Larry and Sergey articulated clearly. I really interna- internalized this early on, which is, you know, their whole feeling around working on moonshots, like, as a way, when you work on something very ambitious, first of all, it attracts the best people, right? So that's an advantage you get. Number two, because it's so ambitious, you don't have others working on something crazy, so you pretty much have the path to yourselves.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
Right? It's like Waymo and self-driving. Number three, it is, even if you end up quite not accomplishing what you set out to do, and you end up doing 60, 80% of it, it'll end up being a terrific success. So, so, you know, that's advice I would give people, right? I think, like, you know, it's just aiming for big ideas has all these advantages and, and it's risky, but it also has all these advantages which people, I don't think, fully internalize.
- LFLex Fridman
I mean, you mentioned one of the craziest, biggest moonshots, which is Waymo. Uh, it's one when I first saw, over a decade ago, a Waymo vehicle, a Google self-driving car vehicle. I, it was, it was, for me, it was an aha moment for robotics. It made me fall in love with robotics even more than before. It gave me a glimpse into the future. So it's incredible. I'm truly grateful for that project, for what it symbolizes. But it's also a crazy moonshot. 'Cause for, for a long time, Waymo has been just, uh, like you mentioned with scuba diving, just not listening to anybody, just calmly improving the system better and better, more testing, just expanding, uh, the operational domain more and more. First of all, congrats on, uh, 10 million paid robotaxi rides. Uh, what lessons do you take from Waymo about, like, the, the perseverance, the persistence on that project?
- SPSundar Pichai
Well, look, r- really proud of the progress, uh, we've had with Waymo. One of the things I think we were very committed to, you know, the final 20% can look like... I mean, uh, we always say, right, the first 80% is easy, the final 20% takes 80% of the time. I think we definitely, we're, we're working through that phase with Waymo, but I was aware of that, so. But, you know, we knew we were at that stage. We knew we were... the technology gap between... While there were many people, many other self-driving companies, we knew the technology gap was there. In fact, w- at, right at the moment when others were doubting Waymo is when, I don't know, I made the decision to invest more in Waymo, right? Because... (laughs) so, uh, so in some ways it's, it's counterintuitive. Uh, but I think, look, we've always been a deep technology company. And like, uh, you know, Waymo is a version of kind of building a AI robot that works well. And so we get attracted to problems like that, the caliber of the teams there, uh, you know, uh, phenomenal teams. And so, I know you follow the space super closely. Uh, you know, I'm talking to someone who knows the space well. But it was very obvious it's gonna get there. And, you know, there's still more work to do. But we, you know, it's a good example where we always prioritized being ambitious and safety at the same time.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
Right? And, and, and equally committed to both and, and pushed hard. And, you know, c- couldn't be more thrilled with, uh, how it's working, uh, how much people love, love the experience. And it, this year has definitely, we've scaled up a lot, and we'll continue scaling up in '26.
- LFLex Fridman
That said, uh, the competition is heating up. You've been, uh, friendly with Elon, uh, even though technically he's a competitor, but you've been friendly with a lot of tech CEOs in that way, just showing respect towards them and so on. What, what do you think about the robotaxi efforts that Tesla is doing? Do you see it as competition? What do you think? Do you like the competition?
- SPSundar Pichai
We are one of the earliest and biggest backers of SpaceX, uh, (laughs) as Google, uh, right? So, uh, you know, uh, thrilled with, uh, what SpaceX is doing and fortunate to be, uh, investors as a company there, right? And, and look, we don't compete with Tesla directly. We are not making cars, et cetera, right? We are building L4, 5 autonomy. We are building a Waymo driver, which is general purpose and can be used in many settings. They're obviously working on making Tesla self-driving too. I'm just assuming it's a de facto that Elon would succeed in whatever he does.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- SPSundar Pichai
So, like, you know, I, I, you know, that, that, that is, uh, not something I question. So, but I think we are so far from... These spaces are such vast spaces. Like, I, I think, think about transportation, the opportunity space, the Waymo driver is a general purpose technology we can apply in many situations. So you have a vast green space, um-In all future scenarios, I see Tesla doing well and, you know, Waymo doing well.
- LFLex Fridman
Like we mentioned with the Neolithic package, I think it's very possible that in the "AI" package when the history is written, autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars, is like the big thing that changes everything. Imagine over a period of, uh, a decade or two, just a complete transition from manually driven to autonomous. In ways we went- we might not predict, it might change the way we move about the world completely, so that, you know, the possibility of that, and then the second and third order effects, as you're seeing now with Tesla, very possibly you would see some, um... Internally with Alphabet, maybe Waymo, maybe some of the Gemini robotics stuff, it might lead you into the other domains of robotics. Because we should remember that Waymo is a robot.
- SPSundar Pichai
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
It just happens to be on four wheels. So you, you said that the next big thing, we can also throw that in the AI package, the big aha moment might be in the space of robotics. What do you think that, that would look like?
- SPSundar Pichai
Demis and the Google DeepMind team is very focused on Gemini robotics, right?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- SPSundar Pichai
So we are definitely building the underlying models well. So we have a lot of investments there, and I think we're also pretty cutting edge in our, uh, research there. So we are definitely driving that direction. We obviously are thinking about applications in robotics. We'll, we'll kind of work �... We are partnering with a few companies today, but it's an area I would say stay tuned. We are, you know, we are yet to fully articulate our plans outside. But it's an area we are definitely committed to driving a, a lot of progress. But I think AI ends up driving that massive progress in robotics.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- SPSundar Pichai
The field has been held back, uh, uh, for, for a while. I mean, hardware has made extraordinary, uh, progress. Uh, the software had been the challenge, but, you know, with AI now and, uh, and, and the, and the generalized models we are building, uh, you know, we are building these models, getting them to work in the real world in a safe way, in a generalized way, is the frontier we're pushing pretty hard on.
Episode duration: 2:12:04
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode 9V6tWC4CdFQ
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome