Covid-19 has not been easy for everyone. It has taken many lives and our loved ones from us. However, it has emotionally affected the Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, too. He also said India is deeply rooted in him and adds to a big part of who he is.

Recently, In an interview with the BBC at the Google headquarters at Silicon Valley in California, Amol Rajan, the interviewer, covered a wide range of topics, including the threat to free and open internet and also narrowed down two developments that he feels will further revolutionise the world over the next quarter of a century as artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing.

During his interview, apart from many the other questions, Pichai, was also asked when was the last time he cried? He told, “Seeing the morgue trucks parked around the world during COVID. And seeing what’s happened in India over the past month.”

Pichai’s love for India is known widely. In an interview with The Guardian in 2017, Pichai had said that one day he wants to come back to India and wants to “give back”.

When asked about his roots, Pichai said, “I’m an American citizen but, India is deeply within me. So it’s a big part of who I am”. In the course of the interview, he added, he was born in a middle-class family in Tamil Nadu; the various technologies had a transformative effect on him, from the old rotary phone that they were on a waiting list for to the scooter, they all piled on to for a monthly dinner.

“When I was young, every new piece of technology brought new opportunities to learn and grow. But I always had to wait for it to arrive from someplace else. Today, people in India no longer have to wait for technology to come to you. A whole new generation of technologies are happening in India first.” he added.

Apart from this, he also spoke about the controversial issue of tax, he said: “We are one of the world’s largest taxpayers, if you look at on an average over the last decade, we have paid over 20 per cent in taxes. 

“We do pay the majority of our share of taxes in the US, where we originate and where our products are developed. I think there are good conversations and we support the global OECD conversations figuring out what is the right way to allocate taxes, this is beyond a single company to solve,” said Sundar Pichai, Google CEO. 

“The only thing that got me from here to there other than luck was a deep passion for technology, and an open mind,” Pichai said. 

Lastly, he encouraged people to adopt the “two-factor authentication” when it comes to passwords to ensure multiple protections and admitted he is constantly changing his phone to test out new technology.