As Google clocked in its 25th anniversary on September 4This year, CEO Sundar Pichai wrote a heartwarming blog where he recounted a small anecdote from his childhood. He wrote about how when his father received his first email address he waited two long days for him to respond via email. This took place when he was studying in the US.
Pichai began his blog by expressing his gratitude to the users who have been using Google services. He wrote, "This month, Google will celebrate our 25th birthday. It’s a huge privilege to reach this milestone, made possible by the people who use our products and challenge us to keep innovating, the hundreds of thousands of Googlers past and present who have given their talents to building those products, and our partners who believe in our mission as much as we do. It’s a time for some gratitude, and a moment to reflect."
He added , "I’ve been thinking a lot about how far technology has come over the last 25 years and how people adapt to it. Years ago, when I was studying in the U.S., my dad — who was back in India — got his first email address. I was really excited to have a faster (and cheaper) way to communicate with him, so I sent a message. And then I waited…and waited. It was two full days before I got this reply - “Dear Mr. Pichai, email received. All is well.”
He wrote how he was perplexed over the delay and called his father. "Perplexed by the delay and the formality, I called him up to see what happened. He told me that someone at his work had to bring up the email on their office computer, print it out, and then deliver it to him. My dad dictated a response, which the guy wrote down and eventually typed up to send back to me, " he wrote in his blog. He further wrote, "Fast forward to a few months ago: I was with my teenage son. He saw something interesting, took some quick pictures and shared them with his friends. Then they exchanged a few messages, and it all seemed faster than the time it would take me just to pull out my phone."
"How I communicated with my dad all those years ago compared with how my son communicates today shows just how much change can happen across generations. Technology that takes us years to adapt to is second nature for our kids. Ideas my dad marveled at as science fiction — taking a call from your watch, or telling your car to play your favorite song — make my children shrug. Those shrugs give me great hope for the future. They set a high bar for what the next generation will build and invent...and I can’t wait to see what will make their children shrug, too. An essential truth of innovation is that the moment you push the boundary of a technology, it soon goes from extraordinary to ordinary. That’s why Google has never taken our success for granted," he wrote.
