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Since Pichai, 51, became CEO of Google in 2015, the stock has surged more than 400%, significantly outperforming the S& and Nasdaq over the same period. It hit a fresh record on Friday after the company’s first-quarter earnings beat expectations, boosted by AI-driven growth in its cloud computing unit.It also introduced a dividend for the first time in its history.
That rally, alongside hefty stock awards that have made him one of the world’s highest-paid executives, has boosted Pichai’s fortune to nearly $1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Pichai was selected in 2015 by co-founder Larry Page to be Google’s CEO, while Page became CEO of newly-formed holding company Alphabet. Pichai took over that role as well in 2019 when Page and co-founder Sergey Brin — two of the 10 richest people in the world, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index — stepped back from day-to-day management.
In his time as CEO, Pichai has overseen a major expansion of the company’s product line with the addition of Google Assistant, Google Home, Google Pixel, Google Workspace and more. He was also an early adopter of AI, calling it a “once-in-a-generation opportunity”.
