一位印度裔中层经理如何火箭般晋升为谷歌二号人物

    这个工具栏（虽然听起来既亲切又讨厌）是谷歌与微软的交锋焦点，而皮查伊正是该部门的领导者。到2000年代中期，皮查伊担心微软可能会对IE做出修改，使用户更难甚至完全无法安装谷歌工具栏。2006年10月，IE做出了一次重大升级。就在这段时间前后，皮查伊与公司高层进行了一系列有时甚至很紧张的会谈，强调微软有可能威胁到谷歌的相当一部分业务。据两位当时参会的谷歌高管回忆：“那简直就是一个‘末日方案’。”不久后，谷歌高层就决定开发自己的浏览器Chrome。

    Chrome发布后，皮查伊被提拔为副总裁，后来又升任高级副总裁，负责管理包括谷歌邮箱(Gmail)在内的一系列谷歌应用。同时他也进入了谷歌高层的核心小圈子，成为少数几个直接向拉里•佩奇报告工作的人之一。后来安卓操作系统(Android)的创建人安迪•鲁宾卸任，转而在谷歌内部领导一个秘密的机器人项目，拉里•佩奇便任命皮查伊一并负责安卓业务。

    皮查伊最近一次升职后，拉里•佩奇将把主要精力放在更长期的问题上，而不必每天听太多汇报、处理太多事务。皮查伊现在也将开始负责搜索、地图、Google +、商务、广告产品和基础架构等工作。换句话说，他负责的工作已经涵盖了谷歌绝大多数业务，只有YouTube、Nest、Google X和Calico等半独立的事业部除外。仅仅6年前，他还是几十个名不见经传的谷歌中层干部中的一员，头衔也仅仅是“产品管理总监”而已。

    今年42岁的皮查伊出生于印度南部的泰米尔纳德邦。大学毕业后，他赴美留学，先后获得了斯坦福大学(Stanford University)工程与材料科学的研究生学位，沃顿商学院(Wharton School)MBA学位。在2004年加盟谷歌前，他曾在麦肯锡（McKinsey）和应用材料公司（Applied Materials）工作过。他在公司内外是个人见人爱的人物，同时与佩奇也保持着“温和、随意的亲密关系”。皮查伊将领导谷歌所有产品的消息是在上周透露的，当时前博主、风投家欧姆•马利克就曾在Twitter上发表了一句很多人都赞同的感言：“这证明好人有好报。”（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    The toolbar — as geeky and benign as it sounds — was a key locus of Google’s combat with Microsoft. Pichai was the group’s leader, and by the mid-aughts he worried that Microsoft would modify IE to make it more difficult, or even impossible, for users to install the toolbar. In a series of sometimes tense conversations with top brass around the time of a major update to IE in October 2006, Pichai argued that Microsoft could threaten a sizable chunk of Google’s business, according to two executives who were there. “It was a doomsday-like scenario,” one of the executives says. Shortly after, Google execs gave Chrome the green light.

    After the launch of Chrome, Pichai was promoted to vice president and later to senior vice president. He was given oversight for Google’s apps, including Gmail, and became a member of the exclusive L-team, the small group of executives who report directly to Page. And when Android creator Andy Rubin left to begin a secret robotics project within Google, Page put Pichai in charge of Android as well.

    With his latest promotion, which is meant to allow Page to focus on longer term issues and on pushing products forward without the overhead of having too many direct reports, Pichai will now also oversee products like search, maps, Google+, commerce, ad products and infrastructure. That’s the vast majority of Google’s enterprise, with the exception of YouTube and other semi-independent units like Nest, Google X, and Calico. Just six years ago, he was one of dozens of mid-level Googlers with the title of director of product management.

    Pichai, 42, is a native of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He attended university in India before obtaining a graduate degree in engineering and materials science at Stanford. He earned an MBA at the Wharton School and worked at McKinsey and Applied Materials before joining Google in 2004. He is universally well-liked at Google, where he seems to enjoy a “warm, easygoing rapport” with Page, as well as outside the company. When news of his latest promotion to head all of Google’s products came out last week, venture capitalist Om Malik, a former blogger, tweeted what was in the mind of many: “Proof nice guys can win.”