Interview with Sundar Pichai on working from home, antitrust, collaborating with Apple and others, how Alphabet's holding company model held up, and more
In an interview, the Google and Alphabet CEO discusses working from home, weathering antitrust probes, and how the company needs to do a better job on diversity.
WiredSteven Levy
Context & Ripple Effects
This Wired sit-down lands four days after Pichai gave another wide-ranging interview to The Verge covering the same terrain — diversity shortcomings, hardware ambitions, the pandemic's hit to ads — making May 2020 a deliberate stretch of CEO-level visibility while regulators circle. The through-line is defensive positioning: Pichai concedes Google "needs to do a better job" on diversity and frames the antitrust probes as something the company weathers rather than welcomes.
The holding-company question matters here because Alphabet's structure is what puts distance between the search cash engine and the bets (hardware, cloud) Pichai keeps defending; months later, the [[a:957786|Wall Street Journal profiled him leading Google precisely as its strengths became antitrust targets]], confirming the scrutiny only intensified.
First-order effects
Pichai's public admission on diversity hands internal critics and employee activists a quotable benchmark against which Google's subsequent hires, reports, and policies get measured.
By discussing collaboration with Apple and others on the record, Google is signaling partnership stability at the platform level even as its distribution deals draw regulator attention.
Second-order effects
The antitrust probes Pichai downplays shape how rivals and partners read Google: Apple's cooperation terms and other companies' willingness to bundle or default to Google services become the visible pressure points investigators probe.
Google's work-from-home posture in this interview feeds into its longer-term workplace reckoning — by late 2021 Pichai was still fielding questions on post-lockdown work alongside an active unionization push among Google employees, showing remote policy and labor organizing converging on management.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds — CEO media tours in 2020, DOJ lawsuits by 2024, search-future defenses in 2025 — Google's response to regulatory pressure becomes a standing communications function rather than episodic crisis management, with Pichai personally serving as the durable face across each phase.
Alphabet's holding structure emerging intact from this period suggests conglomerate separation remains Big Tech's preferred shield between regulated core businesses and experimental ones.
The trend: Big Tech CEOs are shifting from product launches to reputation management as their primary public output, with antitrust scrutiny turning every interview into pre-litigation positioning.
With the future of physical offices increasingly in question, especially in Silicon Valley, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai says he doesn't expect to go entirely remote, nor will Google's existing footprint to change, even if there is some “course correction.” https://www.wired.com/..…
This is the second interview with Google CEO Sundar Pichai since my story on Google's reductions to its diversity and inclusion work last week. He doesn't give interviews often. He also doesn't deny the reporting here https://www.nbcnews.com/... and https://www.wired.com/... http…
NEW: @StevenLevy talked with Google and Alphabet CEO @sundarpichai about working from home (he says Google doesn't plan to go entirely remote), weathering antitrust probes, and how the company needs to do a better job on diversity. The full interview: https://www.wired.com/...
Pity this was such a softball interview. The questions weren't bad, but I expected at least some follow-up to the platitudinous answers. Such is life in the age of access journalism. https://www.wired.com/...
RE: diversity (@NBCNews' @aprilaser report), Mr. Pichai: “...I absolutely accept the premise that we all need to improve. We are all asking ourselves the question what would actually move the needle more and what are the bigger things we need to do.” https://www.wired.com/...
I don't believe anybody at Google knows what ‘Googley’ means, not even Sundar. Googlers I've asked say it's often used as a catch-all for shutting down ideas you don't like — “that's not Googley” https://www.wired.com/... https://twitter.com/...
“diversity moonshot” is such a clever way to quietly get valley execs to sit up straighter. tack on the phrase “non-obvious path” and boom. @WIRED https://www.wired.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Will Google spin-off Waymo? Mr. Pichai: We have no current plans. But just in general in the Alphabet structure, is there a possibility for some bet in the future? Yes, absolutely. Those are the opportunities for us to think about. https://www.wired.com/...
Mr. Pichai remains dedicated to building giant Googleplex in Mountain View and sees good use in the future for California and NYC offices. https://www.wired.com/...
RE: contact tracing app collaboration... Mr. Pichai said he's “committed to finding other opportuniies” with Apple and had the same sense from Tim Cook. https://www.wired.com/...
“In an interview, the Google and Alphabet CEO discusses working from home, weathering antitrust probes, and how the company needs to do a better job on diversity.” Sundar Pichai Says Google Doesn't Plan to Go Entirely Remote https://www.wired.com/... /by @StevenLevy @WIRED
RE: WFH/COVID-19: Mr. Pichai said Google will adapt but too early to tell. Early on some things are “working well” but curious what'll happen 3-6 months out. “We are going to have research, surveys, learn from data, learn what works.” https://www.wired.com/...