Google CEO recounts the first email his father in India sent him: 'Dear Mr Pichai...'

Confused by the delay and the formality, Sundar Pichai called up his father to see what happened. The senior Pichai told him that...

Ankita Sengupta

September 06, 2023 / 15:14 IST

Sundar Pichai said, '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.' (File photo)

Alphabet's Sundar Pichai recently reminisced about how technology has changed the way we communicate and as Google turned 25 this month, the CEO also recounted the first email his father sent him from India.

"Years ago, when I was studying in the US, 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," Pichai wrote in his blog. "And then I waited...and waited. It was two full days before I got this reply Dear Mr. Pichai, email received. All is well."

Confused by the delay and the formality, the Google CEO called up his father to see what happened. The senior Pichai told him 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," Sundar Pichai wrote.

The Google CEO then shared an incident that had happened a few months ago which highlighted how far we have advanced technically.

"I was with my teenage son," Sundar Pichai said. "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."