Sundar Pichai: A leadership case study | Jocko Willink and Lex Fridman

Lex Fridman Podcast full episode: • Jocko Willink: War, Le...
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GUEST BIO:
Jocko Willink is a retired Navy SEAL, co-author of Extreme Ownership, and host of Jocko Podcast.
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[@VARMOT123]

for me ,satya nadella is the one of the best CEOs in the world . he literally changed the course of microsoft forever under his leadership

[@EventualRoads]

I equally respect both Sundar and Nadella. But the thing I like about Nadella is that he brings a lot of passion and energy.

[@vish5030]

Didn't Ask.

[@animesdaily1018]

Golti

[@vladis1av54]

Alex finished his first question: 2:09

[@smohan123]

How someone could be that on point with the answer to a question that was completely out of the blue is beyond me

[@rcwalsh]

That was an amazing setup / question from Lex and then a fantastic answer from Jocko.

[@ashishtorq]

Technology used for the making of "Greatest Events of WWII in Color" = Technology used to bring color to Jocko Willink's footage

[@rameshshinde1193]

डोक्यावर पडला का बे झाटू?

[@ScottOrd]

Really enjoying the clips from this podcast - "Leadership Capital" is such a great term, especially in the current financial climate 😎

[@IceColdProfessional]

I coined the term. If you use it again you owe me $1.23/use.

[@rishikeshjha1357]

It's not just about Wartime and Peacetime leaders but also about the vision and believing in it. Steve Jobs and Elon Musk who were founders of their respective companies and have a vision for their company, they are more protective about their vision making them more responsive and aggressive to threats and competitions while Sundar Pichai bought into the vision of Google and he understands it and work towards it without feeling an urge to be aggressive.

[@ExMuslimRev11]

It’s called Design Thinking, Lex. Empathetically and intently listening all the voices and then let the decisions fall out.

[@MaxMonsterGaming]

Same with Microsoft's Satya Nadella.

[@karthik3685]

The thing about Sundar isn't just that he is compassionate, kind and liked by almost everyone. He is also incisive when it comes to ideas - he can poke holes through all kinds of ideas without trying to put the person with the idea down. He is among the smartest people in any room, but that's not his goal - his goal is to bring together ideas of the other smart people in the room. Anyone can be a yes-man/woman.

[@rakeshhotker4762]

Sundar is not a founder CEO that's the main difference between Elon,jobs and Sundar, Satya,Shantanu narayan

[@labkey7995]

elon is not a founder

[@adityyuh]

@@labkey7995 he is of spacex and a very early majority investor in Tesla. Basically shaped and saved the company, I'd say he's almost a founder

[@pravaalreddy2050]

@@adityyuh nah elon never saved the company. His company is still running at a loss. He is just getting funds from the government because the valuation is damn high because of elon fanboys. We could never say anything conclusively until the Giga factory is done.

[@mahavakyas002]

@@labkey7995 plus his parents owned a mine in zambia lol

[@VARMOT123]

shantanu and satya are different from sundar though . both of them improved the companies drastically when it seemed like companies are plateauing

[@Rishabh-Dev]

He is a great listener indeed. 🙏

[@jetpark3743]

add Satya Nadella and Ajay Banga. AMAZING CEOS

[@vivek2319]

"He wants to hear all the voices" --> Sign of a leader

[@AbcDino843]

I don't know enough about Sundar Pichai, but if his leadership style is as described here, I am very familiar with that approach. I call that "no leadership", he's a bureaucrat whose job is to prevent company from moving too quickly in any direction.

[@vivek27789]

He is more of a big scale manager than a leader to be honest...but my assessment can be wrong though.

[@rahuldeo1203]

reminds me of how leadership is described in tao te ching

[@gregorylent]

has to be a tough guy, dealing with the cia, other tech cos, usa govt, china, etc

[@gistunplugged2593]

Thank you for the insight

[@ShubhamSinghYoutube]

Lex, could you call Ray Dalio to your podcast.

[@soormie]

He already has in 2019

[@aadxb9493]

Good call Joko is right..

[@chimak111]

What about how James Damore was dealt with?

[@_____case]

"Pure Emotional Intelligence"

[@josidasilva5515]

A good leader sets the team in the right direction, provides the basic needs to achieve the objective and above, manages attitudes to keep the team focused.

[@giabawa3968]

Not revealing how smart you are is the smartest thing

[@misterhat6395]

How many energy drinks did Lex consume during this podcast?

[@JM-ip7hf]

Not enough

[@dwightdraper2767]

Yes

[@mdasad7791]

One less than to many

[@paddyland74]

I am reading "Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don't" book from "L. David Marquet", and it sums it up for me.

[@vish5030]

For making chrome I will give him that.

[@jakk2528]

He loves us to the point of censorship! Maybe good publicity for the guy is not such a good idea. Too much love maybe! Thank you for your podcasts with so much interesting people. And thank you for being yourself at all times!

[@unluckytourist]

Leading a company that's already one of the most powerful entities on earth that every person in the field would kill to work for isn't really that interesting. It's sort of the opposite of a Jobs who built something from nothing and then took something that had collapsed and brought it back to the top.

[@devilmathews]

It takes talent and hard work to lead a company like Google. You are simply criticizing him because you are jealous of his achievements.

[@nesne2167]

@@devilmathews Or because he has a legit critique. The guy has talent and is hard working but that doesn't make him interesting. Steve Jobs was an asshole but was interesting. This guy is a steward of a giant quase monopoly.

[@einzelganger7744]

Jobs didn't do nothing. Wozniak was the real deal. Also you won't be able to handle the stress and the intellect required to run the largest company on earth and pichai has done an impressive job as a CEO. He's a great leader for sure maybe not so great an innovator.

[@ramasai1475]

@@nesne2167 that's what laymen like us think. There is so much complex shit and stress in the role but he is doing such a good job that Google keeps retaining him - but its kind of boring to a spectator who does not know what's going on inside the company with all their complex products and services.

[@mrgyani]

Don't be so sure.. Google is already a bureaucracy. They may have the TOP talent and may still ossify as a company.. And if that happens, he (Sundar) would be to blame. What is to be seen is what & how Google keep the growth going. Microsoft has successfully done that under Nadella who is a similar type of quiet leader who nobody was sure about until he delivered results. I belive Google must be having AI related stuff and other plans up it's sleeve, and then we will find out what Google under him was upto. And how well it performed. If the company's founders put him there and trust him, there must be something to it. It makes absolutely ZERO difference if the rest of the world finds him 'exciting' or not.

[@vedicwarriorOriginal]

Hmmm... in this video, I learnt more from Lex than from Jocko. 😁👍

[@vignesh.n7744]

Indians be like : we have been summoned

[@Prabhakaran-td9gd]

Man this is an overused comment... of the 5 million words in English couldn't you string 5 of them to make an original comment?

[@Prabhakaran-td9gd]

@@anant8884 I know comedy is subjective but it takes significant brain damage to find something as overused as that to be funny to someone. But hey, you do you🍻

[@samiehessi8163]

roger that boss, we got it ;)

[@chinmay6249]

I think dictatorial leadership has a place and time. It's when the deadline or war situation is absolutely close. When there is no time for suggestions, the best and most direct messages need to be sent in order to fix the critical situation and/ defend the objective or destroy the target. If you only have 2 minutes to evac a hot zone, there is no time for long format discussion and hoping that little nudges will work. It needs to be direct and immediate. Especially if lives are at steak. .

[@skepticstoic]

Dichotomy is the phrase to use even with jobs and musk. Jobs empathized with customer empowerment. Fear was consequences when you deviated from it. Musk empathic to engineering first principles. Convolution and deviation from it resulted in strict guidance.

[@giabawa3968]

This is how most eastern leaders lead… we don’t believe in being aggressive is the way to do bigger things

[@mrgyani]

Google is a bureaucracy now.. Not blaming Sundar for it, but..

[@alexanderphilip1809]

Talking about leadership I dont think I've heard Lex talk about Lee Kuan Yew, the man was amongst the greatest leaders of last century. Him, Li Kwoh Ting, Sun Yun-Suan and Mahathir Mohammed are amongst the greatest to have lived, men who literally uplifted their countries from less than what they were despite the challenges they faced.

[@DevDevi]

All of those mofos are dead.

[@mrarvind901]

Mahathir is alive...Malaysian here

[@sdb4756]

Hey hi anyone from Mumbai here

[@TheFaisalahmed92]

Ok

[@JetLee1544]

Sundar Pichai follows Lex on Twitter, he's a lurker 😁

[@eczemajack4120]

@@Derty_the_grower I'm sure he'll be able to glean a fundamental measure of insight from vague KZbin comments like yours.

[@roymillsjnr5172]

just giving people vested intrest in their lives understanding them all their problems why should you be a dictator your no better than the people obvious you have to nudge things along explaining things about your thoughts being open your not invincible as a leader we have faults👍

[@c.p.7151]

Remember James Damore

[@superskaria]

It's just lame/ insane to think sundar Pichai Cannot adapt his way of management...!!! Until proven so. War time cannot be forever, which means we will have to start seeing musk or jobs ( company was not always in war especially towards the end ofhis time) Doing peace time leadership style... Otherwise it's pure one dimensional management which will naturally fade away or not put out the best possible results.

[@pinkman1845]

Where tf he's looking at other guy is not in front?

[@JM-ip7hf]

Lol

[@apemant]

To me Pichai seems to be running errands for the new totalitarian elite. But maybe I got the wrong impression.

[@Blashmack]

In this scenario, why wouldn't he be part of the elite?

[@apemant]

@@Blashmack Well yes you are right, he would be.

[@atharvavitekar]

You can't look at him in a vaccume. He moved up in a company that clearly emphasizes a healthy work culture, and were very conscious about it from the early days. If he were to be an abrasive leader, he'd probably not be a good enough fit in the company, let alone to lead it. This is ofcourse a privilege only a company that is such a uncontested monopoly can have. But credit where it's due, they've also pursued and nurtured it.

[@mariussorohan938]

Will you shut up man?! Google's work culture is toxic and disgusting.

[@TheBambooooooooo]

@@mariussorohan938 yeah , toxic workculture that you have read somewhere as an isolated instance , so you need to shut him up who has a different opinion. Good job , let me guess which country and which side of political spectrum you belong to.

[@siddharthkotwal8823]

This question was cleared planted to drive more engagement from Indians on KZbin (clearly succeeded). Jocko speaking about a peacetime CEO like Sundar is just so ... forced 😆

[@jamescorcoran3138]

I bet aul Jocko has a persona that is wildly different from his moderate persona that would have made this clip way more entertaining given his history. You know him and his "brothers" who always seemed to have wholesome rationalisations for killing women and children through a plethora of different goofy reasons that are really no different than Chris "Superdome" Kyle's. Not sure my bullshit meter goes off more for anyone else besides Jocko.

[@aeroaero7459]

Sundar is watching

[@thiruvalluvar]

"Soon-dar" Pichai is closer to the correct pronunciation. Not that it matters.

[@sharadskywalker]

Indians are good administrators but bad innovators. Innovation weirdly is not encouraged in Indian society.

[@vv6533]

You're partially correct. Indian society doesn't encourage innovation. The same Indians who stay abroad are however good at research and innovation. Just look at h index ranking in computer science and see how many Indian Americans are there in the list. And the person having the highest h index in computer science is an Indian American. So it's not that Indians are bad at putting forth new ideas etc. It's just that they are not encouraged to do so.

[@softsignals5787]

True

[@mrgyani]

I don't think that's true. There was a list of billion dollar companies started by immigrants, and Indians were on top in both 2016 and 2018..

[@Blashmack]

@@mrgyani Note that they were immigrants, as the earlier comment said it seems Indians are very good at innovation when they have immigrated elsewhere but back in India the culture does not reward innovation enough.

[@skinnyguy7773]

CEO isn't traditionally an innovator role. But there are certainly Indians behind the scenes like Prabhakar Raghavan who are leading the innovation at Google.

[@forkinpig]

No, India doesn't celebrate Pichai, many Indians may think he is worth celebrating. It's not that majority of Indians are fools to attach undue glory to some big corporate guy living his American dream, just because he happens to be Indian.

[@abhinavpy2748]

People do a lot of people do

[@forkinpig]

@@abhinavpy2748 stand corrected.

[@nasali4817]

Indians overwhelming patriotic especially when one of them leads in west .

[@blazkowicz666]

Cope, Pakistanis call Osama a martyr. We choose our own heroes

[@nasali4817]

That’s a very” you said this I will write this “kind of comments , deep down who cares about this rich ppl who are the face of company and millions intelligentsia, creative ppl work to make their company . Emotion are weakness / see thing objective .impress with some one which has no impact on your life except you buy their over rated 1000$ phone or car . Think beyond personality. Who cares about killer osama or any one who kills ppl .

[@kaptenkrok8123]

Pichai is probably the worst possible ceo a sp500 company can have. He have been outperformed by every competitor even though they have and maybe still have a much stronger products portfolio. All big tech companies probably have too many BA people in management positions and if you let them make decisions you will not perform to a reasonable level. In his quarterly report he gives a 1000 words and 0 with value. Very different from Nadella or Bezos

[@Brahbrahbrah]

Giving wayyy too much credit here.

[@boukm3n]

Yeah the same guy who fired his only AI ethics team is now getting his water carried by Lex. What a joke

[@alexanderphilip1809]

Ethics is an obstruction when it stands in the way.

[@greengoblin9567]

AI ethics was bad because it was too woke. That is why Sundar wanted to get rid of it, because it could be disastrous for the company.

[@skinnyguy7773]

Yeah and that was just another paper pushing job that had zero impact on the company.

[@germandaddy907]

it’s a bad example of “slave leaders” .. not good for indias growth

[@couragecoachsam]

Pichai sounds like a reaction to Jobs-style management. He sounds very feminine in his style which is gaining popularity. It’s all situational though

[@manikantansrinivasan5261]

Listening to people is feminine? Lol nice try

[@couragecoachsam]

@@manikantansrinivasan5261 listening to everyone all the time about everything? Yes

[@aryavart296]

@@couragecoachsam I'd say gatekeeping masculinity is definitely not masculine

[@blkscreen15]

Sundar is not a celebrity in India! Lies lol

[@amoghthorave3385]

He's very famous within the engineers stop lying.

[@swatinaik2735]

For engineers yes

[@johneaston197]

Lex is a little too much fanboy in this episode. As Chomsky said, "freedom of speech will approved as long as it falls within certain parameters". There can be healthy, strong debate as long as no one ventures outside the approved dynamics. As Google, KZbin have clearly demonstrated, that boundary is the Democrat party establishment and their agenda. There will be no room on the Google platforms for anyone who veers outside of that box.

[@sauravkumar-yj8ip]

SUNDAR PICHAI=FATHER OF PAKHIZTAAN

[@MrJatinkathiriya]

Big tech chooses Indian CEOs as they are stable obeying employees and will do what board wants and will not tweet about memes and coins.

[@pinkyfinger9851]

Lol he is not a celebrity in india, few admire him but far from a celebrity

[@anishkumaranjan]

Sundar Pichai is great ❤️🙏

[@pacewalk7396]

He is no celebrity in India. Nobody knows or even cares about him