Thunder thank you for doing this thank you thank you for showing me around I’ve never been in one of those not a lot of people get in this data center do they who don’t work here well we are pretty careful about it but you know it was a pleasure to show it to you thank you very much so let’s start really big picture what is Google today research company are you an ad company are you an AI company you know at a core level we want to be helpful to users in moments big and small through the course of their day and be giving your driving directions or be it helping show your photos back when you need it and we want to do it for billions of users at moments that matter but you’ve you’ve said you said at Google i/o recently we’re moving from a company that helps you find answers to a company that helps you get things done mmm that left me wanting to know is the company fundamentally changing because of AI because of AI we can do more under users demand more you know in the past day maybe okay we’re just getting an answer but maybe now today if they want to go to a restaurant they actually want that reservation done so we are constantly pushing to see how we can save them a little bit more time give them peace of mind one of the things that you’ve talked a lot about is in your words the immense responsibility that you think Google has to make the world a better place and I wonder in this moment as we sit here what do you think the number one thing is that Google needs to do to actually achieve that and to fulfill what you call this immense responsibility I mean a few things you know we are one of the leading companies in AI so we committed to driving AI development responsibly in a way that benefit society that’s a big sense of responsibility we feel we feel that on the content on our platforms you know one of the things we’ve all grapple with over the past few years system making sure that the content we have on our platforms is safe and and and benefits people and so that’s something we feel a sense of responsibility protecting user data the scale at which we operate you want to keep our user data private secure and give them the choice and comfort they need around it what is the Google moon that you think right now has the biggest shot at changing humanity maybe you’re working on something called quantum computing and it is effectively the next stage of computing we all think of as a moonshot which will help not just artificial intelligence but solve many new problems in the world so it’s an example of the kind of moonshot we get excited about did you want to be CEO of Google like really did you want the job did you lobby for the job because I remember when you were picked and many people were surprised many Googlers were happily surprised who had worked with you but you didn’t you don’t strike me as someone who raised their hand and lobbied for the for the top job I mean I really it’s an opportunity of a lifetime I I just wanted to build products for me I get my satisfaction from bringing day-to-day products which millions of people use and it’s what I was doing and through the course of that you know one day when Larry and Sergey asked me to do this you know I felt it was a privilege but you surprised yes a little bit you know it was busy building products and I quite didn’t anticipate where this would go but and you’d never asked for it no a lot of people do you know so let’s talk about you before Google and who you are fundamentally and how you got here you grew up in Chennai India what was life like growing up as a child oh you know there was a simplicity to it you know I greatly enjoyed it in some ways when I was growing up there were no computers no television no internet and so it was mainly friends and playing sports and reading books and and so you know that simplicity is still there with me today we grew up modestly but through discrete moments we got access to something new in our life so we waited for a telephone for about five years and we had to apply and wait for it before that there was only one street in the you know in the entire street there was one other home which had a telephone so sometimes we would go there to make a call and for me once we got the telephone others would come to our house it was kind of door thing became a communal thing people would come to call their kids and so for me it showed the power of what’s possible with technology do you remember the first time you touched a computer you know when I was in college and you know I had to at Stanford is the first time you touched a computer in India when I went to college I had access to it a very few time saying but when I came to Stanford there was a time I could actually you know had kind of a dedicated computer and so it was a big moment in my life there was a drought in India when you were growing up and it that experience still affects you today you know growing up in Chennai there was severe water scarcity going up and so they would literally truck water in and we would collect you know a few couple of gallons of water per day and we would stand in lines get water there was no running water and that’s how you know we used it but you know but I still had a very positive life and you know I grew up in a culture where people valued learning and and there was a sense of community around it so I felt like I had everything I needed coming here to the United States to go to Stanford first time you were on a plane and you talk about the pretty significant culture shock for you coming to this country it was you know it landed in Pittsburgh and you know that’s where my uncle and aunt live and to come and see and everything was different you know we used to have dinners at about 10:00 p.m. in the night in India and so it was the first thing I noticed people had dinners earlier watching baseball was quite interesting you know I I grown up playing cricket which is kind of similar to baseball both have a ball in the back but everything is different in in cricket you run with the bat whenever you’re wrong so you know all these small things and it took me a while to get my hands around it did you run with the bat when you were playing baseball I not only ran in cricket it’s a good shot to hit behind you so the first time I hit the shot behind me I thought I had a great shot and everyone was looking at me no that’s not what she doing baseball I don’t know if people will believe this but tell me if it’s true you told the Guardian I understand the Internet the change was too much for me and I was a little bit lost the CEO of Google didn’t get the Internet I literally had come to the u.s. in 1993 and I was you know absorbed and come you know using computers it’s not that I didn’t understand Internet I just didn’t realize the magnitude of what was happening around me it was literally the beginning of Internet as we know it today and the scale effect you know I hadn’t fully internalized – I’m interested in the impact specifically that your mother had on you because you’ve talked about how how smart she was but that she was really limited in her ability to grow because of limited financial means that that release stifled her educational opportunity and I’m just interested in how that changed you well you know my mother who instilled in me a deep sense for knowledge reading curiosity I picked up my reading habits from her she dropped out of high school to support her family and you know being a girl at that time I think she literally quit school to support the education of boys around her and so you know it’s different time but for me I always internalized the sacrifice she made but in machines tell y you know you want to pursue your education so you have lived this true American dream and you’ve talked about how it’s like the remarkable thing about America that this could happen to you do you feel as though your American dream is as alive today for young immigrants to this country as it was for you you know I still think America is a land of opportunity and you know I see countless stories of people you know who who have you know had opportunity and made the most of it and I still think that’s true today but I think we need to work hard to make sure it is true if you look at the technology industry if you look at all the leading companies many of them were founded by immigrants our leadership in technology comes from our ability to attract the best computer scientist AI researchers and you know I think it’s important that we continue to do that you have said that you have called members of Congress from both parties mm-hmm to talk to them about him Gration who have you called most recently and what did you ask for I mean throughout my visits engaging across both sides when I get a chance I bought make the case for beat high-skilled immigration to make sure as a country we can continue the progress in technology we see I’ve even advocated for you know dreamers there are people at Google who my Matt hello whom I’ve heard from who you know I have a computer science degree work at Google but they found out when they were 16 you know that they are a dreamer effectively and you know I think there is a bipartisan bill and desire I think to do more here but we just need to capture the moment make the most of it and I think we can do more who have you been speaking to who’s been helpful on this front you know across the board Republicans Democrats Democrats through the course of my visits yes there’s a big debate in this country now as you know about capitalism and socialism and I wonder as a product of what American capitalism can do Google and you personally his capital isn’t working for enough Americans right now you know capitalism is still the best system we know that works works well in terms of growing an economy but I do think we need to make sure that the pie works better for everyone and if you look at where the real issues have been if you compare to where the wages have risen versus the cost of basic needs like health care and education clearly you know that gap is not quite sustainable and so I think you know you have to take a look at it and see what more we can do public private sector together to you know address those needs better because when you look at the the growing income gap and when you look at Silicon Valley and the cost of housing and you look at San Francisco and the homelessness what I would call a crisis there I’ve seen it do you think the vast inequality in and around Silicon Valley is harmful to society i if you look back at the roots of Silicon Valley what made the place great is its ability to attract a diverse group of people different professions artists teachers and for sure we are losing losing an aspect of that and you know so I think it’s important we try and figure out sustainable housing we you know even thinking through transportation and making it better so that if people are living a bit far away that they can get to where they need to work these are all the things we have to do as a next generation Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff calls it unregulated unbridled capitalism and capitalism run amok and I wonder if you agree with him and if you do what you think sort of the best solution is at this point now always felt that you know running a company at the scale I think and I think Marc believes that too you know you need to have a sense of responsibility to society and you need to do your part via school are very committed to doing so we do it through various initiators providing entire private sector needs to do that and you know government needs to do more to to manage this face of growth growth we see which is disruptive I’d like to ask you about the Justice Department news out of the Justice Department there’s reporting that the DOJ is is laying the foundation for possible antitrust investigation into Google what’s your reaction to that no we’ve always felt as a large company we’ve gone through similar you know scrutiny in other countries including in the US before you know I think it’s perfectly fine that you know as companies get get to a big scale there is scrutiny scale does offer many benefits it’s important to understand that as a company we now invest sometimes thinking five ten years ahead without Nestle worrying about short-term profits and you know and if you if you think about how technology leadership directly contributes to leadership in in a global economic scale you know big companies are what who are investing in technologies like AI the most and quantum as I said earlier so there are many benefits taking a long term view you know driving long term development which big companies can do but I think it’s important to make sure that we are also able to create a healthy competitive ecosystem in which other companies are able to emerge and you know and that’s the important question you know and I think scrutiny is right and you know we will participate constructively in these discussions did you did you expect it to come thunder or were you surprised by this news not even maybe the specific specific timing of it but you know we had always expected you know we have gone through similar situations in Europe and so it’s not a surprise to us Congress the House Judiciary Committee has also launched this top-to-bottom antitrust investigation into you and your competitors the whole tech industry all of big tech and I’m interested if that has changed any action you take within Google meaning has it changed what you and the board are talking about has it made you rethink potential acquisitions for anything that may look anti-competitive you know for Google the scrutiny has been there for a while now so we’ve always taken that into account there have been times when we’ve looked at some acquisitions and said look this is not you know something that may be possible and so we’ve always taken that into consideration because of this concern potentially you know making sure you know there’s not too much concentration in a sector or so on so but I think for some of the other companies maybe the scrutiny is newer but for us you know we’ve had this for awhile let’s do it yeah so as you may have heard some 20/20 contenders and lawmakers think you guys and all your competitors are way too big senator Elizabeth Warren a democratic 2020 contender has even put a billboard in San Francisco talking about breaking up big tech and she says that Google and its competitors are in her words they have too much power she says you hurt small business and stifle innovation is she right I mean you have to look at the actual facts and you know we first of all as a company we do many things some areas we are upstarts we are challenging other established companies and so you know if you look across the breadth of what we do I think you know you look at every area you know and you you look at whether there’s other competition and the users of choices and above all are we doing well because we are executing well as a company or you know in doing the right things and doing well or not and so you know the details end up mattering and you know so I also think it’s important that when we look at it globally tech companies are going to contribute to our economic growth in an important way and we compete against other countries other companies and so I think it’s important to keep that in mind as well it sounds like you think she’s wrong you know I think there needs to be a healthy debate you know any campaign has you know you know moments around that what matters to me is healthy thoughtful conversations around your argument about other countries and America’s competitiveness is similar to an argument Mark Zuckerberg has made basically we’re gonna do it or China is gonna do it is that essentially what you’re saying don’t don’t stifle this growth in America or it will go elsewhere you know it can it could you know when being in Silicon Valley for example I always think me you can’t take for granted that you will always be successful I think you have to earn it you know now there are many countries around the world which aspire to be the next Silicon Valley and they are supporting their companies too so we have to balance both this doesn’t mean you don’t scrutinize large companies but you have to balance it with the fact that you want you want big successful companies as well well to that point I mean I know that you view Google as more than an American company you view it as a global company so are you essentially saying look look at us you’ve even asked for regulation for rules of the road but if we are to squeezed or broken apart we won’t hesitate to build more elsewhere you know it’s it basically I worried that if you regulate for the sake of regulating it it has a lot of unintended consequences you know if you take a technology like artificial intelligence you know you know it will have implications for our national security and you know and how offer you know other important areas of society and so having leadership I think ends up being really critical I’d like to spend some time talking about what I know has been on your mind a lot lately and that is YouTube in the situation with YouTube how do you see YouTube’s role in society today to us YouTube has been a phenomenal platform which gives many people voices it’s a chance for them to reach the world it’s an extraordinary entertainment platform it is more than people realize one of the largest educational platforms in the world literally people learn all kinds of things on YouTube beat how to play music how to learn a new language poker recipe we see millions of that happening many small businesses use YouTube to literally export their products you know make people aware of it you know just yesterday you know it ran into the CEO of a company called Strider they’re based in South Dakota they make kids bikes peddle less bikes with which you can learn you know in ten years they’ve sold two and a half million bikes in 78 countries fifty percent of it is exported outside the US you tube played a big role and people understanding what the company is about and reaching the world so we see all of that happening through YouTube let’s talk about the spread of disinformation and hate on YouTube as well because that has also risen to the surface so from anti-semitism to harassment of LGBTQ individuals conspiracy theory videos about the parkland shooting or Sandy Hook I mean fundamentally sundar where where do you draw the line with YouTube between hate and free speech you know it’s a it’s a line we you know we work hard to get right and you know in and every few years we feel the need to evolve them because we see changes and how the platform is getting used just last week we have significant revisions to our hate speech policy at YouTube be a very focused on removing harmful content and reducing the spread of what we think of as borderline content just last quarter video model or nine million videos and and so it’s an ongoing process but there’s more we need to do and we acknowledge that because in America right you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater mmm-hmm and YouTube has really become our theater it is it is the equivalent of you know in the real world people getting together and talking that can happen in YouTube as well but it also allows us an opportunity to enforce rules of the road in a way even being able to before as well so we can use the forces underlying in YouTube and and take them in a positive direction as well which via committed to doing I asked because and you did lay out many new ground rules for YouTube just about a week ago but even a week after doing that CNN still found that there were white supremacist white nationalist videos from Richard Spencer and KKK leader David Duke you’ve hired thousands of individuals to handle this and I just wonder if sundar you you believe that the predicament is so big that this is evidence that there will never be enough humans to take all of these videos down it is a challenging problem even when we announced new policies last week it will take us some time to go back to our corpus and actually enforce it so there’s there’s a time gap there but we have gotten much better at using a combination of machines and and humans you know there are many areas where we have made significant progress so it’s one of those things in which let’s say we are getting it right over 99% of the time you’ll still be able to find examples our number is you know our goal is to take that to a very very small percentage well below 1% and which is what we are working on it sounds like you’re you’re saying it’ll never be a hundred percent I think any large-scale systems you know it’s tough you know think about credit card transactions there’s some fraud in the system so anything when you run at that scale you know you you know we have to think about percentages today in search we aim to be ninety-nine point ten nine percentages right and I hear you on credit card fraud and I understand that but for example violence can erupt from this right there was that 2016 incident where someone watched a pizza gate conspiracy theory video on YouTube and then went and and fired shots inside a pizzeria in Washington DC so it’s just the fundamental question of how like can a I solve this context all this you know I am confident we can make significant progress you know we’ve all really been working on this now for the past few years and AI is getting much much better there are some things which are going to be hard because there the societal definitions of what’s okay what’s acceptable and not and that’s not a technology issue alone but I do think on areas where we can agree on enforcement will get better with the help of technology so when YouTube announced these new rules that it would take down these videos that included taking down all of those horrible conspiracy theory videos denying the Sandy Hook massacre but an attorney representing ten of the families who have family members who were killed in that said that it’s too late to undo the harm and talked about the undue harassment and threats that they have sustained I just wonder why it took seven years to realize that those video shouldn’t be up and an ad shouldn’t be running next to those videos you know I mean it’s heartbreaking for sure and you know all of us you know would look back and you know we wish we had gotten to the problems sooner than we did and you know there’s an acknowledgement we didn’t get it right and but I think we became aware collectively of some of the pitfalls here and you know since then we’ve been working hard we have changed our priorities and and you know we have put in a lot of effort there and we’ll continue to do that you said something a few years ago when I was reading some old interviews of yours that really struck me about this moment and you said sundar I think tech has to realize it just can’t build it and then fix it do you feel like that’s the predicament you guys are in now because because you did build it and now this is a huge fix that you’re grappling with it’s something we are very conscious of this is why when we are approaching a work in AI we have tried to thoughtfully lay out a set of principles against which will constantly evaluate the work we are doing we’ll talk about that in a moment and what you what you’re not willing to do because of ethics yeah you know and so it’s it’s an area where we are being careful precisely because of you know just doing fast development can lead to consequences that you don’t foresee you’re saying don’t move fast and break things yeah I want to make sure we move deliberately with a sense of our responsibility to society as we develop powerful new products so one more question on YouTube before we move on and that is on on recommendations and I ask this as a journalist but also as a parent right because my three-year-old uses YouTube and there has been as you know some great concern over the recommendation algorithm that has been pushing some videos of children toward pedophiles and the question about the algorithm and I’m interested in if I know you’re working on it but are you at this point considering ending the recommendations until you can get that algorithm right so it doesn’t keep happening recommendations offer us a great opportunity to actually direct content to its higher quality content we have done this in cases for example you know in terrorism recruitment videos being able to counter offer suggestions and get people to a better place you know we see that applying in a wide variety of cases so one of our biggest focuses is to understand quality of videos and and use recommendations as a way to get people to more valuable videos do you think it would actually hurt more it sounds like to end recommendations at this point is that right I think when people there are many use cases so for example I’m watching how to do something and there are nine videos and the recommendation system is what tells me which is the next video to watch and you know it related to what I am doing so there are many you know positive use cases I see because of this really troubling one which is why we are you know really making changes to how it works our recommendations is not based on you know getting you to just watch more videos it’s based on the fact that we are optimizing it for higher quality videos as well you sent a letter this week to all Google employees specifically about how the LGBTQ community is feeling right now and you wrote the lgbtq+ community has felt a lot of pain and frustration over recent events what is your message to them right now from from Google management in a facing harassment online just based on your identity you know or your social orientation you know is you know it’s just extraordinarily wrong and you know to have it happen on a general basis so we feel a responsibility as a platform but you know when we run into these things we have to step back think about how we can evolve in our policies in a way that doesn’t catch a lot of innocent content that shouldn’t you know that don’t fall in these areas you know today people it could be a edgy comedy show on TV or you know so free speech is something which we need to think about where you know we have to have thoughtful policies on how we you know put restrictions around it and so that’s the debate we have but I want to acknowledge the pain that community felt through through moments like that but we are hard at work to make it better because and you’re specifically referring to YouTube in these policy changes at this point has not taken down these videos containing homophobic and racist slurs for example against a journalist at Vox I know you’ve demonetised them and you’re talking about how you’re going to handle them what are the chances that you remove those videos just like you know we are going to undertake you know look at our harassment policies and when we do this we do it very consultative ly we engage with many external groups we don’t think we always have the best perspective on these things and as part of that you know we arrive at the next set of policies and you know and we and you know we’ll holistically take a look at it and context matters you know how you know how something is getting used how systematically it’s done and so we take the whole context into account and we have to make difficult decisions at times is this the hardest thing you’ve had to grapple with a CEO so deciding what is what speech is okay and what’s not it’s definitely one of the hardest things and you know in some ways you know companies alone aren’t fully equipped to handle problems like that because you’re you know and and so I think that there’s there’s a lot of work ahead and so I think these conversations are important but you know all of us are figuring out how to do it better let’s talk about artificial intelligence you have called AI potentially more profound than electricity or fire for humankind really I think so you know I think it’s one of the most profound technologies we are working on us you know I mean fire and electricity are really good lights on and the heat in my house that’s right and we just saw our data centers working here and and so these are extraordinarily important innovations and you know but they had downsides as well and you know we’ve had to work through those downsides ai ends up being the same you know a is more profound because it’ll apply to everything you do I think it’ll increase human knowledge it will increase human productivity and you know and you know will lead to many positive outcomes you know early detection of cancer is a obvious example to think through and you know being able to assist teachers in better age with better educational tools is a great example so there are many positive things which will come out of it you have also said it’s fair to be wary about AI and Elon Musk has said that AI could prove to be quote far more dangerous than nukes is he right I think you know by by definition if you think it’s one of them you know it’s most profound technologies we are working on you know everything has two sides to it and and so I think we have to be very cautious and very deliberate about how we solve for AI safety and so you know I think Alana’s right to be concerned about it I’d like to talk a little bit about facial recognition because Google has chosen at least for now and this is interesting and important not to sell facial recognition technologies over concern in your own words about abuse and harmful outcomes we know that the tech is early stage that it can show a bias against women and minorities talk to me about how you made that decision while your competitors like Amazon are moving full steam ahead like why do you sundar was that the right move you know when we when we set out to step back and think through our AI principles and you know we realized that our potential cases in which there isn’t a clear regulatory framework around how technology can be used and that you know gives us pause and goes back to the earlier conversation you know we don’t want to do something and then find a few years later it was potentially misused in a very very bad way so it gives us pause and you know I I think it’s a path we have chosen we wanted to put it out so there’s a conversation around the use of facial recognition there are good use cases for facial recognition and so you know I but you know it’s important for example we have used it to look at you know maybe movies that are getting made and to see the role of you know are women represented equally in movies so you can you can apply in very beneficial ways but you know this is an area where I think it’s fraught with potential for misuse and bias as you pointed out so we just want to be a bit more deliberate about it Kara Swisher has written about Silicon Valley and this idea of chief ethics officers what do you think do you think the big tech Google should have chief ethics officers to grapple with all of these things that we’re talking about you know I view it’s the job of the CEO to be a chief ethics officer you know for given the scale at which technology impact society so I view it as a fundamental part of my role but I think it exceeds to come at all layers of the organizations and you know you know people are developing work you know engineers and the marketers working on it and so you know I’d rather write our ethical principles hold ourselves accountable to it and and consult both internally and externally to get feedback on how we make progress so one ethical decision that you have to grapple with every day every big tech executive does is privacy mmm Tim Cook recently said privacy in itself has become a crisis do you agree III think it’s very very you know given the scale at which information is flowing I don’t think users have a good sense for how their data is being used and so I think we’ve put the burden on users to a large extent and and I think we need better frameworks where users get that comfort that they that they are in control of their data how it’s used and they feel like they have agency over it and so I I think it’s an important moment for all of us to do better here that’s really interesting because you say you know we we as big tech have put the burden on users and we need to change that and I’m interested in sort of how you balance that right is you grapple with that how do you also balance that with the fact that so much of Google’s business and what drives the profit relies on having more and more data about the user right advertisements AI what do you think most of the data we we need is actually just to provide better services to our users you know the data we need for advertising is actually really small you know when you type digital cameras into Google you know when we show advertisements you know you’re looking for digital cameras and you know that is you know most of the data we need for advertising there is little value in holding data for long periods of time because you’re buying interest you know just constantly evolve and so the most of the data we you know use is on behalf of our users to give them information back but we want it to be their choice different people want different ways and so we’re working hard to make it easier for users and and you don’t think that will fundamentally harm Google’s business I’ve never felt you know our business is not dependent on you know having lots of data on people that you know it’s I think it’s a misconception you do yes you recently wrote an op-ed and you wrote privacy cannot be a luxury good offered only to people who can afford to buy premium products and services are you talking about Apple I included even subscription services B today for example we offer YouTube as a subscription service it doesn’t have ads if you choose to use it but we don’t want to save our privacy Productions only for that most people around the world will be you know will need to use some services for free and it’s important privacy works in those situations as well and you know we you know we don’t use data from your emails or your photos for advertising you know we use you we store your photos so that we can give it back to you when you need it and that you have peace of mind around your photos all right let’s talk about China is Google currently considering reopening search in China we have no plans to relaunch search in China you were thinking about it you did do work inside of Google to map out what restarting search in China would look like are those conversations going on at all now or is there a 0% chance that that Google will restart search in China in the neck in the near term there are there are no plans for us to consider relaunching our search service in China you know we’ve always looked at you know we think about serving the next billion users so as a company you know we you know our mission compasses to provide information so we we evaluate that you know but you know we would need the right conditions to exist and so you know we would do it on a set of principles that mattered to us and and you mentioned conditions and look at the the reason Google pulled out of China in 2010 was the hack and the human rights violations that were found as a result but but I asked because in 2016 you said I’ve always thought Google was for everyone and that applies to China too and you talked about serving Chinese users has something shifted in you your calculation on your willingness to even explore a search in China is it the fact that you have you know according to the State Department two million ethnic Muslim ethnic minorities held in camps in China the Hong Kong protests going on is it has that shifted fundamentally your view you know I mean there are often you know competing values you know we’ve talked about your content responsibility on YouTube etc yeah so you know we see the benefits we get when we provide information to users but we don’t want information presented in a wrong way to our users as well and so these are issues we grapple with you know across the world to be honest you know that we comply with laws and regulations and so you know it’s always a set of continued conversations we have at Google but when you say conditions it sounds like you’re talking about the human rights issues in China right you know for us you know our ability to present ourselves in a way that you know users can see us right without censorship without censorship is an important condition so is any level of censorship okay with Google if their research in China or you saying it would have to be uncensored by the government you know I don’t want to speculate on a hypothetical situation we have no plans and you know we are not spending time on it time on it today a few months ago the chairman of the Joint Chiefs chairman General Joseph Dunford testified before Congress and he said that the work that Google is doing in China quote is a direct benefit to the Chinese military what did you think when you heard that and what what’s your response you know I mean I think we we took the chance to clarify I you know we are not doing any work in China we have a limited presence in China and the limited AI work we do in China which we are transparent about is our open source project tensorflow as well as we do some nonprofit work in China so I think we have had good conversations around that and cleared up any misunderstandings I do think that it’s important for people to know the decisions that that Google has made in terms of you know what it’s willing to do with AI and the Defense Department for example when you look at at project maven and and ending that or pulling your initial bid 10 for the 10 billion dollar DoD contract because of ethical concerns can you can you walk me through how much your employees influenced to that decision you know we are you know we’ve been concerned about how we thoughtfully develop AI and you know I think AI is powerful and we are committed to you know partnering with US government you know consistent with our AI principals meeting there are many areas including cybersecurity search-and-rescue missions you know veteran’s health there are many ways by which we think we can apply AI in a way that’s beneficial we’ve had some concerns about weaponization and you know and so we have drawn some lines but we have been transparent about it and but we are committed to constructively working to help the country where we can there were some employees that felt that working with the Defense Department for example was profiting off off you know war and potentially making drone strikes more lethal and some of them wrote to you and they and they spoke up Jeff Bezos Amazon CEO recently said if big tech companies are going to turn their back on the DoD this country is going to be in trouble where do you two differ on this you know I actually mean we are there are many ways we work and collaborate you know with the US government we care about our national security as well we wouldn’t be able to do what we do as a company if you didn’t enjoy the freedoms you know that that we get and cherish so I think you know on a practical basis I think we’ll be doing a lot of work and you know so I think you know there’s not much much of a difference we are concerned there are senior AI researchers who are working on these technologies no different from people who are working on genetics who are concerned about the lines and way you want to do your work and you know we respect our views and you know so we are being very thoughtful and you know we’ll be public about what we do and what we don’t another decision that Google made that intrigued me is that that you guys made the decision to stop allowing Google assistant which is what’s used in Google home if people have that in their houses to to record as the default so you change the default mode to not record after it hears the prompt hey Google Amazon’s Alexa the default still is to record for AI purposes making the machine learning more intelligence etc but that that’s a big difference what why did you take the change in general you know we are looking at how to simplify and make it easier for for us to minimize the data we have and we’re looking at everything we do you know just recently at Google i/o we don’t be offered order delete controls so you can tell Google after three months or 18 months you can just you know automatically have your data be deleted so we are constantly looking how to minimize data while we can provide the experience but you would have gotten more data more rapidly and me machines smarter if you had just stuck with record as the default but did you think there was an ethical issue with that is that why you changed it uh-huh you know we wanted it to be user choice in general and you know I think that many uses who you know they want sometimes that record of what they are doing because it has value to them and so you know privacy is inherently very personal and you know the you know you know depending on your life situation where you are the context in which you’re using our products whether it’s a new home or not you know people expect to have different privacy expectations and so we are trying to match that make it simpler and I think they’re more work to do but you’re gonna see us do more and more their Amazon threat or opportunity you know Google a boat you know today many people use Google and they apply products of Amazon so we you know partner with them on many many places that are 80s we compete with them and I think it’s good you know that there is actually a lot of competition amongst the big companies to and you know and so you know that’s what gives rise to more innovation and I think ultimately consumers benefit let’s talk a little bit about women specifically and and diversity so if you looking at the latest numbers women make up 33% of Google’s global workforce 26% of leadership positions assuming you want to get that to 50/50 I know there’s been a lot of work on this front what’s what is the number one thing you think Google can do to get that to truly equal I think it comes to ensuring that you know women have a very inclusive and you know the the right experience when they are at work you know you know we are growing faster numbers make it hard to actually find the talent pool at that rate at which we are growing but we are very very committed to that and this is why we are transparent about you know we were one of the first companies to be very transparent about the numbers and share it outside and then you know it’s about investing in them you know in their career development and supporting their work experience all the way through you know it’s a big part of the answer I think the labor department is taking a look at whether Google has underpaid women and you guys recently did an internal study to that and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told me a few years ago that she actually personally goes through the salaries at YouTube every so often to make sure that there is not that pay discrepancy do you would you be supportive sundar of legislation requiring big companies like you guys to publicly disclose pay for men and women in similar roles would that would that help I mean if you know we are happy to have transparency with the right structure you know you have to look at the data carefully because there are different levels different geographic regions this is an area where we invest so many resources to make sure we get it right and and you know it’s one of the most rigorous statistical analysis we do with the right scrutiny at all levels of the company and you know and you know we’re very confident that you know we have pay equity within Google but you know but it’s also about not just pay for a given level for both genders but it’s about ensuring that you know women are able to progress through the organization because you know how you how you get rated how you’re evaluated how you’re promoted all of that ends up Connie where you start that’s right where you start so one of the big most public decisions you have had to make so far a CEO is firing a Google engineer who in 2017 wrote an internal memo arguing that women because of our biology are just not as good at tech and that having women in these roles would made Google less competitive argued the gender pay gap was a myth you fired him he’s suing I’m interested for now in 2019 what did you learn from that you know for me it was important as a company you know you just mentioned we are already struggling to make sure women have a truly inclusive experience getting the representation and making sure they can progress at all levels of the company I do think they face headwinds today particularly in the tech industry so I felt a increase sense of burden around me ensure we create the right environment around all of that so so speaking about that I know that you think a lot about the employees situation after the walkout last year about 20,000 Google employees in about 50 cities walked out to make a point on a number of issues but largely on the handling of some sexual harassment situations and at the company this is following Andy Rubin leaving with a 90 million dollar payout and Google not talking about that publicly after sexual misconduct that he denies you told the New York Times last year we’re taking steps to do better can you talk to me a little bit about what has changed since the walkout you know we had initiated many changes even leading up to that moment but we took that moment as you know you know clearly acknowledging that we need to do a lot more we heard from a lot of people women and men about how things can be done better one of the most important decisions decisions I made was ending the requirement for forced arbitration and to be clear you know you know even through arbitration we didn’t have confidentiality provisions but we ultimately decided it’s better for employees to have that choice and so that was one of the bigger decisions we made did the walkout make Google a better company III I think so you know I think our employees clearly spoke up at a moment when the company hadn’t gotten it right and you know and I think you know there were many people across the company who participated in support of that and I think I think it’s a good part of our culture that we were able to acknowledge something publicly and then work hard to get things better two of the organizers behind the walkout have publicly said that these women Meredith and Clare felt backlash for their role one of them just left Claire and chief she wrote about you know what she felt and and why she felt like she couldn’t stay she talked about the head of her department branding her with a scarlet letter does that concern you and and is that being investigated okay are you worried that something even though you say it makes the company better you at all worried that from their management some people are saying they’re feeling backlash I mean when you run a company at scale you know it’s extremely important to me that there’s no retaliation at the company I take it very seriously you know we have very rigorous processes within a multiple levels of oversight on something like that which is important you know I can’t comment on individual cases but you know it’s something we take very seriously and we want to be you know leading company in terms of how people experience Google all right I’d like to talk about the election and election security because this is so important to Google you talked a lot about it in your congressional testimony and your commitment to it as a company for the sake of the democracy what do you see is the biggest risk to security for the 2020 election is it is it these deep fake videos and there’s an ad of you invested a lot you know I think it’s worth acknowledging you know beat 2018 midterm elections or we just had one of the largest democratic processes elections in India or a month and a half and you know and we think we all the effort we put into it you know have paid dividends so it’s something we have to be very vigilant you know there could be new ways in which yeah misinformation gets disseminated we are worried about both shallow fakes and deep fakes and you don’t necessarily need to have deep fakes you know you can manipulate videos in many ways and so it’s something they’re very concerned about I mean how worried should people be when when it took this company a day last week to make a video deep fake video of Mark Zuckerberg that looks and sounds like him and it took him a day and you’ve seen it done with the president and with you know candidates I mean like does America need to wake up to this you you met with the president recently and he has said multiple times that Google new searches are rigged that they’re against conservatives were you able to change his his mind did you guys talk about that you know we we had a productive conversation I understand the concerns you know there’s a lot at stake politically across both sides and we’ve had concerns in various ways expressed across both sides we are very committed this is what we do as a company you know we provide accurate and trusted and relevant information we do this based on what our users tell us we evaluate it using search Schrader’s representatively across the United States and globally so you know at a good conversation both with the President and others when I meet explaining how we do our work and our commitment to approach our work in a nonpartisan way all right as we wrap up just a few big-picture questions let’s talk about making the world better you told the New York Times there’s no better time to be alive has technology made our world a better place a safer place a smarter place you know it does I mean progress is tough to see but you know anyway when you step back and take a long term view we are clearly making progress but the stakes have gotten higher too what is the most important lesson you’ve learned running Google you know it’s what you think internally alone is not enough and you have to hear perspectives from from the outside you know and you have to be open to what’s going on around you understand the impact of your products and and learn and work hard to make that better so I asked almost everyone I interview this because I think about it a lot as a parent I suppose when it comes to success in the end what do you want your children to say about you one day you know two things that you know that dad loved what what he did approached his work with a passion and I think had a genuine care and concern for how the work impacted people around him Thunder I I so appreciate your time and I wish you guys luck thank you very much English (auto-generated) AllConversationRelatedListenableRecently uploaded
