Pichai shared his origin story to illustrate how unexpected paths can lead to extraordinary outcomes. Growing up in India without much access to technology — no telephone until age 10, no regular computer until graduate school, a television with only one channel — he arrived in California to find that America was expensive, the beaches were freezing cold, and a backpack cost the same as his father's monthly salary. But computing became his bright spot, and the Internet was being built around him at Stanford. He would eventually leave his PhD path to join a small company called Google, a decision that his parents might not have approved of but that brought the benefits of technology to billions.