Stanford graduates ignored Google CEO Sundar Pichai's commencement speech. Unlike Eric Schmidt or Gloria Caulfield, Pichai didn't mention artificial intelligence. Instead, the students appeared to be protesting Google's broader policies: They chanted "Free Palestine" as they left the auditorium during his speech.
Stanford graduates ignored Google CEO Sundar Pichai's commencement speech. Unlike Eric Schmidt or Gloria Caulfield, Pichai didn't mention artificial intelligence. Instead, the students appeared to be protesting Google's broader policies: They chanted "Free Palestine" as they left the auditorium during his speech.
Google is one of the companies leading the artificial intelligence revolution, but Google CEO Sundar Pichai didn't even mention it during his commencement speech to Stanford University graduates on Sunday — and for good reason, Business Insider reports .
Pichai was very careful with his words during his speech at Stanford. Last month, students at the University of Arizona booed one of his predecessors, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt , when he began touting the prospects of AI. Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta suffered a similar fate when students at Middle Tennessee State University booed him as soon as he mentioned AI.
Stanford grads walk out as Google CEO Sundar Pichai takes the stage as commencement speaker. No mention of AI, unlike other uni speakers getting booed down this year. Story for @sfgate shortly pic.twitter.com/qvS2rJ91Ip
— Matt Brown (@maattttbrown) June 14, 2026
Pichai urged the graduates to “choose optimism,” which may have been a subtle nod to their understandable anxiety about the impact of AI on entry-level jobs, and talked about how he himself learned to maintain a positive mindset.
He recalled that when he first arrived in California in the 1990s, he expected to see lush green landscapes. But all around him was brown—until the person who hosted him corrected him, pointing out that the word he was looking for was actually “golden.”
The main lesson for graduates, he said, is how to rethink something unattractive and see great prospects in it.
“That’s what I mean by ‘choosing optimism.’ It’s the ability to reframe things in a positive light: where I saw brown, she saw gold,” Pichai said. “That small shift in perspective eventually changed the way I perceived the world around me.”
Pichai, a Stanford graduate, has led Google since 2015 and has witnessed several technological waves in Silicon Valley. But artificial intelligence has brought about changes on a scale that humanity has never seen before, he noted in a recent episode of the “Hard Fork” podcast.
“These graduates will actually be both the driving force behind this progress and the ones who will have to deal with its consequences,” he said, referring to AI.
Stanford graduates are already complaining that they can’t get jobs as software engineers because of AI. To cope with the difficulties of finding entry-level jobs, elite university graduates are taking jobs at companies they previously considered below their level. Others are starting their own startups or going to graduate school to improve their resumes.
