An honest answer helped Sundar Pichai land his first job in Google

You won’t know every answer even if you are as brilliant as Google CEO Sundar Pichai who has taken over the reins of Alphabet from Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

That simple acceptance is how Pichai landed his first job in Google 15 years ago, as he revealed in a chat in 2016. Pichai had been working in the US for a decade before got the interview call from Google for the position of Vice President of Product Management.

In the fourth round of the interview in 2004, Pichai was asked what he thought of Gmail. The trick was that Google had launched the email service the very same day and there was no fair way any of the shortlisted applicants would have known about it.

Pichai honestly admitted that he hadn’t seen it and refrained from giving an opinion. The executive at Google showed him Gmail. And he was asked the same question in the fifth round and guess what?! Pichai had the answers the exec probably wanted to hear. That was the first step to this day when he is worth over $600 million even before he takes over from Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Alphabet, the holding company of Google.

The lesson is simple: If you don’t know something admit. Getting your bluff called could be much worse.

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