Your Tech Story

Harshal Pawar

Harshal Pawar is an avid reader, a TV show addict, and a writer. He has a personal blog brainwork.wordpress.com where he jots down his articles and poetry about love and life. He is currently pursuing film-making and wishes to bring the words written on a paper to the screen. More of all he is a scorpio.

Sundar Pichai – The CEO Of Google

Google, India, Tech Story / By

World’s biggest tech giants surprised people across the globe when they appointed an Indian to hold the highest position in their company. First Microsoft, and then Google chose the most qualified candidate for the role of CEO of their respective companies. To helm, the highest position in world’s biggest technology giants is a herculean task and needs a dedicated, calm, and experienced person. Google found its perfect candidate in India born Sundar Pichai, who was working in the company for many years and served on many important positions.

Early Life

Born on 12th July 1972, in a middle-class family in Madurai, Chennai, India, Sundararajan Pichai’s father Regunahta Pichai, worked as a Senior Electrical Engineer for British Conglomerate General Electric Company and his mother worked as a stenographer before she conceived any children. Belonging to a middle-class family Sundar never had the privilege to watch television or travel in a car. At the age of 12, he was introduced to a fascinating technology called a landline phone.

Sundar Pichai was naturally good at remembering, especially numbers. He completed his high school from Jawahar Vidyalaya, situated at Ashok Nagar, and then went to Vana Vani School in Chennai, to pursue his class 12 education. Further, Pichai advanced to one of the prominent engineering institutes in India – Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He graduated in Metallurgical Engineering and didn’t stop just there.

Sundar Pichai
Image Source: wikimedia.org

He further went abroad at Stanford University, to pursue his Masters in Material Sciences and Engineering. After completing his MS, Pichai thought of pursuing PhD in Material Sciences and Semiconductor physics, but instead, he joined a company called Applied Materials, based in Silicon Valley, as an Engineer and Product Manager.

Soon, he quit his job at Applied Materials to join MBA program, at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002. After successfully earning his MBA, he joined McKinsey & Company as a Management Consultant. This was the point where a single decision changed his life forever.

Pichai at Google

After quitting McKinsey & Company, Pichai joined Google in 2004. Initially, he worked on the product management for a range of products, including Toolbar. Pichai played a prominent role in the success of Google Drive. His phenomenal work on Google’s Toolbar, fast-paced his growth in the company. After its launch, Google noticed how Toolbar proved efficient and increased the user searches. This led Google to launch their own browser Google Chrome in 2008. He was also involved in the development of apps like Gmail and Google Maps.

The success of Google Chrome brought Pichai into the spotlight. Chrome quickly became a favourite browser and surpassed its competitors, Internet Explorer and Firefox. Chrome controls more than 45% market share today and has directed everyone’s attention on Sundar Pichai. Following the success of Chrome, Pichai was then promoted to Vice President of Product Development the same year.

Pichai announced a new video codec developed by Google, called VP8 and a new video format WebM, which consists of different video, audio streams, and text tracks. In 2012, he was promoted to Senior Vice President of Chrome and apps.

A year later, he replaced Andy Rubin, to manage all Android related products. He developed a new project called Android One, which aimed towards offering affordable smartphones all across the globe. They launched the Android mobile operating system, on which every smartphone works today.

In 2014, Pichai got promoted to Head of Products. With each promotion, his tasks at the company just got bigger and bigger. Under the Head of Products position, he was responsible to oversee day-to-day operations of Google’s every big product, and the upcoming ones, like Google Photos, and Google Now.

The Leap into the Big League

Sundar Pichai was becoming a well-known face not just in the company, but in the whole Silicon Valley. His leadership qualities and diplomatic nature helped him smoothly close huge deals with the competitors.

His excellent track record came into notice of several other giants in the valley. He was approached to become Vice President of Products at Twitter and was also being considered for the position of CEO of Twitter. Another tech giant Microsoft was also considering Pichai to fill in the shoes of Steve Ballmer, who was retiring from the CEO position.

But, it was the time when Google’s new company Alphabet Inc. was on the way to be launched. As Larry Page resigned as the CEO of Google to take the responsibility of Alphabet, Pichai was the best option as Page’s successor.

And, in 2015, Sundar Pichai was announced as the new CEO of Google.

Personal Life

Pichai married Anjali, his college time girlfriend, and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is the citizen of US and stays there with his wife and two children.

Satya Nadella – CEO of Microsoft

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India is a land of talented people who are shining in the top positions of some of the top Tech companies. Microsoft, too, found a promising and energetic leader in Satya Nadella, when they were hunting for the replacement of its longtime CEO Steve Ballmer. After searching for about five months, Microsoft’s board members finalized Nadella as he had already showcased unbelievable progress in the other departments. When Microsoft was in crisis, facing stern competition from other top companies, like Apple and Samsung, Nadella sought a way out to keep Microsoft in business.

Early Life

Satya Nadella was born on 19th August 1967, to an IAS officer Nadella Yugandhar and was brought up in Ananthapur, Andhra Pradesh. He completed high school from the Hyderabad Public School and further went to Manipal Institute of Technology to pursue Electrical Engineering in 1988. His interests lied in Computer Science but Electrical Engineering was a promising branch at the university so he took the course and soon found his true passion.

After completing his degree, he moved to the US at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to pursue Masters in Computer Science, in the year 1990. Further, Nadella also pursued MBA from the University of Chicago and landed his first job at Sun Microsystems and, in 1992, joined Microsoft.

Journey within Microsoft

In his early period at Microsoft, Satya led crucial projects, related to cloud computing, and soon gained the name as a leader, with a potential to spread the technology and business, in transforming Microsoft’s products. He comprehensively worked on Windows NT, an operating system made primarily for business people.

Satya Nadella
Image Source: www.flickr.com

His vast, 22 years of experience, working in Microsoft has allowed him to know the company to its roots. He has served on about five different roles in the company and finally reached the highest position – Chief Executive Officer. In the year 1999, Nadella was promoted to Vice President of Microsoft bCentral and General Manager for Microsoft’s Commerce Platforms group.

Nadella was responsible to lead the growth of numerous Microsoft products like Microsoft Office Small Business, BizTalk Server, Commerce Server, and Dynamics and ERP servers too. Apart from these products, he has lead Microsoft to invest in the technologies like Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Interactive Television (ITV).

From 2000 to 2010, Nadella served on three different positions including Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions, then in 2007 as Senior Vice President of R & D for Online Services Division, and then to President of Server and Tools business. Before being chosen for Microsoft’s CEO position Nadella served as the Executive Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Group which supplied infrastructure to Microsoft’s search engine Bing, Xbox Live Broadband gaming network, and Office-365 services.

Microsoft’s transition from just software based company to cloud computing services helped it grow faster than ever. Nadella met with start-ups understanding their needs and simultaneously making Microsoft more flexible to fulfill those needs. Most of the clients today prefer rent-based applications rather than running software themselves. And that is what Microsoft next ventured into making a huge profit.

Why was Satya Nadella the Perfect Choice?

When it could have been anyone leading the company there is a strong reason that Microsoft’s board members chose to give Satya Nadella the baton. When in 2014, Steve Ballmer declared his retirement from Microsoft, the company was also in planning to shift from software giant to Devices and Services Company. Microsoft had already acquired Nokia and developed Surface Tablet. So, naturally, the company was on a lookout for the candidate who helmed the experience of both sides.

And when it came down to choices, Satya fitted the profile very well. As he had lead various projects including Windows Server, Windows Azure, System Center, SQL Server, etc. and the Software development tools. With such a vast portfolio and years of experience made him an ideal candidate to lead the company and take it out of the crisis, it was facing, due to the competitors like Apple and Google. Finally, on 4th February 2014, Satya Nadella was declared as the new CEO of Microsoft succeeding Steve Ballmer.

Personal Life

Satya Nadella is a big fan of cricket and grew up watching and playing the game in Andhra Pradesh. He mentions that the leadership and team management skill he possesses is the results of being part of his school cricket team.

In 2015, he was awarded ‘Champion of Change Award’ by then President Barack Obama. He currently lives in Bellevue, Washington with his wife Anupama and three children.

Ren Zhengfei – The Founder of Huawei

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Revolutionary ideas are changing the way we live (of living) our lives. Humans have surpassed their genius and brought innovations which are making this world a better place. As they say, there’s no age limit for you to take charge of your life and invent something that would bring a revolution in the world. While most of today’s innovative start-ups are coming from youngsters the story of Huawei is something entirely different. The Chinese tech giant came into existence when its founder was in his forties. His determination led him to start a company which now is valued over $140 billion.

Early Life

Born on October 25th, 1944 in Anshun, China, Ren Zhengfei to a school president father and schoolteacher mother. His father worked as an accounting clerk in a government arms factory. Ren completed his secondary school and went on to attend Chongqing University in 1960. From there, he joined People’s Liberation Army research institute, to work as a military technologist in the IT unit. Due to his innovations and achievements, he was recognized at various levels and was selected to attend the National Science Conference in 1978 as a PLA delegate.

He retired from the army in 1983 after nine years when the Chinese government discontinued the whole engineering unit. After retiring, Ren went on to work with Shenzhen South Sea Oil Corporation. But soon left the job in 1987 as it was not as satisfactory work as per his talent. By the time he left Shenzhen, he had capital of about sh10 million.

The Beginning of Huawei

Ren founded Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd the same year as he left Shenzhen. With the initial investment of 21,000 yuan (about $5000) Huawei’s first business was to sell telephone exchange equipment from Hong Kong. He took the position of Chief Executive Officer and lead the company to make it the world’s third top smartphone selling brand after Apple and Samsung.

Ren Zhengfei
Image Source: www.flickr.com

Huawei focuses on manufacturing different components required for the electronic gadgets. Almost every electronic gadget is made with components made by Huawei. Apart from smartphones and small components, Huawei dominates the market in producing the highest mobile devices like routers, broadband, and 4G network devices. Huawei became the first firm to roll out 5G network across the world.

Ownership

Unlike other big firms, Huawei’s ownership is held by its 85,000 employees. All the employees hold a percentage of the company’s share. That leaves only 1.4% share stake with Ren Zhengfei valued at $450 million, as of 2010. Ren still remains the founder of Huawei and is respected by the employees.

Joe Kelly, Huawei’s VP for international media relations, says, “Zhengfei relinquished ownership of the firm to employees to guarantee its continuity and attract talent.” The company’s campus at Shenzhen in Guangdong province is surrounded with trees and makes a beautiful sight for the workers.

Unique Working Style

Huawei is probably the only company to follow a unique leadership style. Most of the decisions are made by the engineers in the company. Company’s day to day activities are run by three different executives, each one of them retains the position of CEO every six months on a rotational basis. Ren introduced this strategy which was inspired by the migration of the birds. Kelly further added, “Birds migrate in a ‘V’ formation, and engineering shows that the bird at the apex takes the heaviest burden.”
ally, this rotation system helps the company from facing bad politics. Often workers in a corporation tend to follow a certain person, which might create an imbalance among the company’s workforce. But, the rotation system gives equal chance to each one of the leaders to show their talent and take the company forward.

Investment in Research

Huawei is an active investor in innovative research projects and invests 10% of its annual revenue into R&D. The research department holds over 10,000 patents and keeps innovating each year than the previous one.

Ren is an active supporter of Communist Party of China. The company is growing rapidly and Forbes has estimated Zhengfei’s wealth at $2.1 billion. Although he is a billionaire, Zhengfei prefers a low profile lifestyle and even travels on the public transport. He lives with his daughter Cathy Meng who is also the CFO of Huawei.

The Founder of upWork – Odysseas Tsatalos

Founder, start-up, Tech Story / By
Odysseas Tsatalos
Image source: business.financialpost.com

World’s most successful business ideas are born out of personal passion, belief, and, sometimes, pain. When the spark ignites, it sets a fire in motion. A fire to create something that the world has never seen, but, will be benefited from it, the most. A true entrepreneur is not the one who works for money, but, the one who seeds the idea into the world, whose fruit will benefit the society and of course, the money will follow. Today, when unemployment is at its peak, and talented individuals are wandering in search of good jobs, a man from Greece gave a platform to such individuals to earn their living.

Early Life
Born in Athens, Greece, Odysseas Tsatalos completed a diploma in Electrical Engineering, followed by a degree in Computer Science from the National Technical University, Athens. He later joined the University of Wisconsin, at Madison, to pursue a Master’s degree and a PhD in Computer Science. With such a broad expanse of knowledge, Odysseas became a research member at IBM Almaden Research Center. Odysseas’ parents wanted him to become a doctor, but his mind was inclined towards the computers, since his childhood. His father was a lawyer by profession and had always considered Information Technology as an end of the career before even it began. However, Odysseas’ interest in computers, encouraged him to take computers as his main subject in college and led him to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs.

Birth Of oDesk

Odysseas’ first entrepreneurial venture was born out of nostalgia and pain, from being away from his school friend, ‘Stratis Karamanlakis’. While working at Intacct Corp., in the United States, Tsatalos tried to convince Karamanlakis to come and join him at Intacct Corp., which did not work out. So, he found another way. Both the friends, collaborated on a project through teleconferencing, and soon co-founded a venture they called as ‘oDesk – Online Desk’.

The concept of oDesk was simple yet so powerful that it carried the potential to provide employment to thousands of individuals all over the globe. oDesk let the businesses hire freelancers, anywhere over the globe to work on their projects online. The business seemed like a huge risk at the time, but, the novel concept made it popular among the people. Odesk freelancers are working for companies and organizations, they would have never even heard of otherwise.

Odysseas gave birth to his company with initial self-investment of $50,000, through charging his credit card. Both, Odysseas and Karamanlakis, out-sourced low-cost software developers to save money. Initially, the company faced numerous problems as various large corporations were constantly turning them down and pointed out many loopholes in their platform. One of them was not paying the workers on an hourly basis. But, one day, a computer firm approached oDesk, with the requirement of freelance software developers, who were willing to work for a cheap pay. Odysseas grabbed this opportunity and advertised about the requirement online. Soon, hundreds of freelancers, all over the world, contacted him for the gig, and oDesk took a flight.

The Success Flight

The company soon raised $29 million, and took one step ahead, in becoming the world’s largest online workplace. Odysseas took the role of Chief Technical Officer, the job he is best at, and made Gary Swart the CEO of the company. The company was officially launched in 2005. oDesk got merged with Elance, on 18th December 2013, and was renamed as Elance-oDesk. Two years later, the company got a new name, Upwork Global Inc., also shortly known as Upwork.

Upwork currently has more than 12 million registered freelancers, and 5 million registered clients. More than 3 million jobs are posted each year, which worth $1 billion. According to the expert analysts, this figure is expected to reach $5 Billion, in the next five years. The company is based in Mountain View, California, United States. The co-founder of the company, Karamanlakis, still resides in Athens and handles more than 250 full-time oDesk contractors from Athens.

William Ding Lei

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

“Life is just like chocolates with liquor and you never know what’s inside”, said a man who dreamt of being an excellent mechanical engineer and is now the richest person in China. Being the most populated country, China also offers numerous opportunities to individuals to invent a product or a service that millions of people can use on the go. William Ding , the founder of NetEase, did just the same. Keeping money as his secondary target Ding aimed for something extraordinary that would evolve China.

Early Life
Born on 1st October, 1971 in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, Ding was interested in electronics from the early age of 13. And at 16 he managed to assemble electronic parts to make six transistor radios. Ding earned a bachelor’s degree from Chengdu College of Electronic Science and Technology. Just after graduation he took a job as an engineer in the local state department. He quit that job soon to join Sybase in Guangzhou. After working there for a while William Ding decided to go on his own and start a company.

The Birth of NetEase
It was 1997 when Ding finally started his own venture with dozen other employees. The company, for first two years, focused on development of Internet applied software, one of its kind in China, a bilingual e-mail system. The e-mail system quickly earned popularity and became buzz of the town. William Ding then conceptualized and brought the company into new light by hosting a search engine platform and microblogging on NetEase. The next thing they knew was NetEase becoming the largest internet portal in China.

NetEase then ventured into their most profitable launch ever – multiplayer gaming. NetEase’s gaming portal has thousands of massively popular games one of which is World of Warcraft. Millions of players from China as well as the whole world visit NetEase to play these multiplayer games. This web portal has made Ding Lei the richest man in China with billions of net worth. Popularly known as the ‘video game billionaire’ in China Ding Lei has made it to the top by creating opportunities for himself. In one of his interviews Ding Lei said, “Smart guys seize opportunities and never let them slip between their fingers. And those who think themselves weak always wait for opportunities.” The engineering genius considered Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison as his heroes. His intellect and love for reading always made him stand out among his classmates. During his college he chose to read as many IT books as possible from the school library rather than to focus on getting high marks. Ding Lei often raised questions which would be so unique that they sounded weird.

His constant reading and practicing what he believed led him to write an entire software code unlike his other classmates. He also quit good paying job to pursue his dream.

Ding Lei’s Goals
Lei considers NetEase as a responsibility towards users, clients, investors, and employees. His aim was to make gaming enjoyable, educational and believes that the next decade will see a massive rise in e-business. William Ding believes in talent and spends both time and money to upgrade skills his employees through training. He prefers to personally recruit people from his own alma mater and other colleges and universities.

Apart from the internet business Ding Lei plans to bring the farmers who have lost their farms for factories back into business. He plans to invest in organic farming to produce quality food. He can, thus, bring some of the country’s capital towards countryside. His another share for the Chinese people is to make them literate. Lei has appointed a team who translated American college lessons into Mandarin with subtitles.

Despite of his busy schedule, Lei has particular time devoted for his study. He likes to read as many books on IT as possible and to increase his knowledge base. In 2004 he was awarded as the ‘Technology Change Agent for Innovative use of Technology’. He lives in Guangzhou with his wife Wang Xunfang.

Story of Lee Byung-chul- Founder of Samsung

Founder, Story, Tech Story / By

An entrepreneur is a person who has a vision that could change millions of lives and help the country grow economically at the same time. This vision brings creative ideas and creates employment opportunities helping the society prosper.

Countries like USA, China, India, South Korea and many more have made a significant contribution to the global industrial sector. When it comes to electronics and plastic market, China tops the list, top apparel, software and hardware brands are from US and South Korea is famous for electronics and automobiles industry. One man from South Korea changed the entire electronics and smartphones market when his company called Samsung came to the market with their world changing technology. The founder Lee Byung-chul’s Samsung has seen many crests and troughs all these years and today stands as a symbol of growth, innovation, and prosperity.

Early Life
Born on 12th February, 1910 in Uiryeong County in South Korea Lee was the only son of a wealthy family. His family was of landowners and left behind huge wealth for him to inherit. Chull attended Waseda University in Tokyo but left his degree incomplete. Initially, he used his inherited wealth to start a rice mill. Although he dedicated himself in this first business it failed to float and sunk without generating any major profits.
Lee Byung-chul
After the failure of his first business Chul established an export business in Daegu on 1st March, 1938 and named the company Samsung Trading Co. The company exported varieties of goods and eatables like fish, vegetables, and fruits to the regions of China. The company saw a major boom in growth as it was supplying goods throughout Korea and even to other countries by 1945. The company was then shifted to Seoul in 1947. Samsung Trading Co. was considered to be one of the ten largest trading companies during that time. But, Chul had to face another difficulty. This time, the war. As the war broke out Chul had to shift his company to a safer location in Busan around 1950.

But this shifting came as a boon for Chul. The massive influx of US army troops and the military equipment boosted his trucking business for the next year and a half. Chul also started a sugar refinery which saw the light of success quite early. After the war, he went on to set up a wool factory in 1954 in Daegu which later became the largest wool factory in the country. As the business was growing Chul ventured into various other sectors like finance, insurance, retail, and security.

Chul had a strong belief in industrialization and wanted Samsung group to become leader in every sector. It was in the 1960s that Samsung ventured into electronics industry to take over the market just like other sectors. Samsung focused on creating innovative products and soon the company released their first product – a black and white television. By the mid and late 1960s Samsung already had six divisions focused on departments like semiconductors, telecommunications, hardware, etc.

Success in the Electronics Business
In 1980, Samsung acquired Hanguk Jeonja Tongsin, a major company in telecommunications. This was the same year when the company had its own electronics division under Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. unit. The company then started producing telephones, fax machines, and various other electronic devices on a large-scale.

The founder of Samsung, Lee Byung Chul, died on 19th November, 1987 in Seoul, South Korea. But the company kept following his philosophy of large-scale expansion. The company expanded as never before setting up their plants in New York, Texas, London, etc. Samsung’s construction company garnered major projects including that of the Burj Khalifa in Malaysia.

Major Successes
Samsung raced on the top of the list as the number one memory chip production company in the whole world in 1992. Soon it also acquired second position, just behind Intel, in the chip-making industry. The year of 1995 came with a huge success as Samsung made first LCD screen revolutionizing the television hardware industry.

Samsung accounts for 15% of South Korea’s GDP (as of 2012). In the same year the company’s total revenue was a whopping $265 billion and earned profits of $26 billion. Samsung has employed over 425,000 people providing a good life for people all over the world.