{"id":2212,"date":"2026-06-15T22:16:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T22:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=2212"},"modified":"2026-06-15T22:16:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T22:16:54","slug":"google-ceo-brought-optimism-to-stanford-commencement-some-graduates-walked-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=2212","title":{"rendered":"Google CEO brought optimism to Stanford commencement. Some graduates walked out"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p>As Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the stage Sunday at Stanford\u2019s commencement, scores of graduates stood, booed and walked out, turning a celebration for nearly 6,000 degree recipients into a protest over the tech giant\u2019s work with Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=2210\">Ivanka and Kai Trump seemed to avoid UFC fighter who insulted Michelle Obama<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Pichai, a Stanford alumnus leading one of the world\u2019s most powerful companies, appeared unfazed. His speech largely avoided the artificial intelligence debate that has shadowed other tech-heavy commencement addresses this season, instead offering graduates a familiar message about optimism, hard choices and pursuing work that excites them.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday morning began as a typical Stanford celebration, with thousands of onlookers braving the late spring sun beneath a cloudless sky. Graduates walked in riding inflatable horses, wearing cardboard mock-ups of Lightning McQueen and Caltrain or, in the case of a few male graduates, only Stanford-red briefs and sunglasses beneath their graduation gowns.<\/p>\n<p>It was all part of Wacky Walk, the decades-long Stanford tradition in which graduates wear costumes on their way to their commencement seats.<\/p>\n<p>But the ceremony became a site of protest as Pichai prepared to take the stage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSundar himself has modeled thoughtfulness, humility and determination in leadership and in making decisions of consequence to Google into the world,\u201d Stanford President Jonathan Levin said as he introduced him.<\/p>\n<p>Pichai earned a master\u2019s degree in materials science and engineering from Stanford in 1995 before joining Google in 2004, where he played a key role in the development of Google Chrome. He later became CEO of Google and its parent company, Alphabet.<\/p>\n<p>Even as Levin welcomed the CEO of \u201cone of the most innovative companies in the world,\u201d many students responded by booing. When Pichai took the stage, scores of students stood and walked out of the stadium, some chanting or booing as they left. The vast majority of students remained seated.<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cWhat I see in front of me is how graduation should be,\u201d Pichai said toward the beginning of his speech, even as students chanted \u201cfree, free Palestine\u201d while they marched out. \u201cGraduates celebrating together with the people you love who have supported you on your journey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Similar walk-outs were also staged in 2024 and 2025, when students left during the Stanford president\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n<p>The protest centered in part on Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud-computing contract involving Google, Amazon and the Israeli government that has drawn criticism from students, activists and tech workers opposed to Israel\u2019s military campaign in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>The moment also came after a string of commencement speeches by tech leaders and AI boosters who have used graduation stages to promote AI, often drawing pushback from students. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was met with boos when he began talking about the rise of AI at the University of Arizona.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=2208\">\u2018Toy Story 5\u2019: Tom Hanks and Tim Allen marvel at working together again<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Pichai acknowledged the AI controversy while mostly sidestepping it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople have been giving me a lot of advice \u2026 about what not to say,\u201d Pichai said, hinting that it was the \u201clast two letters of my last name.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But, he added, \u201cthe most timeless advice I\u2019ve learned is technology agnostic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The speech itself offered the kind of hopeful, broad advice common to graduation ceremonies: every decision will not be life-changing, but some choices matter and graduates should recognize them when they come.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re going to face a lot of moments in your life, only a few of them are really important, and you need to get them right,\u201d Pichai said.<\/p>\n<p>Drawing from his own life and career, Pichai told graduates that making the right choices could be distilled into three ideas: \u201cchoosing optimism,\u201d \u201cwhen you have the choice to work on something hard, say yes\u201d and \u201cwhen all else is equal, do what excites you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere on campus, many of those who walked out gathered for a \u201cPeople\u2019s Commencement\u201d held in protest. They assembled around a small stage under the shade of oak trees, surrounded by banners declaring \u201cPALESTINE WILL BE FREE\u201d as speakers played Marvin Gaye and Nina Simone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe people here have worked so hard to achieve this, and we want to celebrate the radical possibility of education \u2026 rather than listen to an advertisement by Stanford and its corporate benefactors,\u201d said Eva Jones, who had just graduated with a master\u2019s degree and helped with the event.<\/p>\n<p>The protest followed more than a year of campus activism around the war in Gaza and demands that Stanford divest from entities supporting Israel\u2019s military action there.<\/p>\n<p>In 2024, 13 people were arrested during a sit-in at the university\u2019s administrative offices, and Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen filed felony vandalism charges against 12. The case ended with a deadlocked jury, and a judge later disqualified Rosen from retrying it.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, more than a dozen students and faculty members participated in a hunger strike for divestment. Stanford also became one of 60 universities under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education for antisemitic discrimination and harassment following the protests.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=2206\">State-of-the-art $1 billion hospital planned for Los Gatos<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google CEO Sundar Pichai gave a graduation speech filled with optimism, but scores of Stanford students protested his presence and his company\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Google CEO brought optimism to Stanford commencement. 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