Sundar Pichai was booed off stage at Stanford's graduation ceremony when about 200 students from the graduating class walked out during his commencement speech at the university where he earned his graduate degree in materials science and engineering.
Those who remained did not hold back. The Google CEO faced loud boos and protest signs reading "ICE SPIES WITH GOOGLE AI" and "GENOCIDE RUNS ON GOOGLE." Students waved Palestinian flags and chanted "free Palestine" throughout the ceremony.
The protests targeted Google's $1.2 billion Project Nimbus contract with Amazon to provide cloud and AI services to the Israeli military, as well as its relationship with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "We are walking out because we refuse to glorify the corporations that fuel this violence," the protestors said in a statement.
Campus activist groups including Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine, No Tech for Apartheid, and Tech for Liberation orchestrated the walkout. Google fired 28 workers in 2024 for protesting the Nimbus deal, though the controversy has persisted.
Billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla posted on X that the protest was "biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish," arguing students were ignoring potential benefits of AI for developing nations.
The incident demonstrates the limits of Pichai's authority. Tech executives remain vulnerable to public pressure, particularly when their companies face sustained criticism over military and government contracts.
