Tech news in 3 minutes
Sundar Pichai faces boos, walkout at Stanford graduation ceremony over Google’s Israel, ICE ties
Over the weekend, Google CEO Sundar Pichai faced a student revolt during his commencement speech at Stanford University, where he earned his graduate degree. Approximately 200 graduating students walked out and loudly booed the tech executive. The protest focused on Google’s defense ties, particularly Project Nimbus—a controversial $1.2 billion 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 (ICE). Student signs included phrases like “ICE SPIES WITH GOOGLE AI” and “GENOCIDE RUNS ON GOOGLE,” alongside “FREE FREE PALESTINE.” Protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted “free Palestine.” A statement associated with the protest read: “We are walking out because we refuse to glorify the corporations that fuel this violence and exercise our power to choose differently.” The walkout was organized by campus activist groups including Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine, No Tech for Apartheid, and Tech for Liberation. TechCrunch reached out to Google for comment. The war in Gaza has intensified protests over Google’s Nimbus participation, both inside and outside the company. In 2024, Google fired 28 workers for protesting the contract, but internal dissent persists. The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently criticized Google and other companies for “choosing to look the other way” on Israel’s use of their services. Project Nimbus also has support from Amazon. Microsoft has faced similar criticism, though it restricted Israeli government use of its technology after an investigation found its cloud services enabled mass surveillance of Palestinians. The student protest drew criticism from business leaders, including Vinod Khosla, billionaire co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who called it “biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish,” arguing that students ignored the potential benefits of AI for the world’s poorest. Pichai’s Stanford appearance reflects a broader trend: college graduation speakers nationwide have been booed for promoting AI. However, the animus toward Pichai was specifically directed at his company’s business decisions, not AI hype in general. Many young people view AI as threatening their employment and harming society.