TOI Bharat Abroad: Pichai's Payday, Pelosi's Challenger, Mamdani's Bash
This week in TOI Bharat Abroad: Sundar Pichai joins the billionaire club after a decade steering Google; Saikat Chakrabarti takes on the Democratic establishment with a direct challenge to Nancy Pelosi; and New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani throws a secretive, star-studded wedding in Uganda that felt part Bourne, part Bollywood.
THE BIG STORY
Sundar Pichai enters billionaire club after decade at Google's helm
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, has officially joined the billionaire ranks with a net worth of $1.1 billion, per Bloomberg — a rare feat for a non-founder in Silicon Valley.
Why it matters:
Pichai's rise marks a shift in tech's power structure, where operational leadership now rivals founder mythos. With just 0.02% ownership in Alphabet, he built his fortune through over $650 million in stock sales and bonuses, not equity windfalls.
Driving the news:
Alphabet's market value has surged by over $1 trillion since early 2023, fuelled by record AI infrastructure investment under Pichai's leadership. In 2025 alone, Alphabet will spend $85 billion on AI. YouTube and Google Cloud now earn more annually than all of Alphabet did when Pichai became CEO in 2015.
Born in Tamil Nadu and educated at IIT Kharagpur and Stanford, Pichai's journey — from a two-room home to the helm of a trillion-dollar company — represents a new kind of tech success: quiet, global, and relentlessly effective.
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NRI Watch
Saikat Chakrabarti takes on Dem Godmother
Indian-origin political organiser Saikat Chakrabarti — best known as AOC's ex-aide and Justice Democrats co-founder — is taking on Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi in California's 11th District. His 'Mission for America' campaign blends climate action, jobs, and economic reform, and rejects all corporate PAC money. Born to Bengali parents in Texas, Chakrabarti is challenging what he sees as a complacent Democratic establishment post-Trump's re-election. Pelosi remains the favourite, but Chakrabarti's candidacy signals a deeper generational battle within the party — and a rare desi voice in the heart of America's progressive insurgency.
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Offbeat
A Big Fat Ugandan Wedding
New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's three-day wedding in Uganda made waves for its secrecy and scale. Held at his family's estate in Kampala's upscale Buziga Hill, the event featured armed guards, masked security, phone jammers, and luxury convoys.
Mamdani, 33, born in Uganda and raised in New York, married artist Rama Duwaji in February but hosted the formal bash recently. Guests partied under tree canopies lit with fairy lights, overlooking Lake Victoria.
The estate, owned by his parents—filmmaker Mira Nair and scholar Mahmood Mamdani—became a fortress, with over 20 guards and military-style tents. The celebration ended Friday night with a quiet teardown and no official comment from the couple.
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