What is common between Sam Altman and Sundar Pichai? Both of them went to...

Time of India

4 hours ago

One built a chatbot that sounds eerily human. The other turned a web browser into a global tech empire. One dropped out of college. The other stacked degrees like power-ups in a calculated climb to the top.
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And yet, both
and
ended up in the same place: the summit of the tech world.
So what do the CEO of
and the CEO of
and Alphabet actually have in common?
Well, somewhere between the lines of AI ethics, world tours, Chrome tabs, and viral ChatGPT prompts, there's a quiet little academic overlap. That's right — both Altman and
spent time at Stanford University, the Hogwarts of Silicon Valley, where tech dreams are brewed with equal parts code and caffeine.
But don't let the shared zip code fool you: their paths couldn't be more different. One chose rebellion (read: dropped out). The other chose refinement (read: Stanford
and
Wharton). One bet on startup chaos. The other steered a tech empire with calm precision. Yet here they are, running the digital universe from opposite ends of the AI spectrum.
Let's rewind the tape and meet the men behind the algorithms.
Sam Altman: Dropped out, then reprogrammed the future
Before he was crisscrossing the globe as the face of OpenAI, Sam Altman was just a kid obsessed with computers and curious about how the world worked.
Fast forward a few decades, and he's one of the most influential figures shaping the future of artificial intelligence.
From dropping out of Stanford to launching billion-dollar ventures, Altman's career has been anything but traditional — but every move has been calculated, ambitious, and unmistakably bold.
Hacking before it was cool
Born in 1985 in Chicago and raised in St. Louis, Sam Altman's tech journey began with an Apple Macintosh and a screwdriver.
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At age 8, while most kids were figuring out Mario Kart, Altman was busy pulling apart computers and learning how to code. That early obsession would become the blueprint for a future in high-stakes innovation.
Stanford: Brief but pivotal
Altman attended John Burroughs School, an elite private school in Missouri, before heading to Stanford University to study computer science. But Stanford couldn't hold him for long. After just two years, he dropped out at age 19 to co-found Loopt, a location-based social networking app.
The startup didn't exactly change the world, but it raised over $30 million in funding and sold for $43 million — not bad for a college dropout.
The Y combinator era
In 2011, Altman joined Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's premier startup accelerator, as a part-time partner. By 2014, he was its president, guiding the next generation of tech disruptors. Under his leadership, YC backed some of today's biggest names, including Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe, and expanded its vision to support 'hard tech' innovations like energy and biotech.
The OpenAI revolution begins
In 2015, Altman co-founded OpenAI with a mission to develop artificial intelligence that would benefit all of humanity. That mission eventually led to the creation of ChatGPT, a chatbot so sophisticated it's now writing essays, poems, speeches — and sometimes even startup pitches. OpenAI has since become a household name in the AI arms race.
Crypto experiment with Worldcoin
Just when you thought it couldn't get weirder, Altman helped launch Worldcoin, a bold — and controversial — project that scans people's irises to verify identity in exchange for cryptocurrency.
The aim? A form of universal basic income and digital authentication. The reality? Global privacy debates and biometric skepticism.
Though he never finished at Stanford, Altman doesn't need a diploma to validate his impact. The campus may not have handed him a cap and gown, but it did give him what he needed most: a launchpad to become one of tech's most influential minds.
Sundar Pichai: The strategist who engineered Google's future
Before he was leading one of the most powerful companies in the world, Sundar Pichai was just a kid in Chennai with a steel-trap memory and a fascination for numbers.
While his classmates were scribbling notes, he could recall phone numbers with eerie precision — a nerdy talent that would someday power a career built on information, access, and innovation.
Humble beginnings in Chennai
Born in 1972 in Madurai, India, Pichai grew up in a middle-class Tamil household in Chennai. His father worked as an electrical engineer, while his mother was a stenographer. The family didn't own a telephone until Sundar was 12, but when they did, he was the one who memorized every number dialed — unknowingly foreshadowing his future in data-driven tech.
From Metallurgy to Management
Pichai's academic path was a globe-spanning masterclass in intellectual rigor:
IIT Kharagpur: He earned a B.Tech in Metallurgical Engineering, one of India's toughest disciplines at one of its most prestigious institutions.
He earned a B.Tech in Metallurgical Engineering, one of India's toughest disciplines at one of its most prestigious institutions. Stanford University: There, he pursued a Master's in Materials Science and Engineering, walking the same halls that Sam Altman would later briefly attend.
There, he pursued a Master's in Materials Science and Engineering, walking the same halls that Sam Altman would later briefly attend. Wharton School of Business: He rounded off his education with an MBA, graduating as both a Siebel Scholar and Palmer Scholar, elite honors awarded to top-performing students.
The browser that changed everything
Pichai joined Google in 2004, and instead of diving straight into Search or Android, he focused on something overlooked at the time — the web browser. Leading the development of Google Chrome, he helped turn it into the fastest, most user-friendly gateway to the internet. Chrome's success became his calling card.
From there, his rise was swift and strategic. He eventually took charge of:
Gmail
Google Maps
Android
ChromeOS
He also became the go-to tech executive for major product launches and keynote moments.
CEO of Google, then Alphabet
In 2015, Pichai was named CEO of Google, a quiet but powerful promotion that signaled deep trust from the company's founders.
By 2019, he was promoted again — this time to CEO of Alphabet, Google's parent company, overseeing one of the largest and most influential corporate ecosystems on the planet.
The calm eye in tech's storm
Unlike many Silicon Valley leaders, Pichai isn't known for big swings or fiery speeches. Instead, he brings a calm, thoughtful presence to the chaos — quietly managing billion-dollar products, fielding tough questions from governments, and navigating crises with an engineer's logic.
While Sam Altman is busy pitching AGI and Worldcoin, Pichai is managing global platforms, writing ethical AI policies, and trying to keep the internet running (and responsible) for billions.
Same campus, different missions
So yes, they both went to Stanford. But while Altman saw it as a springboard out, Pichai treated it as a rung up.
Altman's journey is a Silicon Valley fever dream — all risk, ambition, and moonshots. Pichai's path is more like a perfectly structured algorithm — optimized, calculated, and globally scalable.
Altman is the experimental artist; Pichai, the master engineer.
Together, they represent two sides of tech's future:
Altman is building the tools to think for us.
Pichai is managing the systems that know everything about us.
The dropout and the scholar who rewired the world
It turns out, there's no single path to becoming a tech icon. You can drop out or graduate with honors, scan eyeballs or launch browsers — as long as you think big, build bold, and maybe, just maybe, spend a little time in Palo Alto.
Because whether you're asking ChatGPT to draft your essay or searching Google for how to cook quinoa, you're standing on the shoulders of two Stanford-touched minds who couldn't be more different — and more alike.