Ro Khanna

Videos circulating on the internet showed many from Stanford’s Class of 2026 leaving their seats at Stanford Stadium while chanting “Free, free Palestine” moments after Pichai began his keynote address.

Sunday’s “anti-Google” protest comes weeks after the company’s former chief executive, Eric Schmidt, was booed by students as he chose to speak about the rise of artificial intelligence at the University of Arizona’s graduation ceremony. The incident added to the growing trend of new graduating classes calling out top executives amid concerns over AI’s impact on entry-level jobs.

Unlike Schmidt, Pichai’s address steered clear of any mention of AI at Stanford, choosing instead to draw on his own journey as an immigrant who moved from Chennai to Silicon Valley to pursue the American Dream. Nonetheless, his efforts to encourage graduates were ultimately overshadowed by the commencement protest.

Vinod Khosla-Ro Khanna debate ensues after the Sundar Pichai Stanford incident

In a post on X, Indian-American businessman Vinod Khosla hit out against Stanford students, calling out their “stupidity” for taking the “greatest opportunity for equality in humanity ever and to really free humanity and go walk out on Google.”

Noting that CEO Sundar Pichai has “pioneered that,” Khosla continued to criticise Stanford graduates, calling them “biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish.”

“Selfish because they ignored the bottom 3 billion people on this planet vs. the few million Palestinians who I also support. Get real!” he added online.

Contradicting Khosla’s viewpoint, Democrat Ro Khanna wrote on X, “Vinod, my understanding is these students walked out to protest Google’s contract with IDF given Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Wherever one stands on those contracts, I believe you would support their right of free expression and challenging authority.”

Various journalists and other industry professionals also expanded the conversation by sharing their thoughts on the Elon Musk-led social media platform.

Sam E Antar, a Wall Street criminal-turned-fraud investigator and former certified public accountant, said, ” I’ve taught at Stanford more than a dozen times. The real story isn’t that some graduates walked out. It’s that Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google, while the protesters are still protesting Google. One group builds things. The other interrupts commencement speeches.”

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD) who focuses on issues like Gulf relations with Iran and Gulf peace with Israel, tweeted, “Students of an American university want the American company Google to cancel its contracts with the American government and its agencies?”

“This sounds normal to these elite university graduates?” he added.

Erielle Azerrad, Deputy Chief Counsel for US Senator Ted Cruz, commented, “Third-worldism is a real phenomenon, and it’s taken over so many of our major universities.”

Sana Saeed, a former Al Jazeera contributor, said on X, “I love that students are still making statements, still walking out, still talking about this – when it feels everyone, everything has ‘moved on’ I’m glad to see this. Not because it materially changes any realities for Palestinians (and Lebanese, Iranians, etc) but because it forces everyone who witnesses it to remember the on-going, unending crimes of our country against entire peoples.”

American author and Harvard alum, Samantha Ettus, added, “Nobody is safe from the Free Palestine movement. Not the CEO of Google and not Stanford. Wake up, America.”

Why did Stanford students protest Sundar Pichai’s commencement speech?

Although Pichai’s Stanford speech wasn’t centred around artificial intelligence, he acknowledged the growing controversy. “People have been giving me a lot of advice … about what not to say,” Pichai said, hinting that it was the “last two letters of my last name.”

He went on to say, “In all honesty, that topic is truly immaterial to what I want to share with you. The most timeless advice, I’ve learned, is technology agnostic. It’s about you, the life you want to build for yourself, and the choices that help you pursue that life.”

Even as he restricted himself to offering broad advice to students about facing challenges, some students were already upset by the mere presence of the top Google representative. Their demonstration was, in part, fuelled by the tech giant’s Project Numbus, an over-billion-dollar cloud computing contract with the Israeli government involving Google and Amazon.

The joint contract between the tech companies was signed in 2021 and aims to provide cloud computing infrastructure, AI and other services to the Israeli government and its military. The project has faced severe global condemnation, with even employees protesting the deal over their companies’ ties with Israel amid accusations by critics that Israel has committed “genocide” in Gaza.

On the contrary, Israeli authorities have repeatedly countered the argument, calling their war in Gaza a legitimate defence of its people, while accusing Hamas militants of being guilty of genocide instead.

Disclaimer: The content in this article is based on a viral social media discussion and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only.