Stanford Students Walk Out of Graduation Ceremony in Protest During Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s Speech

A large group of what appeared to be over a hundred Stanford University students walked out of their graduation ceremony on Sunday, June 14, in protest during Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s commencement speech.

Some people could be seen waving large Palestinian flags as they chanted “Free, free Palestine,” while booing could be heard from the crowd.

One student held a sign reading “ICE Spies With Google AI.” Another sign read “The People Have the Power.”

Vinod Khosla, founder of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, was highly critical of the walkout.

“The stupidity of these Stanford students to take the greatest opportunity for equality in humanity ever and to really free humanity and go walk out on Google and Sundar Pichai that’s pioneered that. Biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish,” he wrote on X. “Selfish because they ignored the bottom 3 billion people on this planet vs. the few million Palestinians who I also support. Get real!”

Khosla reposted a separate tweet that said: “Impressive Stanford. Not hiring your grads.”

“Putin and CCP laugh,” Josh Wolfe, co-founder of venture capital firm Lux Capital, wrote on X. “Google came from Stanford. [It] has employed more Stanford grads and created more wealth than most can imagine.”

Pichai got his master’s degree in materials science and engineering from Stanford and joined Google in 2004 then became CEO in 2015.

Pichai didn’t mention Palestine or political affairs during his speech, nor did he directly mention AI. Instead, he talked about his journey from Chennai to Silicon Valley and making the distinction between life’s important moments and the ones that seem big but really aren’t.

“Only a few [moments] are really important, and you need to get them right: Picking a partner, choosing whether to start a family, a bigger career pivot. Those decisions require time and intention,” he said.

He told students the three simple filters he said he has applied to his own life, which helped him get more moments right than wrong and take some pressure off: “choose optimism;” “gravitate towards working on hard things;” and “when all else is equal, do the thing that excites you.”

While Pichai didn’t discuss AI, it has become a topic in many graduation ceremony commencement speeches.

Last month, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in a University of Arizona speech, told students the impact of AI would be “larger, faster, and more consequential” than things that came before it.

“It will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person, and every relationship you have,” he said while receiving “boos” from the crowd.

Schmidt also addressed anxieties about job security and an uncertain future with AI.

Reuters contributed to this article.