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Google CEO Sundar Pichai faced a walkout and boos during his commencement speech at Stanford University over the weekend, according to reports. About 200 students from the graduating class reportedly left the event, while others loudly booed the tech executive.
The protest centered on Google’s defense contracts and related relationships, including Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion agreement shared with Amazon to provide cloud and AI services to the Israeli military. Students also protested Google’s relationship with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
Student signs included phrases such as “ICE SPIES WITH GOOGLE AI” and “GENOCIDE RUNS ON GOOGLE,” along with “FREE FREE PALESTINE.” Protesters also waved Palestinian flags and shouted “free Palestine,” with online video showing parts of the demonstration.
“We are walking out because we refuse to glorify the corporations that fuel this violence and exercise our power to choose differently,” a statement associated with the protest reads.
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.
As the war in Gaza has continued, Google’s participation in Project Nimbus has drawn protests both inside and outside the company. In 2024, Google fired 28 workers for protesting the contract, though the company has continued to face internal dissent over the issue since then.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has also criticized Project Nimbus and other companies, accusing them of “choosing to look the other way” regarding Israel’s use of their services.
Project Nimbus has support from Amazon. Microsoft has also faced criticism over its technology support for the Israeli military, though it restricted the Israeli government’s use of its technology after an investigation found its cloud services were being used to mass-surveil Palestinians.
The student demonstration also drew pushback from some business figures online. Vinod Khosla, a billionaire co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist, posted on X that the protest was “biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish.” He argued that students “ignored the bottom 3 billion people on this planet that could benefit from AI” and were acting on “misinformed selfish self-interest.”
Pichai’s appearance at Stanford fits a broader pattern in which commencement speakers have sometimes been booed when discussing AI. However, the reaction toward Pichai was described as unusually targeted, focusing less on AI hype and more on the specific business decisions made by the company he leads.
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