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Glean Founder Arvind Jain Says He Learned From Sundar Pichai at Google While Building Billion-Dollar Companies
Arvind Jain, co-founder of Rubrik and Glean, said he observed Sundar Pichai's intensity and willingness to pursue ambitious projects while both worked at Google. Jain's AI company Glean reached a $7.2 billion valuation after Rubrik's 2024 IPO. He also said he learns most from his youngest employees.
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Arvind Jain, co-founder of Rubrik and Glean, said he studied Sundar Pichai's approach during their overlapping years at Google and applied those observations to build two companies now valued in the billions. Jain joined Google as an engineer after moving from a small town in India.
He described feeling like an outsider among colleagues from top universities and made a point of watching how others succeeded.
Pichai joined the company as an individual contributor around the same period, and the two worked together for years, fortune.com reported. Pichai became Google CEO in August 2015, just over a decade after joining. Jain said Pichai stood out for his intensity, hard work, ability to think big, and confidence.
"You have to think crazy," Jain stated. Jain pointed to Pichai's early push for Google Chrome as an example. At the time, few inside Google saw value in the project, and Jain himself viewed it as a poor idea.
Chrome nevertheless became the world's most-used browser by 2012. Jain left Google and co-founded Rubrik, which completed an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in 2024 at a valuation of around $5.6 billion. He later launched Glean, an AI company now valued at $7.2 billion.
Jain said he continues to learn from colleagues, particularly his youngest Gen Z hires. "Actually, I feel like I learn the most from the youngest people," he told fortune.com. "They’re the ones who have not seen the things that I’ve seen.
