There was a time everyone seemed to have a take on why Open AI’s ChatGPT beat Google to market in November 2022.
One view was that Alphabet Inc.’s bloated company culture had held it back and made it too touchy-feely for cutthroat competition. Another was that protectionism over Google’s advertising revenue had curbed the company’s ambition, creating a “code red” moment that left it vulnerable to disruption, even destruction. Some questioned whether Sundar Pichai, the company’s soft-spoken leader, possessed the ruthlessness to be the “wartime CEO” Google needed.