Sundar Pichai Tells NDTV How India Helps Google Create New Technology

Google Maps, YouTube Go, Google Tez are some of the products that Google worked on in India first before taking it to the rest of the world. In an exclusive interview to NDTV at the Googleplex in California, Google CEO Sundar Pichai explains how insights from India help Google create global products. "YouTube Go...we started in India, we are taking it globally. We recently launched the product called Google Tez," said the India-born CEO, adding, "We are doing it in India and will take to the rest of the world and say look this is how you do it."

Here's the transcript :

NDTV: One of the things that I love about Google Maps is, it lowers my tension. Because I know I'll take 42 minutes to go from here to there. I'm in a traffic jam. It doesn't matter, it's still 42 minutes. In the old days we said oh God! I'm getting late, but now, traffic jams are within an overall scheme of things, thanks to Google Maps.

Sundar Pichai: You know I love using Google Maps and in India it actually works well, we are constantly trying to make it better, but I think the traffic in India is a challenge so hopefully Maps makes a small difference.

NDTV: A lot of it was developed in India, right?

Sundar Pichai: That's right, India is where we had this insight, a team from India felt like it's tough to get data around maps, so they basically said wherever there are missing roads, we actually will let users, just like Wikipedia, edit and complete map routes and so on. So that insight really changed how fast we have been building maps since then.

NDTV: India has done certain things that are being used around the world. For example, you got lighter products because we have less bandwidth and less speed in India. Give us some examples of things worked on in India that are being used around the world.

Sundar Pichai: Several examples, you know. We talked about Maps earlier and YouTube Go, so the ability to cache videos offline and watch it when you want to, we started in India. We are taking it globally. We recently launched the product called Google Tez. We are able to do this in India first because of the digital payments infrastructure that India has done, so we are doing it in India and will take to the rest of the world and say look this is how you do it... so yeah, very proud.