Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai

Google CEO Sundar Pichai's commencement address at Stanford University on Sunday was interrupted when roughly 200 graduates staged a walkout mid-speech, in a protest that spread quickly online after a video posted by an SFGate reporter on X went viral within hours.

Two main complaints were made regarding the protest against Google; one is the company’s deal with Israel, and the other is the industry's ties with US ICE.

Students exiting the auditorium were seen either waving Palestinian flags or donning the Palestinian head scarf, with slogans like "Free Palestine!" resonating throughout their exit from the auditorium. More protests joined in later to cause more disturbances for Pichai's talk.

The source of rage, in particular, revolves around Project Nimbus, which is a partnership project where Google and Amazon provide their AI and cloud computing to the Israeli government.

It has emerged as a major source of conflict among protests staged against these two companies where pro-Palestinian activism groups have asked employees of these companies to restrict the use of American technology by the Israeli government.

In his speech, Pichai neither mentioned any protest nor talked much about the role of AI in society. He focused more on personal experiences in his speech, according to an article in SFGate. Despite that, students were still leaving the hall even during his speech.