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Two weeks in the past, Google had a giant day in Washington. President Biden signed an government order to create synthetic intelligence safeguards that would have an effect on Google’s most urgent initiatives, and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken gave the corporate an award for its work in aiding Ukrainian refugees and selling ladies’s financial safety.
Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief government, had spent a lot of the day on a witness stand at a federal courthouse about two miles from the White Home, defending his firm from claims that it crushed rivals within the search and internet marketing markets.
On Tuesday, Mr. Pichai is anticipated to testify once more, this time in San Francisco, to confront claims introduced by the online game firm Epic Video games that his firm broke the regulation, wielding monopolistic energy over app builders on Android’s Google Play Retailer.
Mr. Pichai during the last month has change into the face of Google’s antitrust courtroom fights on either side of the nation. And his visits to the witness stand underscore the rising significance for Large Tech leaders to be sharp witnesses for his or her firms, whether or not in an antitrust trial or in hearings on Capitol Hill.
Testifying underneath oath is a activity that many tech chief executives may be requested to do within the coming years, with Amazon, Meta and others going through their very own antitrust courtroom fights. It’s not a activity at which many executives have excelled.
Although he was by no means known as to the witness stand to testify, Invoice Gates, who was chief government of Microsoft within the final huge know-how antitrust case introduced by the Justice Division greater than twenty years in the past, got here throughout as combative and evasive in depositions.
Over the previous few years, executives together with Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI’s Sam Altman (and, in fact, Mr. Pichai) have been requested to testify earlier than Congress for varied causes, with various levels of success. Mr. Zuckerberg has at occasions exasperated lawmakers with obscure responses, whereas Mr. Altman appeared to appeal senators in a listening to this 12 months.
The primary obligation on the witness stand for Mr. Pichai — a low-key and detail-focused government — has been to maintain the temperature low underneath questioning and maintain to the central level of Google’s antitrust protection: that it’s an revolutionary firm that has maintained its management via innovation and onerous work as a substitute of unlawful monopolistic habits.
The Justice Division filed its landmark antitrust swimsuit towards Google in October 2020, arguing that the corporate’s default-search offers with cellphone makers and browser firms helped it illegally keep a monopoly.
Google known as Mr. Pichai, 51, to the stand two weeks in the past. Quite than sit within the witness field, Mr. Pichai stood at a lectern for nearly 4 hours, sporting a microphone, as if he had been delivering a speech at a company convention. His handlers stated he needed to stand due to a sprained decrease again.
He spoke of his background, getting a phone as a preteen in Chennai, India, and understanding then the facility of know-how, earlier than he deftly answered questions on his firm’s aggressive standing, relationship with Apple and the default-search contracts the federal government argues had been unlawful.
Mr. Pichai tried to refute the federal government lawyer’s arguments that Google paid Apple billions of {dollars} a 12 months to maintain it out of the search market. He offered a distinct story, saying his firm needed to be the iPhone’s default search engine due to the “worth” of that spot, and the necessity to guarantee Apple would safeguard the consumer expertise.
“I felt the deal had performed effectively since 2016,” Mr. Pichai stated. “It was persevering with to extend search utilization, search income.”
In cross-examination, Mr. Pichai repeated the rationale for the deal so many occasions that for a second, he appeared to lose endurance with the road of questioning, saying, “I simply gave all the explanations” for the deal.
Adam Kovacevich, a tech business lobbyist on the Chamber of Progress who spent 12 years working at Google, stated Mr. Pichai’s testimony gave the courtroom a high-level view of how the corporate made strategic selections.
“He did nice,” Mr. Kovacevich stated of Mr. Pichai’s efficiency. “The largest factor to me is while you’re in that place, your first goal is to not be Invoice Gates within the Microsoft trial. Your No. 1 goal is to come back off as responsive and cheap.”
Excerpts from Mr. Gates’s combative, videotaped testimony had been proven in courtroom greater than twenty years in the past. The Microsoft co-founder, antitrust attorneys say, undermined his and his firm’s credibility with the choose within the case.
In San Francisco, Mr. Pichai is anticipated to debate the fierce competitors between the working techniques of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android, to undercut Epic’s argument that Google’s app retailer practices are monopolistic. The chief government was closely concerned in launching Android and is anticipated to share his view that the Play Retailer has helped many builders develop their companies and enabled customers to securely obtain apps.
There might be one huge distinction: The antitrust trial in Washington doesn’t have a jury. The choice might be made by a choose. In San Francisco, Mr. Pichai should attraction to a jury that may very well be open to the concept an enormous tech firm is exploiting a lot smaller outfits. Tim Sweeney, Epic’s chief government, can be anticipated to testify within the trial.
Google and Epic declined to remark.
Epic, the maker of the hit sport Fortnite, introduced the declare towards Google in 2020, in an try and sidestep the 15 to 30 p.c charges from subscriptions and in-app purchases that it should pay Google.
The sport developer antagonized Google and Apple by telling customers to pay for in-app transactions straight via Epic. In response, Google and Apple suspended Fortnite from their app shops. Epic claims Google additionally bullied different firms to power them to drop offers with Epic earlier than it was banned from the app shops.
Google faces one other Justice Division antitrust lawsuit that accuses it of illegally abusing its monopoly energy over the know-how that delivers advertisements on-line.
A trial in that case may start as quickly as subsequent 12 months, however it’s too early to know whether or not Mr. Pichai might be known as to testify.
Mr. Pichai has tried to forestall Google staff from being distracted by the litigation. He has inspired them to “maintain doing what you’re doing” and has allotted a comparatively small variety of staff to work on the Justice Division case — tons of out of greater than 180,000.
However Mr. Pichai’s courtroom appearances have taken time away from his different obligations as an organization chief, together with his plan to reclaim Google’s primacy within the fast-growing area of generative A.I.
In the course of Mr. Pichai’s October testimony, the secretary of state, Mr. Blinken, was honoring Google’s subsidiary in Poland for its work in fostering ladies’s financial safety and serving to Ukrainian refugees. Hours later, Mr. Biden hosted a signing ceremony on the White Home, however Mr. Pichai’s handlers couldn’t R.S.V.P. sure as a result of there was an opportunity he might need nonetheless been in courtroom when it started.
“It’s not one of the best use of his time,” Richard Kramer, an analyst at Arete Analysis, a London-based funding analysis agency, stated in an interview. “No C.E.O. needs to spend their time being grilled by authorities attorneys.”
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