# Google CEO brought optimism to Stanford commencement. Some graduates walked out > Source: > Published: 2026-06-14 22:40:44+00:00 **Getting your** [Trinity Audio](//trinityaudio.ai)player ready...As Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the stage Sunday at Stanford’s commencement, scores of graduates stood, booed and walked out, turning a celebration for nearly 6,000 degree recipients into a protest over the tech giant’s work with Israel. Pichai, a Stanford alumnus leading one of the world’s most powerful companies, appeared unfazed. His speech largely avoided the artificial intelligence debate that has shadowed other tech-heavy commencement addresses this season, instead offering graduates a familiar message about optimism, hard choices and pursuing work that excites them. Sunday morning began as a typical Stanford celebration, with thousands of onlookers braving the late spring sun beneath a cloudless sky. Graduates walked in riding inflatable horses, wearing cardboard mock-ups of Lightning McQueen and Caltrain or, in the case of a few male graduates, only Stanford-red briefs and sunglasses beneath their graduation gowns. It was all part of Wacky Walk, the decades-long Stanford tradition in which graduates wear costumes on their way to their commencement seats. But the ceremony became a site of protest as Pichai prepared to take the stage. “Sundar himself has modeled thoughtfulness, humility, and determination in leadership and in making decisions of consequence to Google into the world,” Stanford President Jonathan Levin said as he introduced him. Pichai earned a master’s degree in materials science and engineering from Stanford in 1995 before joining Google in 2004, where he played a key role in the development of Google Chrome. He later became CEO of Google and its parent company, Alphabet. Even as Levin welcomed the CEO of “one of the most innovative companies in the world,” many students responded by booing. When Pichai took the stage, scores of students stood and walked out of the stadium, some chanting or booing as they left. The vast majority of students remained seated. “What I see in front of me is how graduation should be,” Pichai said toward the beginning of his speech, even as students chanted “free, free Palestine” while they marched out. “Graduates celebrate together with the people you love who have supported you on your journey.” The protest centered in part on Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud-computing contract involving Google, Amazon and the Israeli government that has drawn criticism from students, activists and tech workers opposed to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The moment also came after a string of commencement speeches by tech leaders and AI boosters who have used graduation stages to promote AI, often drawing pushback from students. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was met with boos when he began talking about the rise of AI at the University of Arizona. Pichai acknowledged the AI controversy while mostly sidestepping it. “People have been giving me a lot of advice … about what not to say,” Pichai said, hinting that it was the “last two letters of my last name.” But, he added, “the most timeless advice I’ve learned is technology agnostic.” The speech itself offered the kind of hopeful, broad advice common to graduation ceremonies: every decision will not be life-changing, but some choices matter and graduates should recognize them when they come. “You’re going to face a lot of moments in your life, only a few of them are really important, and you need to get them right,” Pichai said. Drawing from his own life and career, Pichai told graduates that making the right choices could be distilled into three ideas: “choosing optimism,” “when you have the choice to work on something hard, say yes” and “when all else is equal, do what excites you.” Elsewhere on campus, many of those who walked out gathered for a “People’s Commencement” held in protest. They assembled around a small stage under the shade of oak trees, surrounded by banners declaring “PALESTINE WILL BE FREE” as speakers played Marvin Gaye and Nina Simone. “The people here have worked so hard to achieve this and we want to celebrate the radical possibility of education … rather than listen to an advertisement by Stanford and its corporate benefactors,” said Eva Jones, who had just graduated with a master’s degree and helped organize the event. The protest followed more than a year of campus activism around the war in Gaza and demands that Stanford divest from entities supporting Israel’s military action there. In 2024, 13 people were arrested during a sit-in at the university’s administrative offices, and Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen charged 12 with felony vandalism. The case ended with [a deadlocked jury,](https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/02/13/stanford-felony-vandalism-trial-mistrial/) and [a judge later disqualified Rosen from retrying it](https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/05/17/how-the-stanford-protest-case-got-santa-clara-countys-da-removed-from-the-prosecution/). Last year, [more than a dozen students and faculty members participated in a hunger strike for divestment.](https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/05/14/stanford-gaza-protest-hunger-strike-divestment-academic-freedom/) Stanford also became one of 60 universities [under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education](https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-educations-office-civil-rights-sends-letters-60-universities-under-investigation-antisemitic-discrimination-and-harassment) for antisemitic discrimination and harassment following the protests.