Meet man who is IIT dropout, now leads global tech company worth Rs 1026050000000, he works for...

Thomas Kurian, the CEO of Google Cloud, is one of the most successful Indian-origin executives in the world. Reports suggest that Kurian is an IIT dropout who went on to become the head of Google Cloud, with a net worth of over Rs 15,000 crore, even more than Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. For comparison, Pichai’s net worth in 2022 was estimated at around Rs 10,215 crore, despite leading a USD 2.14 trillion company and being the highest-paid Indian CEO that year.

Born in Kerala, Kurian began his early education at St. Joseph's Boys High School in Bengaluru. Though he gained admission to the prestigious IIT Madras, he chose instead to study at Princeton University in the United States, where he earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. He later went on to complete his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Kurian started his career at McKinsey & Company, where he worked for around six years. He then joined Oracle, where he spent 22 years in various leadership roles. At Oracle, he managed a large team of 35,000 people across 32 countries and played a key role in the company’s global operations. However, in 2018, he stepped down after disagreements with Oracle’s co-founder, Larry Ellison.

Shortly after, Kurian joined Google and took charge of its cloud division. Since becoming the CEO of Google Cloud in 2018, he has helped transform the company’s approach by focusing more on customer service and improving team performance. He is credited with turning around the business and increasing motivation among the sales team by offering better pay.

Kurian’s rise has not gone unnoticed. According to CNN, he was the 18th highest-paid man in the U.S. in 2010 and the fifth highest-paid tech executive that year. While specific net worth figures aren't always publicly available, his success is widely recognised.

Google Cloud, under his leadership, has become a key growth area for Alphabet. In Q1 2025 alone, it reported revenue of USD 12.3 billion (approx. Rs 1.026 lakh crore), marking a 28% year-on-year growth. The division also recorded a record USD 2.2 billion in operating income, highlighting its increasing contribution to Alphabet’s overall revenue and profitability.

Thomas Kurian’s journey from leaving IIT to leading one of the world’s top cloud computing companies shows the power of skill, vision, and determination.