Google CEO Sundar Pichai on how he ‘cheered up’ his team when then-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer called Chrome browser ‘a rounding error’

Microsoft’s former CEO Steve Ballmer dismissed Google’s Chrome browser as “a rounding error” shortly after its launch in 2008. Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently recalled encouraging the Chrome team after Ballmer’s remark. Speaking at a recent commencement address at Stanford University, he said that Ballmer’s comment could have discouraged Google employees at a time when Chrome was still trying to gain traction against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Instead, Pichai used the criticism to motivate the team to keep pushing forward.

“It could have been demoralising. But with that California optimism, I told the team that the fact he went out of his way to dismiss us meant we were doing something right,” Pichai said at the event.