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‘Chennai boys’ Sundar Pichai and Aravind Srinivas meet in Paris, social media goes wild
Google CEO Sundar Pichai met Perplexity AI co-founder Aravind Srinivas in Paris on Tuesday, leading to many ‘Chennai boys' reactions online.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai met Perplexity AI co-founder Aravind Srinivas in Paris on Tuesday. The meeting between two high-profile Indian-origin CEOs sent social media into overdrive, with many joking about their common roots in Tamil Nadu and others wondering if Google is planning to acquire Srinivas’s startup.
Both Pichai and Srinivas were attending the AI Action Summit in Paris, co-chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron.
On Tuesday, Perplexity AI CEO and co-founder Aravind Srinivas shared a photograph that shows him posing with the CEO of Google. Both Pichai and Srinivas were dressed in formals, with the former wearing a blue necktie and the latter choosing red.
“Great meeting you Sundar Pichai,” wrote Srinivas as he shared the photograph on X.
The reactions
The picture garnered nearly half a million views in a matter of hours, also racking up a ton of comments in the process.
Many of the comments focused on their roots in India - Google’s Sundar Pichai was born in Madurai and spent a large part of his childhood in Chennai, while Aravind Srinivas was born in Chennai over two decades later. Both Pichai and Srinivas also attended the Indian Institute of Technology - Pichai in Kharagpur and Srinivas in Madras.
“Chennai boys ruling the AI world,” wrote one X user in the comments section.
Another had a pun that pleased many, writing: “ChennAI Express.”
A third X user simply wrote “Chennai boys” while X user Anand said: “Just two people from Chennai dominating search for the entire world.”
Questions were also asked about a possible acquisition of Perplexity.
“Does he know you’re his competitor?” a user asked. Another wrote: “Real life version of keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
“Moments of power shift in tech,” a person said, referring to Perplexity AI emerging as a competitor to Google in the search engine market.
