India, June 17 -- Getting booed, jeered, and witnessing an audience walkout as one takes the stage is the stuff of nightmares for a public speaker - who are not career politicians for whom these are akin to water off a duck's back. If this nightmare unfolds at one's alma mater, a recruiting ground for some of the finest minds in tech, and one happens to be the boss of one of the most powerful companies in the world, the implications are well beyond personal. Google CEO Sundar Pichai's commencement address at Stanford, therefore, is an event worth paying attention to. Pichai is not the first industry leader to face a protest in an academic setting and he won't be the last. While anxieties around the growing usage and diminishing institutional accountability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) continue to rise, there is an added layer of social responsibility visible in protests such as these. Pichai steered clear of AI in his address but the elephant in the room manifested in the form of banners, keffiyeh (Palestinian scarf), and slogans. Google's links with the Israeli government through the $1.2 billion Project Nimbus, the use of its AI capabilities by ICE to launch an excessive crackdown - replete with wrongful arrests and violent handling of suspected illegal immigrants - in the US, and the company's data centres allegedly causing significant environmental damage put Pichai in the awkward position of a potential employer being booed by a fresh tranche of human resources. Google reportedly initiated layoffs across its Cloud division in a push towards its AI investments. In May 2026, Meta fired about 8000 employees, almost 10% of its global strength. Despite Pichai's repeated references to "California optimism", it would have been difficult for many graduating Stanford students to muster cheery benignity towards a world of uncertainty. Big companies bear big responsibilities, and many are unwilling to let them forget that....