Alphabet Chairman ‘Not Confident’ in Google CEO’s China Business Strategy

The chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is reportedly unsure about Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s plans to introduce a censored Chinese search engine.

John Hennessy, the chairman of Alphabet Inc. the parent company of Google, is reportedly unhappy with Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s plans to launch “Project Dragonfly,” a government-censored search engine in China. In an interview with Bloomberg, Hennessy revealed a number of doubts he had surrounding the move, which has been widely criticized by a number of human rights groups and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

“The question that I think comes to my mind then, that I struggle with, is are we better off giving Chinese citizens a decent search engine, a capable search engine even if it is restricted and censored in some cases, than a search engine that’s not very good? And does that improve the quality of their lives?” Hennessy said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Brad Stone.

When asked if he thought that Google could do some good by operating in China, Hennessy replied: “I don’t know the answer to that. I think it’s — I think it’s a legitimate question.” He continued: “Anybody who does business in China compromises some of their core values. Every single company, because the laws in China are quite a bit different than they are in our own country.”

In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Chinese policy expert Dr. Michael Pillsbury stated that Google is “highly embarrassed” over the recent “Project Dragonfly” leaks which showed the company planning to launch a censored search engine in China. The search giant’s project has been in development since Spring of 2017, and was accelerated in December 2017, following a meeting between company CEO Sundar Pichai and top Chinese government officials. Google engineers have created custom apps named “Maotai” and “Longfei,” which have already been demonstrated for Chinese officials and could be launched within the next six to nine months.

Google has previously stated that they are “not close” to launching a search engine in China but recently leaked discussions paint a different picture. Google’s Keith Enright told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on September 26 that there “is a Project Dragonfly,” but said, “we are not close to launching a product in China.” Google’s search engine chief, Ben Gomes, told a BBC reporter at Google’s 20th-anniversary celebration event: “Right now, all we’ve done is some exploration, but since we don’t have any plans to launch something, there’s nothing much I can say about it.”

During the WIRED 25 summit, Pichai said that Chinese tech innovations drove Google to develop an understanding of the market internally: “It’s a wonderful, innovative market. We wanted to learn what it would look like if we were in China, so that’s what we built internally,” said Pichai, adding: “given how important the market is and how many users there are, we feel obliged to think hard about this problem and take a longer-term view.”

Hennessy was also asked about the recent protest at Google over allegations of sexual misconduct by executives, “Not everybody was aware of things,” Hennessy said. “I can’t comment on the exact details of what happened at that time. But I think we realized that the [sexual harassment] policy needed strengthening.” When asked what he would say to employees at Google that were disturbed by the reports of misconduct, Hennessy stated: “I say to them, we have to do better as a company.”