Over the weekend, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, encountered notable dissent during his commencement address at Stanford University, where he once earned his graduate degree in materials science and engineering. Approximately 200 graduating students reportedly walked out, while others audibly booed the tech leader. The protest centered on Google’s defense-related partnerships—specifically Project Nimbus, a contentious $1.2 billion contract shared with Amazon to deliver cloud and AI services to the Israeli military—as well as its collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Signs held by students included messages such as “ICE SPIES WITH GOOGLE AI” and “GENOCIDE RUNS ON GOOGLE,” alongside “FREE FREE PALESTINE,” according to a press release tied to the demonstration. Video footage from the event shows students waving Palestinian flags and chanting “free Palestine.” A statement linked to the protest declared, “We are walking out because we refuse to glorify the corporations that fuel this violence and exercise our power to choose differently.”

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The walkout was coordinated by several campus activist groups, including Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine, No Tech for Apartheid, and Tech for Liberation. As the war in Gaza continues, Google’s involvement in Project Nimbus has sparked protests both within and outside the company. In 2024, Google terminated 28 employees for protesting the contract, though internal dissent on the issue has persisted. The company also faced recent criticism from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which accused Google and other firms of “choosing to look the other way” regarding Israel’s use of their services. Amazon has similarly backed Project Nimbus. Microsoft, meanwhile, has drawn criticism for its support of the Israeli military, though it later restricted the Israeli government’s use of its technology after an investigation revealed that its cloud services were being used for mass surveillance of Palestinians.

The student protest also drew backlash from business leaders online. Vinod Khosla, billionaire co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist, posted on X that the demonstration was “biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish.” He added that it was selfish because the students “ignored the bottom 3 billion people on this planet that could benefit from AI and they are worried about their misinformed selfish self-interest.”

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Pichai’s appearance at Stanford fits into a broader trend. Speakers at college graduation ceremonies nationwide have faced boos when attempting to excite outgoing students about artificial intelligence. However, the animosity directed at Pichai was unusually specific—targeting not the hype around AI, but the concrete business decisions made by the company he leads. More broadly, many young people appear to view AI as a threat to their job prospects and a potential source of harm to other aspects of society.