Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer once mocked Google Chrome, calling it a ‘rounding error’—Google CEO says the jab became fuel to keep going

Before Google CEO Sundar Pichai became the leader of the now-$4.5 trillion tech giant, he had to prove his worth as a leader—starting with a browser almost no one believed in.

When Chrome launched in 2008, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was the industry dominator, with roughly 60% of global browser usage thanks to being the default on Windows computers. 

Convincing users to switch was a steep climb. So when then-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was asked about the competitive landscape the following year, he barely considered Chrome worth mentioning.

“The most successful by far is Firefox. Chrome is a rounding error to date. Safari is a rounding error to date,” Balmer said in a 2009 TechCrunch interview. “…we’re going to have to compete like heck and you know, see where things go.”

For Pichai, the comment became a test of leadership.

“It could have been demoralizing,” Pichai recalled last week in a commencement address to Stanford University graduates. “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.”

Chrome’s launch had delivered some early momentum, but by Pichai’s own account, user growth had started to plateau........

© Fortune