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Political pressures could spell trouble for Alphabet

Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet, has plenty of challenges ahead navigating the company through an increasingly stormy relationship with Washington
Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet, has plenty of challenges ahead navigating the company through an increasingly stormy relationship with Washington
GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAERT/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

By his own admission, Sundar Pichai is not a morning person (Callum Jones writes). “I need my time with my paper and tea to wake up and get going,” the boss of Google and Alphabet told the Code Conference a few years ago.

As he rose on Tuesday, what he read is likely to have put a spring in his step. The front page of The Wall Street Journal, which one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful executives has made clear he reads in print, rather than online, each day, led with his company’s victory over Oracle, the computing software group.

After a battle spanning more than a decade, the Supreme Court threw out a lower court ruling in favour of Oracle, which had alleged