Am Jealous Of Jeff Bezos Upcoming Space Flight, Says Google CEO

Am Jealous Of Jeff Bezos Upcoming Space Flight, Says Google CEO

TECH DIGEST – Google CEO Sundar Pichai has admitted he feels a little “jealous” of fellow tech titan Jeff Bezos’ much-anticipated space flight.

The Amazon founder and his brother, Mark Bezos, plan to fly on the first human flight of the New Shepard spacecraft, designed by Jeff’s space-exploration company, Blue Origin. Bidding for one of six seats on the ship reached almost $3 million, with nearly 6,000 participants from 143 countries.

The planned 11-minute trip is the company’s first scheduled space-tourism flight, set to blast the crew 62 miles above the Earth’s surface.

Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, and he said in a 2018 interview that it was his “most important work.”

In a sit-down interview with BBC journalist Amol Rajan, Google’s chief exec said he envied Bezos’ plans.

“Well, I’m jealous, a bit,” he said. “I would love to look at birds from space.”

The comment came as part of a wide-ranging conversation with Rajan, in which Pichai described artificial intelligence as “the most profound technology that humanity will ever develop and work on,” adding: “If you think about fire or electricity or the internet, it’s like that. But I think even more profound.”

Pichai also warned of threats to online freedom, revealed he currently drives a Tesla, and said he wished he had met Stephen Hawking before he died.