Google CEO vows to do ‘better’ amid employee walkouts

Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Thursday said the tech giant didn’t “get it right” when it came to the company’s handling of sexual misconduct allegations against Android creator Andy Rubin.

Pichai’s comments came a week after The New York Times reported that the company had allowed Rubin to leave the company with a $90 million exit package after being accused of sexual misconduct, despite having no contractual obligation to offer the money.

In an interview at The New York Times’s DealBook conference Thursday, Pichai said walkouts from Google employees around the world over Rubin’s exit package had shown him an “anger and frustration” within the company that previously had gone unaddressed, according to CNBC.

{mosads}”There’s anger and frustration within the company,” Pichai said in the interview. “We all feel it. I feel it too. … Moments like this show that we didn’t always get it right, and so we are committed to doing better,” he added.

Pichai apologized about the company’s handling of Rubin’s departure in a companywide email that was reported by Axios on Tuesday.

“Larry mentioned this on stage last week, but it bears repeating: if even one person experiences Google the way the New York Times article described, we are not the company we aspire to be,” he wrote in the letter, referring to Google founder Larry Page.

Pichai added this week that he supports the walkouts that occurred in London, Dublin and Switzerland, among other Google locations across the globe, as he spoke onstage Thursday.

“Earlier this week, we let Googlers know that we are aware of the activities planned for today and that employees will have the support they need if they wish to participate,” Pichai said.

“Employees have raised constructive ideas for how we can improve our policies and our processes going forward. We are taking in all their feedback so we can turn these ideas into action.”