McKinsey likes to hire recent graduates who they suspect will wind up in high places. It builds them strong connections and lets them brag to potential customers as well as customers’ stakeholders that they have cutting edge talent and that they hire the best and to tell potential employees that a few years with them is part of how you move from an elite educational institution into high levels of business or politics.

The worst thing this says about Pichai is that he was the sort of person who seeks to be on the ladder to elite careers.