Google CEO recalls April Fool's Day job interview: 'I thought Gmail was a joke'

Google are renowned for their near-unfathomable interview questions, but it was a conventional interview question that nearly stopped their current CEO, Sundar Pichai, getting a job there in 2004.

His job interview that took place on April Fool’s Day, so he thought Gmail was a joke when they asked him about it.  

Speaking at the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur, Pichai recounted: “I hadn’t had a chance to use it (access to Gmail was invite-only at the time), I thought it was an April Fools’ joke.” The faces of the interviewers – thankfully not Co-Founder Larry Page (the 44-year-old was one of the first who was not interviewed by him) - said otherwise.

Pichai continued: “In the fourth interview, when somebody asked me, 'have you seen Gmail?' I said no, and then he showed it to me.