CEO Agenda provides unique insights into how leaders think and lead and what keeps them busy in a world of constant change. We look into the lives, minds and agendas of CEOs at the world’s most iconic companies.
Matt Brittin, Google’s president, EMEA, is a flag bearer for leadership and resilience. He joined Google in 2007 as managing director for the U.K., rising through the ranks to his current role in 2014.
During his decade-long term at the top of Google in Europe, he deftly weathered public storms around how much tax Google paid in the U.K., and grew the region’s revenues to a third of Google’s total revenue worldwide.
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Rank of Google parent Alphabet on the 2024 Fortune Global 500.
Brittin is a former Olympian, having represented Team GB in 1988. And when he can find the time, he starts his days with a row near his home in west London.
Ahead of Brittin’s departure from Google at the end of 2024, we sat down with him at the Fortune CEO Forum in London.
This interview has been edited for brevity.
Down to business
Fortune: What global trend are you focused on?
AI. It’s the mission of building AI responsibly to help humanity and benefit humanity.
It’s crucial that we develop it well. We innovate to go after the biggest benefits, but we also build it responsibly.
If you were an economic policymaker, what would be your top priority?
We need regulation for technology, and it’s hard to get it right. So we need rules of the road.
Europe’s been at the forefront: hundreds of pieces of regulation around digital technology in the last five years, and they’re all being implemented at different speeds, in different ways, in different countries. But the EU has also worked hard on things like data protection, GDPR, and the AI Act to try to place frameworks.
So, from our standpoint at Google, what’s good is, at least there’s some clarity. The challenge is that it’s an incredibly complicated rule book for anybody. We’ve got the scale to be able to get lawyers on it, and even for us, it’s challenging.
But imagine if you’re a European startup, and this is one of the questions that’s been on my mind for 18 years at Google—why have we not got Big Tech companies from Europe?
Being productive
What time do you get up, and what sets you up for the day?
I usually get up between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., and my ideal day starts with rowing. I’m not very good at most sports, but I used to be a rower, and being on the water, usually with someone else, allowed me to connect and exercise, which truly sets a positive tone for my day.
What apps or methods do you use to be more productive?
I love using NotebookLM, which is powered by Gemini [Google’s AI tool].
You put files into it and ask it to summarize in language even a child can understand. It can even generate a podcast that is pretty convincing. I did that with the Draghi report, which is 328 pages long, and told the platform to provide me with a podcast covering the key topics so that I could listen while running.
How can European leaders close the productivity gap with the U.S.?
The gap is almost entirely about technical innovation and adoption. That’s a wake-up call to European leaders.
We’ve heard leaders like President Macron, and in the U.K., Keir Starmer’s government, wanting to harness technology for good. There’s a moment where political leaders can say, “Hang on, we’re getting this wrong. We need rules of the road, but we also need to make sure we’re in the race.”
The regulation challenges are significant, but the potential is vast. We just saw the Nobel Prize awarded to two of my colleagues [Demis Hassabis and John Jumper] for their huge breakthroughs in drug discovery, disease research, and enzymes using AI. And there’s much more coming.
Getting personal
Who is on your “personal board”?
What I’ve tried to do throughout my career is have an informal network of people that I can turn to. I think if you say to somebody, “Will you be my mentor?,” it’s a bit like asking for marriage on a first date. But if you say, “Listen, I’m wrestling with something, can I come and ask you how you’ve dealt with it?”
What book have you read, either recently or in the past, that has inspired you?
Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker. If you have young children, don’t read it. But otherwise, I think it helped me establish a foundation for productivity, which is, if you don’t look after sleep, then you really are in trouble.
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