Giving Compass' Take:

• The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, recently testified before a House committee, but was unable to clearly convey Google's power in society.

• How can large tech-companies and donors who back them convey a clearer understanding of how their companies run and work? 

• Here's an example on tech companies who are worth supporting. 

The parade of Silicon Valley figures to Capitol Hill continued today when Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, the core of the Alphabet holding company, went before the House Judiciary Committee.

Like every other tech-company hearing, it was more hackneyed than illuminating, more painful than inspiring. Pichai is a polished executive who rose through Google’s ranks. He is not a boy king like Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey. You knew he’d do the hard work of preparing. It seemed likely he’d sail through the hearing.

Yet as the hearing got under way, Pichai struggled to make sense of the questions that lawmakers put to him. Even friendly Democratic queries asking him to explain how search-engine rankings worked were met with hesitation and stilted rhetoric. If a rep said a keyword he was prepared for, he gave a scripted response, even if it was only sort of responsive.

Read the full article on Google's congress hearing by Alexis C. Madrigal at The Atlantic