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Google Chromebook VP: We Never Thought The Pricey Pixel PC Would Be A Big Seller

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Google Chromebook Pixel
Steve Kovach/Business Insider

Remember when Google introduced the Pixel laptop and the industry gasped at the $1,300 price tag and reviewers told people not to buy one?

That was no problem for the people who created the device, Caesar Sengupta, vice president of product management for Chromebooks told Business Insider.

"Big sales were never the broad goal for the Pixel," he said.

Instead, Google was just trying to create a high-end touchscreen device to inspire developers and give them a powerful device for writing touch-enabled Chrome apps.

At the time of the Pixel's launch, the company didn't exactly discourage consumers from buying one, but it did say its target audience was "power users who have fully embraced the cloud."

Sengupta feels that the Chromebook's future is to dominate the low-cost market, $300 or less, and that's why there's a whole new crop of low-cost Chromebooks coming this holiday season from Asus, Acer, Toshiba and HP.

He said some people have even been asking retailers for two- and three-pack deals, so they can buy the device for everyone at the family. "When you can get two for $500, why not? You can give one to each of your kids and they don't have to fight over it," he said.

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Julie Bort was Business Insider's Editor at Large for the Tech team. She loves investigating stories and shedding light on the tech industry's most amazing people.Here's a small sample of some of Julie's work.Former Pinterest employees describe a traumatic workplace where managers humiliate employees until they cry, Black people feel alienated, and the toxic culture 'eats away at your soul'Sex, tequila, and a tiger: Employees inside Adam Neumann's WeWork talk about the nonstop party to attain a $100 billion dream and the messy reality that tanked itInsiders say WeWork's IT is a patchwork of cheap devices and Band-Aid fixes that will take millions to fixWeWork's toxic phone booths were created in-house by its Powered by We business70-hour weeks and 'WTF' emails: 42 employees reveal the frenzy of working at Tesla under the 'cult' of Elon MuskElon Musk works so many hours at Tesla, employees are constantly finding him asleep under tables and desksHow this woman went from a Pizza Hut employee to a founder of a $4 billion startupAn Oracle insider explains how some salespeople gamed the system to sell more cloudTHE TAKEDOWN OF TRAVIS KALANICK: The untold story of Uber's infighting, backstabbing, and multimillion-dollar exit packagesMicrosoft is in talks to buy GitHub, a startup at the center of the software world last valued at $2 billionThe alarming inside story of a failed Google acquisition, and an employee who was hospitalizedInside Facebook's plan to eat another $350 billion IT marketHow a registered sex offender wound up living in an Airbnb hosting unsuspecting guestsA controversial ex-banker is the person who really runs Twitter — and he's gambling the company's future on one risky betSecret passages and skipped meals: Oracle's CEO gave us a rare peek at what it really takes to run a $37 billion companyHP told some employees to choose between becoming contractors with no benefits or being fired without severance'I felt like we were being extorted': Customer says Oracle tried to strong-arm him into a cloud saleHow the queen of Silicon Valley is helping Google go after Amazon's most profitable businessAirbnb host: A guest is squatting in my condo and I can't get him to leaveLIES, BOOZE, AND BILLIONS: How one of the fastest-growing startups in Silicon Valley history raised $580 million then spiraled out of controlGitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart — and we have the full inside storyWhen she's not writing for Business Insider, Julie can usually be found on the trails, on my mountain bike, or on my skis, if you know where to look.