Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian lays out his master plan for taking on Amazon and Microsoft and says deals over $50 million more than doubled in 2019 -…

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian is well aware that he's in a distant third place in the cloud-computing market behind the dominant powers of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft.

But Kurian insists the cloud market is in such "super early stages" that it's anyone's game to win.

The Google executive turned to a recent football feat to drive home his point on Tuesday, invoking the Kansas City Chiefs stunning comeback game against the Houston Texans during the Super Bowl playoffs earlier this year.

"Lateness, earliness I don't worry about that," Kurian said at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.

"As I tell people, for those of you who watched the game between Kansas City and Houston, Texas nothing against Houston, they're a great team if you looked at the end of the first half, I think somebody would have chosen a particular outcome. I don't think it turned out that way," Kurian told the audience.

Kansas City was losing 24-0 in the early part of that game before it vanquished the Texans 51-31 in an epic comeback.

The same applies for the cloud market, said Kurian, who took the reins as Google Cloud CEO a little more than a year ago.

Kurian talked up Google's recent achievements that turned the cloud group into a $9 billion revenue business last year. And he provided glimpses into the playbook that he believes will push Google into the No. 2 cloud ranking in the coming years.

"We are not distracted by anybody telling us about where we are in the market," Kurian said. "We're focused on executing. When we win customers, and when customers say what you're offering is truly unique, we're very confident in executing that plan. And we don't think the way that cloud and the market looks like three years out is going to be the way it does today."

One of Google Cloud's first orders of business is to focus on products and services specific for certain industries, like retail and media.

"Going forward, you will see us focused on executing the plan that we've laid out, which consists of focusing on large customers," Kurian said. "We now, on a global basis, touch many of the leading companies in the world in every industry, not only in every industry but in every geography."

Google Cloud is also continuing to work on scaling its sales organization. Previously, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Google Cloud was looking to triple its salesforce over the next few years, and Kurian said on Tuesday, "We're well on that way."

He said he was bringing in veterans from enterprise-tech giants like SAP and Salesforce. And in September, Business Insider reported that it started a new program to hire senior salespeople to go after some of the largest customers.

"We've introduced world-class people, and it's partly because of our product strength and Google's brand as an engineering leader," Kurian said. "We're able to track some of the best sales talent in the industry, and that gives customers confidence that we're becoming much more capable as an enterprise company. That's why we're seeing the growth in customer wins."

He also said its sales team was more productive and that the number of deals worth over $50 million more than doubled in 2019.

"We have done that by bringing in a new leadership team, specializing our salespeople by industry so if you're a bank, you talk to somebody who understands banking and building a set of solutions that are repeatable," Kurian said.

Kurian also talked about Google Cloud's focus on partnerships and boasted about some new numbers in Google Cloud's partner momentum. It has become a bigger focus at Google Cloud, and in January, Business Insider reported that it invited outside partners to its internal sales conference for the first time.

Kurian said there has been a 190% year-over-year increase in partner-influenced revenue for Google Cloud and a thirteenfold increase in customers won by partners from the first half of 2018 to the first half of 2019. He also said the number of Google Cloud certified partners has tripled year over year.

"We're very focused on going directly to a set of customers and then through partners, broadening our reach," Kurian said. "And we're very confident in the execution plan we have through our direct and indirect channels."

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Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian lays out his master plan for taking on Amazon and Microsoft and says deals over $50 million more than doubled in 2019 -...