Parag Agarwal, a native of India, has been named the new CEO of Twitter. After firm co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down after 16 years, Agarwal assumed the role of CEO. With this, Agarwal joins a long list of Indian-born CEOs in Silicon Valley, including IBM’s Arvind Krishna, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a unique perspective on Agarwal’s appointment as Twitter’s new CEO. He stated that Indian talent benefits the United States enormously, and we couldn’t agree more.
Before becoming the new CEO of Twitter, Agarwal served as the company’s chief technical officer. He may be out of the spotlight, but he’s been involved with Twitter since 2011. When Agarwal was named the new CEO, Indians all across the world rejoiced. “USA gains enormously from Indian brilliance!” Musk tweeted in response to the news. And, well, Musk isn’t entirely wrong.
Parag Agrawal is the fourth Indian to lead a corporation in Silicon Valley. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Adobe President and CEO Santanu Narayan, and IBM Group CEO Arvind Krishna are among Agrawal’s peers.
Agrawal, 37, graduated from India’s best engineering college, IIT Mumbai, and is one of the company’s youngest CEOs. He graduated from IIT with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. Following that, Agrawal earned a master’s degree from Stanford University. Prior to Twitter, he worked for firms such as Microsoft, AT&T, and Yahoo.
Twitter said in a news release that in his introduction, “Since October 2017, Parag Agrawal has been the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Twitter, which he joined in 2011. As CTO, he has been in charge of the company’s technical strategy, leading efforts to increase development velocity while also expanding the status of Machine Learning throughout the organisation. Prior to his appointment as CTO, Parag had risen to become Twitter’s first Distinguished Engineer for his work in revenue and consumer engineering, which included his role in re-accelerating audience growth in 2016 and 2017.”
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stated in his resignation email that he has complete faith in Agrawal as CEO. According to Dorsey, the board went through a thorough process, weighing all choices before unanimously appointing Parag. He further stated that Parag has been involved in every major decision made by the organisation.
