Twitter has officially joined the tech company bandwagon of those being led by Indian CEOs.
Jack Dorsey, co-founder of the popular social media platform Twitter, has stepped down from his role as CEO and has passed the torch on to his Chief Technology Officer Parag Agrawal. The tech giant made their announcement on Monday, taking many by surprise.
Parag Agrawal has joined the ranks of other notable Indian CEOs who are in charge of big tech companies such as Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google since 2015; Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft since 2014; Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM (International Business Machines) since 2020; Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks since 2018 and Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe since 2007.
Besides these well-known companies, there are a host of other Indian origin CEOs helming global tech and fintech companies across the world.
It is clear that the world is recognising the potential of Indians as major business leaders in the tech industry.
Patrick Collison, CEO of stripe tweeted, “Google, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, Palo Alto Networks, and now Twitter run by CEOs who grew up in India. Wonderful to watch the amazing success of Indians in the technology world and a good reminder of the opportunity America offers to immigrants. (Congrats, @paraga!)”
Likewise, Elon Musk Tweeted, “USA benefits greatly from Indian talent!”
Speaking about Agrawal Dorsey said, “I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders. My trust in Parag as Twitter’s CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformational. I’m deeply grateful for his skill, heart and soul. It’s his time to lead.”
Agrawal is 37 years old, the same age as Meta’s (formerly Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He joined Twitter back in October 2011, meaning he has been with the company for just over a decade. He worked his way up the ladder, starting out as an engineer and eventually securing a position as one of the company’s top executives. He began serving as the company’s CTO in 2017.
Agrawal’s wife, Vineeta, is a venture capitalist and a physician. According to her bio, she is a “General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz where she leads investments for the firm’s bio fund across therapeutics, diagnostics, and digital health, with a focus on companies that are leveraging unique datasets to improve drug development and patient care delivery.”
The two are also raising a three-year-old boy.
During his time as CTO, Agrawal took on some high-profile problems, such as a large-scale password security issue, as well as bolder company initiatives such as Project Bluesky, a research project launched by Twitter with the goal of establishing open and decentralized standards for social media platforms.
Agrawal was tasked with finding a leader for Bluesky, and while it had been radio silent for some months, in August, cryptocurrency developer Jay Graber was finally put in charge of the project.
As CEO, it is presumed Bluesky will continue to be a major project for Agrawal. That, as well as the newly founded Twitter Crypto team, which was announced in November, and is being led by Tess Rinearson, will also report directly to the new CEO.
It is not far-fetched to think that the trend of Indian-led tech companies will continue to grow in the future. While Agrawal has not spent that much time in the public eye until now, we can be sure to see more of him in the future.
Hearty congratulations to you Parag Agrawal! We look forward to where you will lead Twitter in the coming future and we wish you the best of luck and success for what is to come.