Parag Agrawal who became Twitter CEO on (Monday) soon after Jack Dorsey tendered his resignation. Parag, who until now was Twitter’s CTO, is assuming the role as the company CEO immediately.
Quick Facts about Parag Agrawal the New CEO of Twitter
- Parag Agrawal is the new Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, and a favorite of Jack Dorsey.
- The Mumbai-based IITian, received his doctorate from Stanford University.
- Little known Parag joined Twitter in 2011 and rose to the rank of Chief Technology Officer in 2017.
- He is a machine learning expert and has been instrumental in expanding ML throughout Twitter.
Twitter provides some facts about Parag Agrawal ‘s career at the firm in a press release. Twitter observes, “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.
Before his appointment as CTO, Parag Agarwal 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.”
Twitter also provides more details about Parag’s studies.
“Parag holds a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay,” the company says. Here is Parag’s brief profile in 10 points.
10 Interesting Facts about Parag Agarwal New Twitter CEO
1- Parag, aged 37, is an alumnus of IIT Mumbai and a bachelors in engineering in computer science. He moved to the US for his doctorate coming from Stanford University. He did his schooling from Atomic Energy Central School. Parag’s mother is a retired school teacher. His father was employed in the atomic energy sector and held senior positions there.
2- Parag joined Twitter in 2011. Before that, he briefly worked at Microsoft, AT&T and Yahoo. In all three companies, his work was mostly research-oriented. Initially, at Twitter, he worked on ad-related products, but gradually he also dabbled in artificial intelligence. In 2017, when he was promoted to the role of Twitter CTO, here is what the company said in a statement: “In his capacity as CTO, he’s focused on scaling a cohesive machine learning and AI approach across our consumer and revenue product and infrastructure teams.”
3- Parag is supposedly CEO Jack Dorsey favorite pro in Twitter. In his email on Monday sent to all Twitter employees, Dorsey wrote: “The board ran a rigorous process considering all options and unanimously appointed Parag. He’s been my choice for some time, given how deeply he understands the company and its needs. Parag has been behind every critical decision that helped turn this company around. He’s curious, probing, rational, creative, demanding, self-aware, and humble. He leads with heart and soul and is someone I learn from daily. My trust in him as our CEO is bone deep.”
4- As CTO of Twitter, Parag has been instrumental in “Twitter’s technical strategy and overseeing machine learning and AI across the consumer, revenue, and science teams.”
5- Parag is not as popular as the well-known as Sundar Pichai or Satya Nadella were when they became CEO. Parag acknowledges this in his email that he sent to Twitter employees on Monday. He wrote, “I recognize that some of you know me well, some just a little, and some not at all. Let’s consider ourselves at the beginning-the first step towards our future. I’m sure you have lots of questions and there’s a lot for us to discuss. At the all-hands tomorrow we’ll have lots of time for Q&A and discussion. It will be the beginning of ongoing open, direct conversations I wish for us to have together.”
6- Mumbai born Parag according to his thesis adviser, says that he has a particularly good grasp of mathematics and has expertise in dealing with large databases.
7- A New York Times report, quoting Silicon Valley insiders, says that, just like Jack Dorsey, Parag too is “quiet, polite, deeply technical and enthused about an internet where power and control are given back to users.” The report terms him the spiritual successor of Dorsey. A Twitter employee, in the same report, has been quoted as saying that Parag is a “pragmatic” engineer and leader.
8- Twitter has revealed that as CEO Parag will be given an annual compensation of $1 million as well as stock compensation worth $12.5 million.
9- Within Twitter, Parag is considered one of the top engineers. He was once part of the company’s TAG group, which oversaw all the new products and technologies with Twitter. In 2019, Jack Dorsey announced a new decentralised social media project called Bluesky and brought in Parag to look after it.
10- Parag Moved to the US in 2005. He joined Twitter in 2011 when he was still pursuing his doctorate at Stanford. The NYT report notes that his thesis adviser Jennifer Widom pushed him to complete his studies
