Former Twitter CTO Parag Agrawal has been promoted to CEO, succeeding outgoing CEO Jack Dorsey. According to Reuters, the company’s board of directors has been prepping for Dorsey’s dismissal since last year.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Agrawal was named Twitter’s chief technology officer on March 8, 2018. Adam Messinger, who departed the firm in December 2016, was his immediate predecessor. In October 2017, Agrawal’s agreement is made public internally.
Who is Parag Agrawal?
While serving as CTO, Agrawal has been in charge of the company’s technical strategy, which includes managing machine learning and artificial intelligence. Ten years after joining Twitter, his efforts have focused on increasing the home timeline relevance and re-invigorating user growth.
Following the completion of his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering at Stanford University, Agrawal landed a job at Twitter in October 2011. After graduating from Stanford with a master’s degree in computer science in 2007, he did an internship at Microsoft, Yahoo!, and AT&T Labs.
Before joining Twitter, he worked with Yahoo! Research, AT&T Labs, and Microsoft Research on large-scale data management projects. He also holds a bachelor’s degree from IIT Bombay in Computer Science and Engineering as well as a Ph.D. from Stanford University Computer Science.
Agrawal took to Social media to thank Dorsey for his continuing guidance and support. He also expressed his gratitude to the rest of the group for their belief in him and their unwavering support.
“Deep gratitude for @jack and our entire team, and so much excitement for the future. Here’s the note I sent to the company. Thank you all for your trust and support”. “Our purpose has never been more important. Our people and culture are unlike anything in the world. There is no limit to what we can do together,” Agrawal captioned the post he shared on his private Twitter handle.
“The world is watching us right now, even more than they have before. Lots of people are going to have lots of different views and opinions about today’s news. It is because they care about Twitter and our future, and it’s a signal that the work we do here matters. Let’s show the world Twitter’s full potential,” CEO Agrawal continued.
Agrawal is the new addition to the likes of Indian-American tech superstars, Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna, Adobe chairman, president, and CEO Shantanu Narayen, and Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.
Agrawal’s appointment coincides with Twitter’s current effort for expansion. By the end of 2023, the company plans to have 315 million daily active users who can be monetized and at least double yearly income.