Parag Agrawal, who took over on Monday as the new head of Twitter Inc, rocketed from relative obscurity as the platform’s technology expert to becoming the latest India-born talent to lead a US tech giant.
Unlike his predecessor, cofounder Jack Dorsey, Agrawal had enjoyed a much more low-profile role at the company, with only about 24,000 followers on the platform, compared with Dorsey’s almost 6 million.
However, with a statement on Twitter that began: “Thank you, Jack, I’m honored and humbled,” Agrawal took the reins of a company aiming to steer away from battles over free speech and toward growth.
Photo: Courtesy of Twitter via AP
Agrawal is also the latest India-born star tapped to head a major US-based tech company, following the likes of Google-parent Alphabet Inc’s CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft Corp CEO Satya Nadella.
“He’s been behind every critical decision that helped turn this company around,” Dorsey wrote of Agrawal in a message to Twitter employees.
Educated in computer science and engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and holding a doctorate from Stanford University in California, Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 and rose to become its chief technology officer in 2017.
In an interview with MIT Technology Review last year, Agrawal said that the company, which became a focus of conservative rage in the US after banning Trump, should “focus less” on free speech.
“Our role is to serve a healthy public conversation and our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation,” he said.
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