Meet Twitter’s New CEO – Parag Aggarwal
Aggarwal is a 10-year Twitter veteran who has been working with the social media company as a CTO since October 2017. He joined Twitter as a software engineer in 2011, and in just six years, he reached the C-suite. Today, he’s Twitter’s public face to Wall Street and millions of its users.
It’s all because of his role in the company’s biggest strategic initiatives, especially in advancing the use of AI and machine-learning technology at Twitter. This helped promote the company’s growth in audience and revenue, which made Mr Dorsey effusive about his successor.
“He’s been my choice for some time given how deeply he understands the company and its needs,” Mr Dorsey wrote.
The Background
Aggarwal was born in Rajasthan, India, and later moved to Mumbai. He obtained his Bachelor of Technology degree in computer science and engineering from IIT Bombay. Then, he moved to the United States to study for a PhD in computer science at Stanford University.
Before joining Twitter, Aggarwal held the researcher position at leading tech companies, including AT&T Labs, Yahoo, and Microsoft.
Agrawal’s wife, Vineeta, is a general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. She leads the company’s biotechnology investment fund.
Aggarwal’s Contribution to Twitter
According to Twitter’s press release, Aggarwal was the company’s first-ever employee to hold the title of “Distinguished Software Engineer” before working as the CTO. In the beginning, he joined the company’s advertising team. After that, he integrated machine learning technology and improved twitter’s algorithms to make it more result-oriented.
After becoming CTO, Aggarwal assisted Dorsey on many leading projects like Bluesky, an initiative to develop a decentralized social network protocol.
Dorsey will remain on the company’s board of directors until his term ends in 2022. He tweeted a screenshot of an email he sent to the company’s employees. In the email, he showed his bone-deep trust and confidence in Aggarwal.
In his own message to Twitter’s employees, Mr Aggarwal showed great gratitude for Dorsey and his entire team.
Challenges on his way!
“Wonderful to watch the amazing success of Indians in the technology world and a good reminder of the opportunity America offers to immigrants,” Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe.
Aggarwal has garnered a massive amount of good wishes. It will surely be an exciting journey for the young CEO, but with no shortage of challenges.
Twitter faces challenges like calming agitated Congress about its power, placating activist investors, potential to censor free speech, etc. He is also charged with realizing Mr Dorsey’s vision for decentralizing Twitter. Moreover, we’re all aware of the news that Elon Musk has become Twitter’s largest shareholder.
Many tech observers stated that Mr Agrawal’s appointment makes sense because both Dorsey and Aggarwal are polite, quiet and deeply technical. Moreover, both are enthused about the power of the internet and what Twitter can do for users.
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