On the evening of November 29, Jack Dorsey – co-founder of the social network Twitter announced his resignation as CEO. The person who replaced Dorsey in this position is Parag Agrawal (37 years old) – Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the company.
“I decided to leave the post of Twitter CEO because I believe the company is ready to grow without a founder. I trust Parag as the new CEO. His work in the past 10 years has changed a lot. . I really appreciate his skills, his heart and soul. It’s time for him to become a leader,” Dorsey shared.
Dorsey is no longer CEO, but will remain on the company’s board of directors until the 2022 shareholder meeting. For his part, Agrawal said: “I would like to thank the board for its trust in leadership. Thank you Jack for your continued advice and support. My priority in this new role will be to improve the work environment and help Twitter realize its ambitious goals.”
Agrawal took over Twitter during promising times. Before that, the company struggled to grow its user base and make a profit. During a July call with investors, the company reported a 74% increase in annual revenue to $1.19 billion, with daily users earning up 11% to 206 million. Recently, the company released Twitter Blue – a subscription service that costs 3 USD and many other features to enhance the user experience.
Agrawal is no stranger to Twitter. He joined the company in 2011 as an engineer specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. At the time, the company had less than 1,000 employees. Since 2017, he has held the role of CTO. Before joining Twitter, Agrawal worked at Microsoft, Yahoo! and AT&T.
Here is some more information about the new CEO of Twitter:
While Dorsey is a famous billionaire with famous friends and millions of Twitter followers, Agrawal is the complete opposite when he is described as “an unknown” because of his privacy.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Agrawal attended the Atomic Energy Center School of the state of Maharashtra (India). He received a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay and a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University.
As Twitter’s CTO, Agrawal is tasked with overseeing Twitter’s technical strategy and improving development speed. During his time as CTO, one of his main tasks was to address algorithmic bias or bias.
Parag Agrawal – Twitter’s new CEO (Photo: Internet).
Agrawal also heads Twitter’s ambitious Blue Sky project, which is funding engineers to develop a decentralized social media platform. Agrawal was awarded Twitter’s first Distinguished Engineer title for helping to grow the platform’s user base through consumer engineering.
Agrawal has a close relationship with Andy Jassy – former head of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Jassy turned AWS into a $40 billion business before taking over as Amazon CEO from Jeff Bezos earlier this year. In addition, Agrawal also has good relationships with many other leaders in the technology industry.
In terms of personal life, Agrawal currently lives with his wife and 3-year-old son. His wife is a doctor and venture capitalist.
The list of Indian-Americans running America’s biggest tech companies is growing. In which, Agrawal, Satya Nadella – CEO of Microsoft and Sundar Pichai – CEO of Google are the most prominent names.
After the news that Twitter had a new CEO, Pichai wrote: “Wish you all the best ahead @jack (Jack Dorsey). Congratulations @paraga (Parag Agrawal), very excited for your future. Twitter”.
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