Parag Agrawal, an Indian-American technology executive, has been the CEO of Twitter since November 2021, having been born on May 21, 1984. Agrawal started as a software programmer at Twitter in 2011 and rose through the ranks to become the company’s chief technology officer in 2017. Jack Dorsey announced his resignation as CEO of Twitter on November 29, 2021, and Agrawal was appointed as his replacement with immediate effect.
Upbringing
Agrawal is an Indian actor who was born in the city of Ajmer in the state of Rajasthan. He moved to Mumbai after that. His father worked for the Indian Department of Atomic Energy as a top officer, and his mother is a retired teacher. He attended Central School No. 4 of the Atomic Energy Commission. Singer Shreya Ghoshal was a classmate of his. At the International Physics Olympiad in Turkey in 2001, Agrawal received a gold medal. Agrawal received his B.Tech. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay in 2005, after placing 77th in the Joint Entrance Exam in 2000. Agrawal subsequently travelled to Stanford University in the United States to earn a PhD in computer science.
Before joining Twitter as a software engineer in 2011, Parag held senior roles at Microsoft Research and Yahoo! Research. Following the departure of Adam Massinger, Twitter announced Agrawal’s hiring as chief technology officer in October 2017. In December 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stated that Agrawal would lead Project Bluesky, an effort to create a decentralised social network protocol.
His Role in Twitter
When asked about balancing the protection of free speech as a core value with the effort to combat misinformation, Agrawal said in an interview with MIT Technology Review in November 2020, “Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation… focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.”
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced his resignation on November 29, 2021, and Agrawal will take his place.
