When Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter, which he co-founded, the first question on everyone’s mind was why now, and who was the new boss?
Dorsey explained that Twitter has outgrown its founders as all companies should eventually, noting that he trusts his replacement, Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief technology officer, but there are things we may not know about the new director, some of which are surprising, according to the “Washington Post.”
work as an engineer
Agrawal started working with the social media giant as an engineer in 2011 and became chief technology officer in 2017. He is close to outgoing CEO Dorsey, and is said to share his vision for the company.
Youngest CEO
The 37-year-old new Twitter CEO is also one of the youngest CEOs, as he was born in 1984.
Leading Twitter projects
One of the highlights of the young man’s career was that he oversaw the technical strategy of Twitter, which led to work to improve the speed of development in the company.
Also, in practice, this means that he has worked on some of Twitter’s most futuristic projects, involving machine learning and cryptocurrency, and has been a key part of the shift toward “decentralizing” social media platforms.
Notably, he has advocated for Twitter and urged funding for a technology project called Bluesky, an attempt to build this future by developing an open-source, independent networking protocol for social media that different companies can use.
freedom of expression
Meanwhile, Agrawal as CEO is likely to make adjustments on issues of freedom of expression in the coming years, as some of his previous comments hint at his views on the matter.
He doesn’t tweet much
Although he works on Twitter, Agrawal does not tweet much, with only 3,239 tweets over his 13 years on the platform, compared to more than 28,000 for Dorsey.
Agrawal and Dorsey (AFP)
Indian-born Parag Agrawal has worked with Twitter over the past decade, joining the company as a distinguished software engineer and then becoming a chief technology officer.
As Chief Technology Officer, Parag was responsible for “Twitter’s technical strategy and oversight of machine learning and artificial intelligence across the Consumer, Revenue and Science teams.
Prior to Twitter, Paraj Agrawal worked with Microsoft, Yahoo and AT&T Labs.
