Meet Parag Agarwal, Twitter’s New CEO

The past few hours have been quite buzzing on social media especially around Twitter. Turns out Twitter now has a new CEO! Parag Agarwal will be taking over Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and the longest serving chief executive in the company’s 15 + years history. Here’s to everything you need to know about Parag Agarwal, Twitter’s new CEO.

Parag joined Twitter as an employee in 2011 as a software engineer after the completion of his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford. In March, 2018 he was appointed as Twitter CTO. According to the company statement,  he’s responsible for the company’s technical strategy and it was his work on the use of artificial intelligence to increase relevant tweets we see every day on our timelines that earned him a spotlight within the company.

The Verge says: In his time as CTO, one of Agrawal’s biggest projects has been his overseeing of the company’s decentralized Bluesky platform, which was first announced in December 2019. Intended as an “open and decentralized standard for social media” that Twitter itself could eventually transition to using, Bluesky has been one of the more dramatic ideas for Twitter’s future and a pet project of Dorsey’s.”

But despite that long tenure, Agrawal, who is now 37, hasn’t spent much time in the public eye and now that will immediately change too with his new role. Here’s what Parag Agrawal said after being appointed as the CEO of Twitter:

“Thank you, Jack. I’m honored and humbled. And I’m grateful for your continued mentorship and your friendship. I’m grateful for the service that you built, the culture, soul, and purpose you fostered among us, and for leading the company through really significant challenges. I’m grateful for the trust you’ve put in me and for your continued partnership. Team, most of all, I’m grateful for all of you, and it’s you who inspire confidence in our future together. I joined this company 10 years ago when there were fewer than 1,000 employees. While it was a decade ago, those days feel like yesterday to me. I’ve walked in your shoes, I’ve seen the ups and downs, the challenges and obstacles, the wins and the mistakes. But then and now, above all else, I see Twitter’s incredible impact, our continued progress, and the exciting opportunities ahead of us.“

You can check out his full statement in the tweet below.