Welcome to those receiving this newsletter for the first time. I started this project because I wanted to highlight interesting stories of immigrants who are making extraordinary impact in their adopted countries. I hope you will find the stories as interesting as I have.
Outsiders Rising: Parag Agrawal
Photo Credit: entrepreneur.com
Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter (my favorite social media platform), announced that he was stepping down as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company last week. He named Parag Agrawal as his successor.
Agrawal is a 37 year old who was born and raised in India. He moved to the United States in 2005 to pursue a PhD in Computer Science at Stanford University. His appointment as CEO of Twitter after serving as its Chief Technological Officer since 2017 was big news given the size of the company and its cultural influence in the world today.
Twitter’s impact on science, business, pop culture, journalism, global politics, and relationships cannot be overstated. Agrawal gets to run the platform that gave us unfettered access to President Donald Trump for many years. The world often found out about policy changes from his personal Twitter account. The company’s decision to permanently ban President Trump’s account reverberated everywhere and has been touted by some as an assault on free speech. Agrawal must now lead the company as it navigates such delicate matters.
While Twitter has become extremely powerful over the past decade, it has always underperformed as a business. When compared to its largest competitor Facebook (now known as Meta) Twitter shares have been a huge disappointment. Twitter has struggled to find the appropriate commercial model to follow and shareholders have suffered as a result. Agrawal must introduce new strategies to turn Twitter into the profitable behemoth many believe it should be. It will be interesting to see the business model changes Agrawal initiates.
Agrawal’s announcement as Twitter CEO makes him another high-profile tech CEO who was born and raised in India now running a major company in the United States. He follows in the footsteps of Satya Nadella who has been CEO of Microsoft since 2014 and Sundar Pichai who is CEO of Alphabet (parent company of Google). Companies like IBM and Adobe are also run by Indian born CEOs.
I've read several articles in the last few days that attempt to explain why Indian born business executives are thriving and I’ve found them fascinating. What is clear to me is that businesses benefit when they allow immigrants to contribute.
Elon Musk tweeted “USA benefits greatly from Indian talent!” in response to a tweet highlighting the impact of Indian CEOs in Silicon Valley. I couldn’t agree more.
That’s the brief story of Parag Agrawal. A true rising outsider.
Until next time… ✌🏾
Munatsi
Twitter: @Munatsi_
Twitter: @OutsiderRising