He also joins a select group of CEOs of Indian origin who head prominent technology companies in the U.S. Among them, of course, are the impressive Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and its parent firm Alphabet Inc., Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s Executive Chairman and CEO, Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO, IBM, and Shantanu Narayen, Chairman, President and CEO of Adobe Inc. Significantly, exactly two years back in December 2019, Dorsey had pitchforked Agrawal as Head of Project Bluesky—an independent team of open source architects, engineers and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media that would help better control abusive and misleading information on the Twitter platform.

At 37, Agrawal also became the youngest CEO to lead an S&P 500 company, an outstanding recognition in itself. The man whose record he stole is none other than Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook Founder. Jack Dorsey was more than just happy to hand over the reins to Agrawal. Lavishing praise on the Stanford University doctorate, he said, “My trust in Parag as Twitter’s CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformational. I’m deeply grateful for his skill, heart and soul. It’s his time to lead.”

Even Brett Taylor who takes over as Twitter board Chairman has been effusive in his appreciation of Agrawal. “Parag understands Twitter and appreciates the company’s unique potential. He has been instrumental in tackling our most important priorities, including accelerating our development velocity, and I know he’ll hit the ground running to strengthen execution, and deliver results,” he said.

Quite simply, the role of Indians in the great American digital revolution has turned into a powerful, enduring legacy. 

(sayantanc@gmail.com)