Social media platform Twitter went through a major organisational change on Monday as the company’s co-founder Jack Dorsey resigned as the chief executive officer (CEO), paving the way for Indian origin Parag Agrawal to the top post.
With his elevation, Twitter’s former chief technology officer also joined the growing list of Indian-Americans to lead top technology companies in the US.
Patrick Collison, the CEO of financial services and software company Stripe, was among the many on Twitter to point out the fact. He wished Parag Agrawal for his new role and also listed the top companies which currently have bosses of Indian origin at their helm.
“Google, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, Palo Alto Networks, and now Twitter run by CEOs who grew up in India. Wonderful to watch the amazing success of Indians in the technology world and a good reminder of the opportunity America offers to immigrants,” Collison tweeted.
Sundar Pichai (Google), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Shantanu Narayen (Adobe), Arvind Krishna (IBM), Nikesh Arora (Palo Alto Networks) and Agrawal were the Indian tech executives mentioned by Collison.
Replying to this tweet, billionaire and SpaceX founder Elon Musk said, “USA benefits greatly from Indian talent!”.
Anand Mahindra of the Mahindra Group also responded to the tweet with a funny remark. “This is one pandemic that we are happy & proud to say originated in India. It’s the Indian CEO Virus… No vaccine against it,” Mahindra said.
While Collison did mention major tech companies, some other people reacting to his tweet said that the list goes beyond the aforementioned firms. One user pointed to CS Venkatakrishnan of Barclays, Laxman Narasimhan of Reckitt Benckiser, Ivan Menezes of Diageo and Vasant Narasimhan of Novartis.
In his email to employees of Twitter announcing his decision to step down, Dorsey endorsed Agrawal for his accomplishments within the company and also said Agrawal becoming the CEO was one of the three reasons behind his decision.
