With the appointment of Parag Agrawal as Twitter's CEO, he joins the elite group of Indian-origin executives who currently lead the world's leading technology companies. And we have a lengthy roster to be proud of, ranging from Google CEO Sundar Pichai to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.
Apart from sharing an Indian ancestry, these brilliant brains have a lot in common. To begin with, they are all descended from Indian middle-class families. Many of these top executives have studied at the leading Indian Institutes of Technology and other prominent tech institutes in the country, giving them reason to smile. Despite their poor beginnings and lack of a dynasty to talk about, they have made it this far via hard work and pure guts. Most significantly, these self-made stalwarts have stayed true to their beginnings. They’re still Indians hearts embracing a global spirit.
Here are some examples of regular men who have made tremendous contributions to the world.
Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft
Satya studied electrical engineering after graduating from Hyderabad Public School in Begumpet. He did not attend IIT and instead attended Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka, where he graduated in 1988, a small divergence from the youthful CEOs. MS was an easy decision, so he went to the United States to get a master's degree in computer science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, followed by an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1997.
Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet Inc. and Google
Sundar was a firm believer in those principles (and still does). He graduated from IIT Kharagpur with a degree in metallurgical engineering and was recognised as a noteworthy alumnus. "What's next?" was the question. Sundar was presented with a conundrum after qualifying for a master's degree in materials science and engineering at Stanford University: he couldn't afford the plane ticket to the US! Sundar claims that his father spent a year's income on his aircraft ticket so that he could study at Stanford, and that this was his first flight. From then to the dizzying heights to which he has ascended, we can only conclude that his enthusiasm and his middle-class upbringing, which emphasised hard effort, have served him well.
Parag Agrawal, CEO, Twitter
For someone with such a sharp mind, Paras aced his IIT-JEE. He earned his B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT-Bombay before moving to Stanford University to pursue his PhD in Computer Science.
Between 2006 and 2009, he worked for Microsoft for two short periods, with a research post at Yahoo in between. He found his purpose and joined Twitter in 2011 after a brief stint at AT&T Labs in 2010. As they say, the rest is history.
Until now, he had rarely tweeted!
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