'Dude if I...': Meet Indian engineer who built Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook's search engine

Written By Riddhima Kanetkar | Updated: Aug 10, 2024, 10:02 AM IST

Aditya Agarwal (Photo: Instagram)

Just a week into employment, Aditya Agarwal was tasked with building Facebook’s search engine. Mark Zuckerberg insisted Aditya Agarwal tackle this mission alone, without the help of a team.

When social media giant Facebook was just starting out, Indian engineer Aditya Agarwal was just trying to find his place. After just a week of joining, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stepped up the challenge for Aditya Agarwal who then went on to build Facebook's ultimate search engine. The story was narrated by Aditya Agarwal who revealed how those 30 seconds changed the course of his life. 

While appearing on the ‘Mark Zuckerberg on Llama, AI, & Minus One', Aditya Agarwal revealed that he first met Mark Zuckerberg in 2005 via a mutual acquaintance. Aditya Agarwal recalls being inspired by Mark Zuckerberg's vision for Facebook and joining the company as an early engineer. 

Just a week into employment, Aditya Agarwal was tasked with building Facebook’s search engine. Mark Zuckerberg insisted Aditya Agarwal tackle this mission alone, without the help of a team. 

Aditya Agarwal, Facebook's first Director of Product Engineering, stood up to the challenge and developed the search engine that transformed Facebook. 

Aditya Agarwal reveals he suggested Mark Zuckerberg hire someone from Google or Yahoo to develop the search engine, however, the Meta CEO told him, "Dude if I can build Facebook you can build a damn search engine."

Aditya Agarwal left Facebook in 2010 and ever since then, he has had a noteworthy career, working for many tech companies in important positions. 

Aditya Agarwal currently is a partner at South Park Commons, a collective based in San Francisco and New York City. This group has more than 500 members and alumni who have either launched their own companies or joined top organisations like Google Brain, OpenAI, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

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