IIT graduates are currently leading a few of the biggest tech companies in the world. The brilliant minds from IIT are often hired with massive salaries by big tech giants. One such IIT graduate was hired with a salary package of more than Rs 100 crore but unfortunately he was fired within a year. Since he was let go by his former employer, not much was known about the IIT graduate. However, a latest report by The Information reveals that the IIT graduate has now raised around Rs 249 crore in funding for his AI startup. The IIT graduate that we are talking about is Parag Agarwal who made it to the headlines and was trending all across the globe when he was hired as Twitter CEO. When the IIT Bombay graduate Parag Agarwa was hired, his salary was around Rs 8 crore apart from the restricted stock units valued at around Rs 94 crore. Overall, the IITians salary package was more than Rs 100 crore. He was fired after Twitter was acquired by world’s richest man Elon Musk. Although Parag Agarwal has maintained a low profile since, the latest report by The Information claims that he is venturing into the AI segment and has already secured big funding.
Parag Agarwal’s startup is reportedly building software for developers of large language models, popularised by OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT. As per the report, Vinod Khosla-led Khosla Ventures, an early backer of OpenAI, led the funding in Agrawal’s company. Apart from this, Index Ventures and First Round Capital, also reportedly participated in the deal.
Born in Ajmer, Parag Agrawal was part of a well-educated family. His father was a senior official in the Indian Department of Atomic Energy and his mother is a retired Economics professor. Agrawal completed his graduation from IIT Bombay in 2005 after securing 77 all India rank (AIR). Later he went to the United States to pursue a PhD in computer science at Stanford University.
Before joining Twitter in 2011, Agrawal did internships at Microsoft Research and Yahoo. After working at Twitter for around 6 years, he was appointed as chief technology officer following the departure of Adam Messinger.
