Even though the whole world was anxious about the arrival of a new variant of Corona virus, namely Omicron, Indians were rejoicing at the fact that Parag Agarwal was appointed as the new CEO of Twitter.
The entire social media was buzzing with this news. He is the new poster boy of internet. Everybody wanted to know the details of this man. Born in 1984, Parag Agarwal is a 37-year-old IIT Bombay alumnus.
He passed out from IIT Bombay in the year 2005 and then did his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University. He later interned with Microsoft Research, Yahoo Research and AT&T Labs.
Parag’s competency lies in large-scale data management. He joined Twitter in the year 2011. In the year 2018, he was appointed the CTO (Chief Technical Officer) at Twitter and now he is at the helm of affairs of this more than a billion-dollar company.
Parag Agrawal is the new entrant to the illustrious list of Indian-born CEOs heading tech giants headquartered in the Silicon Valley, United States.
The list includes famous names like Sundar Pichai heading Google and Satya Nadella heading Microsoft as well as those heading Adobe and IBM who are also of Indian origin. Indra Nooyi was the first Indian women to head FMCG giant PepsiCo.
Parag is taking charge of Twitter at a very crucial time. The challenge for Parag is to solve Twitter’s crisis with India. Will Twitter abide by Indian laws? Will it respect free speech and discard fake news?
This news has been received throughout India with great excitement, almost like a gold medal at the Olympics. Corporate India has not been far behind in celebrating this success.
Anand Mahindra, chairman and managing director of Mahindra Group, proudly said this is the effect of a new virus that originated in India and against which the world has no vaccine-the virus of Indian-origin CEOs. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, echoed the sentiment stating that the United States benefits greatly from Indian talent.
The outgoing CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey described Parag as someone who is curious, probing, rational, creative, demanding, self-aware and humble.
Jack also credited Parag of being instrumental in taking every decision that helped the company turn around its fortunes. Jack also imposed his full confidence in Parag as the CEO stating that he puts his heart and soul into his work. Jack wished him success.
There has been curiosity to know the reason for success of Indian managers abroad. The Southern New Hampshire University did a research on this trend and found the secret recipe for this phenomenal success of Indian managers. They concluded that Indian management professionals have a paradoxical blend of genuine personal humility with intense professional will.
All this is good and exciting. But it begs a pertinent question. Does India benefit from this talent? Why do Indians do so well professionally when abroad? Why is it that the most talented Indians are choosing to work abroad? Almost 600,000 Indian passports were surrendered last year.
What is lacking in India that Indians have to leave India to be successful? If these talented individuals worked for Indian companies in India, they could have helped Indian economy grow faster creating employment and giving hope to millions of youngsters who come out of our universities looking to make it big in life.
Why this has not happened in India? This is in sharp contrast to what is happening in neighboring China. There are absolutely no Chinese-origin CEOs heading American tech giants. But China has nurtured an environment where its start-ups are becoming vey successful in their own country. More than 13% Chinese start-ups are Unicorns. This number is second only to America in terms of percentage of Unicorns in the world.
Indian CEOs leading big tech giants in the Silicon Valley is good news for India. It adds to India’s soft power. But does it really help India in a significant way? The simple and short answer is no. These are American firms which work on American values.
As CEOs, they pursue and promote the rapacious business practices of these MNCs as their only motive is to make profit-to take care of the bottom line. Having an Indian CEO does not make a company pro-India. Neither does it mean that it starts hiring more Indians nor does it mean that they open new offices in India.
If all this managerial talent was given the necessary environment in India, we too could have produced a Google or a Twitter in India. But alas, we have to feel happy and satisfied by overseas success of our compatriots but when it comes to home-grown companies, nothing much to write about. How long this state of affairs will continue? Only time will tell.
edited and proofread by nikita sharma
