Nowadays, the world’s biggest tech giant companies are being run by IIT graduates. One such boy is of Indian origin whose salary package was ₹100 crores and he was fired from his company by Elon Musk. Even after losing the job, the boy did not lose courage and today he is running his own AI firm.
Who is that guy?
Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, was bought by Elon Musk in a massive $44 billion deal. After becoming the new owner of X, Musk made several major executive changes and he started by removing the CEO of the company. At that time, X was headed by IIT graduate Parag Agarwal and was quite popular as the CEO of the company.
Parag Agrawal had an All India Rank (AIR) of 77 in IIT-JEE. He gained media attention and social media popularity when he was appointed as the CEO of Twitter. His salary was around ₹8 crore, supplemented by restricted stock units worth around ₹94 crore, totalling over ₹100 crore.
Why was Parag Agarwal fired?
According to a book by Bloomberg’s Kurt Wagner, Parag had rejected Elon Musk’s request to block the account tracking the location of his private jet. This happened before the Twitter acquisition deal. As soon as Musk joined Twitter, he sacked Parag Agrawal and the account tracking the location of the private jet was blocked.
What did Parag Agarwal do after losing his job?
After losing his job, Parag Agrawal was entitled to a severance pay of around ₹400 crore, but he did not receive any compensation. Parag and other former Twitter executives filed a lawsuit against Musk. It is alleged that they were denied severance pay of more than ₹1000 crore.
Parag Agrawal is now making progress in the AI sector and has reportedly raised ₹249 crore in funding for his new venture. His startup focuses on developing software for developers working with large language models, similar to the technology behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT. According to reports, Khosla Ventures, led by Vinod Khosla and an early supporter of OpenAI, led the investment in Parag’s company. Apart from this, Index Ventures and First Round Capital also participated in the funding round.