(PC: The India Info)
Who Is Parag Agrawal?
Parag Agrawal is an Indian-born American technologist and software engineer. Born in Ajmer, Rajasthan, he was a gold medalist at the International Physics Olympiad and later earned a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay. He pursued his PhD in Computer Science at Stanford University, specializing in data management and machine learning. Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 as a software engineer and rose through the ranks to become Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in 2017. In November 2021, he was appointed CEO of Twitter, succeeding Jack Dorsey
The Firing: Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover
In October 2022, Elon Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Within hours of the deal closing, Musk fired Parag Agrawal along with other top executives. The dismissal was abrupt—Agrawal was reportedly escorted out of Twitter’s San Francisco office the same day.Musk had previously expressed dissatisfaction with Twitter’s leadership, and leaked messages revealed he felt Agrawal “got nothing done.” Despite the harsh exit, Agrawal walked away with a severance package estimated to be worth up to $50 million.
The Comeback: Parallel Web Systems Inc.
After keeping a low profile post-Twitter, Agrawal re-emerged in 2023 with a bold new venture: Parallel Web Systems Inc., a Palo Alto–based AI startup. The company has already raised $30 million (₹260 crore) from top investors like Khosla Ventures, Index Ventures, and First Round Capital. Parallel is building infrastructure for AI agents to conduct deep, real-time research across the web. Its flagship product, the Deep Research API, allows AI systems to:
- Search the internet intelligently
- Verify sources
- Organize and contextualize information
- Automate complex workflows
The startup’s most advanced engine, Ultra8x, has reportedly outperformed OpenAI’s GPT-5 and even human researchers on benchmarks like BrowseComp and DeepResearch Bench.
Why Parallel Matters
Agrawal believes the internet was built for humans—but the future belongs to AI. Parallel aims to create a “programmatic web” designed for machines, not clicks and ads. Use cases include:
- Coding assistants pulling live data from GitHub
- Retailers tracking competitor catalogs
- Analysts compiling market reports
- Insurance firms automating claims with web-sourced verification
Agrawal’s vision is to redefine how AI interacts with the web, making it faster, smarter, and more accurate.
What’s Next?
With Parallel, Parag Agrawal isn’t just building a company—he’s rewriting his legacy. From being fired in a corporate shake-up to leading one of Silicon Valley’s most promising AI startups, his journey is a testament to resilience, vision, and technical brilliance.