Introducing Twitter’s new CEO Parag Agarwal

twitter is a new CEOParag Agarwal, who will take over from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has been the longest-serving CEO within the firm’s greater than 15-year historical past.

Agarwal is not probably the most well-known of names inside or exterior Twitter. He’s been with the corporate for greater than a decade, although, working from an engineer to grow to be its prime govt (and an in depth good friend of Dorsey’s). Agarwal first debuted on Twitter in October 2011 with a deal with promoting merchandise, and have become the primary recipient of the corporate’s “distinguished engineer” title. He was later appointed Chief Technology Officer in October 2017, throughout which period he solved high-profile issues (comparable to the huge password safety downside) and took on a number of the firm’s daring initiatives (comparable to decentralization). But regardless of that lengthy stint, Agarwal, who’s 37, did not spend a lot time within the public eye – one thing that will change instantly along with his new function.

That mentioned, there are some pointers from Agarwal’s historical past as CTO that will point out the place Twitter could go subsequent underneath his management. Agarwal is the fourth particular person to take the reins at Twitter after Dorsey (who led the corporate from 2006 to 2008, after which from 2015 to current), Evan Williams (who co-founded Twitter with Dorsey and was CEO from 2008 to 2010). ), and Dick Costolo (former COO of Twitter, who served as CEO from 2010 to 2015).

In his time as CTO, one among Agarwal’s greatest tasks was overseeing the corporate’s decentralized BlueSky platform, which was first introduced in December 2019. Intended as an “open and decentralized standard for social media” that Twitter may finally transition to make use of. , Bluesky has been one of many extra dramatic concepts for the way forward for Twitter and a pet undertaking of Dorsey.

Bluesky can be selecting up steam after an extended interval of radio silence over the previous few months: the group printed its assessment of current decentralized social media programs firstly of the 12 months and put Cryptocurrency Developer Jay Graber In cost of Bluesky in August after months of trying to find product leads. Presumably, the event of BlueSky — and its potential affect in remodeling Twitter’s platform base — is one thing that can proceed to be a serious undertaking for Agarwal as CEO.

aside from this, Newly Founded Twitter Crypto Team The management of Tess Rainierson, introduced earlier in November, additionally reported on to Agarwal (although it’s unclear if this can stay the case after his promotion). He can be set to work intently with Team BlueSky, which – mixed with Agarwal’s curiosity in decentralized Web3 platforms – speaks to a attainable route for Twitter’s future.

That expertise with BlueSky could nicely coincide with one among Agarwal’s greatest tasks as Twitter’s chief know-how officer: shifting a few of Twitter’s merchandise from corporations like Amazon and Google to extra sturdy cloud providers on their servers. Years of effort to maneuver from and to maneuver.

Agarwal took the hassle in 2018 to advance Twitter’s inside know-how and assist speed up the tempo of function improvement and deployment, as famous in an interview. Information earlier this 12 months. “When we hear people saying that Twitter is slow in shipping, it hurts and that’s what we use as inspiration,” Agarwal mentioned.

This has led to adjustments comparable to Twitter Partners With Google Cloud Ongoing efforts to course of the info in May 2018 and to regularly swap to the Twitter timeline are primarily based on Amazon Web Services itself (which is predicted to be accomplished in 2023). “I think people are now beginning to recognize outwardly that we are moving fast. And it feels good because it is like work starting from the past,” Agarwal mentioned within the interview. “But we’re nowhere near doing it. I believe we’ve a number of alternative to maneuver even sooner and [in] Ways to get much more consideration within the years to return. ,

Agarwal’s different tasks had been extra reactionary options to current Twitter issues, although vital: in his time as CTO, Agarwal was part of the effort final 12 months to deal with Twitter’s Problematic Racial Crop Issues with photo preview, along with the next Handling Public Explanation for the corporate 2018 Password Bug,

Agarwal has additionally hinted at how he’ll tackle one among Twitter’s greatest challenges: moderation. in a 2020 interview with MIT Technology Review, Agarwal mentioned Twitter’s function is to create a more healthy area for on-line conversations, suggesting that will come at the price of permitting folks to say no matter they need. “Our role is not bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation,” he mentioned.

However, this doesn’t imply moderating all misinformation. Agarwal sees Twitter’s aim as avoiding “the specific pitfalls caused by misleading information” slightly than “trying to be the arbiter of right or wrong on the Internet”. That’s as a result of, says Agarwal, “misinformation is really hard to define.”

This stance may trigger points with Republican politicians, a lot of whom are already opposing Twitter’s moderation insurance policies and Ban on former President Donald Trump, NS House Judiciary GOP Twitter Account The new CEO of Twitter was already known as “much worse” than Dorsey, citing a comedic phase on a non-contextualized tweet by Agarwal from 2010 (earlier than he was employed at Twitter). The Daily Show with Jon StewartAsif Mandvi about the stereotype, frequent reports have proven that social media platforms comparable to Twitter don’t have any empirical proof of bias in direction of conservative content material, and a Recent study from Twitter itself discovered that the platform’s algorithms truly favored right-wing views.

This is among the many hurdles that Agarwal should cross. While they’ve inherited an organization that is been rising its day by day consumer figures and rolling out merchandise sooner than ever, Twitter nonetheless faces ongoing points with consumer development at dwelling. There has been a current change in privateness and the quickly rising social networks like Snapchat. Agarwal is probably not probably the most publicly recognizable candidate to run Twitter, however his years of expertise with the corporate, deep expertise with Twitter’s product, and former work serving to to modernize Twitter’s tech stack. This has made them an fascinating selection for CEOs, particularly as decentralized blockchain know-how turns into extra outstanding.