Parag Agrawal - New CEO of Twitter

[poyzzplaidwell]

22 hours ago, vayuu1 said:

Panauti for a reason ,ye jiske sath bhi khadi payi gayi uska khade khade diwala nikal gyi

Aisa na koi Banda 

jiska karwa dia isne danda. 
brahmin patriarchy wtf that even means.

as if sikhs/Muslims/Jains etc behave differently in India. If she had mentioned Indian patriarchy still would have made sense as we do still have lot of progress to make.

good riddance from main media this lady.

[Prakat]

Why are Indians becoming CEOs? Well, because they have a set of attributes that make them perfect for becoming the face of tech companies right now. They may not have been the obvious option when a company was going through a high-growth, market-grabbing, aggressive phase. But right now, for certain types of companies, Indians are amazing. And I think that companies like Twitter, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Adobe all find themselves in a similar position.   First, there’s their leadership skills. Take a study conducted by the University of New Hampshire, which analysed the differences between Indian leaders and American executives. The key difference between them, the authors argue, is something about Level 5 leadership, something that is present in great companies, but missing in good or mediocre companies.   Level 5 leaders’ ambition is not for themselves but for the future success of the company. They are not necessarily charismatic. They surround themselves with individuals who are self confident and not self-centered. The senior management team tends to give credit to others and assumes responsibility when things go poorly. They understand the importance of their roles. They inspire people around them to be self motivated, bringing out the best in people (Collins, 2004). Humility is not a common attribute of American leadership but can be found more frequently in Indian companies (Mills, 2005). Our study was comparable, we found for L5L the mean average is 3.48 for India and 3 for US.

Now compare this to a story by the Washington Post after Parag Agrawal was appointed as CEO of Twitter. Pay special attention to his traits as compared to Kayvon Beykpour, who was seen as another possibility for the CEO spot.

One of the employees described Agrawal as a “big ideas guy” who was unproven as a manager, doesn’t relish dealing in details and “isn’t the best with people.” Even so, that employee was “overall happy” with the choice, because Agrawal came across as thoughtful and respectful.   “People seem generally happy about Parag, but mostly because he’s the best choice among a bunch of bad options,” said another of the employees.   What other candidates were considered for the role has not been disclosed, and Twitter declined to comment. But one name that came up both in internal and external speculation was that of Kayvon Beykpour, the company’s head of consumer product, who has overseen the launch of several new features in recent years, including the live-audio forum Twitter Spaces.   Three of the employees agreed Beykpour’s aggressive management style would have made him a divisive pick. One said they had been prepared to leave if Beykpour was the choice. And two noted that Beykpour and Agrawal did not always see eye to eye.   The person outside the company who said they were familiar with the decision process confirmed that Agrawal’s solid reputation among the rank and file was a factor.   “He’s a culture carrier, internally, highly respected within the company, and wouldn’t be highly disruptive” as the new CEO, the person said. “If you look at what Twitter needs to take it from where it is today to a $100 billion, $200 billion company, it’s really a product-driven, innovation mind-set: How do we roll out new features and functionality?” The person cited Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen as examples of internal candidates with little name recognition who emerged as capable leaders at their respective firms. Twitter’s new CEO is bringing an engineering background to a politics fight, Washington Post

Humble. Respected. Consensus. Popular with rank and file. Seems like if you are a tech company with an Indian CEO, those words automatically apply.    It’s almost like we all know someone just like Parag Agrawal, even if we’ve never met him.    Which is kinda the point.    Source: Nutgraf Newsletter 4, Dec, 2021

[Prakat]

contd...

 

But what about India and Indian CEOs?   There are three predictable, broad takes whenever an Indian ascends to a position of power in the US. Here they are, illustrated in three random, but representative tweets which appeared on my timeline from CEOs of prominent Indian companies.

Take 1: India is the best! So proud.

Take 2: The problem is here.

Take 3: The problem is there.

I have a take too.    Let me tell it to you in the form of a story. It’s about a person. It’s a quiz question. See if you can identify him.   Ready?    Okay, here goes.   Sometime in the early 2000s, X did his schooling in India and graduated from the Shriram College of Commerce (SRCC) in New Delhi with a first-class degree. Then he went to Wharton, one of the best B-schools in the world, where he graduated with honors and was placed in the Director's List (top 10% of the class).    After a short stint at McKinsey as a Management Consultant for two years in New York City, this person founded a company called txtWeb, and returned to India. txtWeb was an open and easy-to-use app development platform which enabled crowdsourcing of local content and services leading to massive adoption among non-English audiences in tier 3 towns and villages of India. It provided citizen-centric services, and was quoted in London Business School’s Report on ‘How mobile phones are changing the world’.   Later, this person headed and grew Flipkart’s marketplace business and became the CEO, Digital, of Network18, one of India’s largest media groups.    Post Network18, this person moved into one of the powerful companies in the world, as GM and head of its India division.    That’s some resume.   Any idea who this person is?    Okay, I’ll tell you his name. It’s Manish Maheshwari.    If you are wondering who that is, well, let me fill you in.  This is a story that appeared a few months ago.

Twitter India Managing Director Manish Maheshwari on Tuesday told the Karnataka High Court that he is ready to appear before the Uttar Pradesh Police in-person if it guarantees that it won't arrest him.   The high court was hearing a plea filed by Manish Maheshwari against the notice issue to him by the UP Police over tweets posted after video of an elderly Muslim man being assaulted in Loni, Ghaziabad went viral on Twitter.   Earlier, a single-member bench of Justice G Narender had passed an interim order restraining the Uttar Pradesh Police from taking coercive action against Manish Maheshwari. The UP Police then challenged the interim order in the Supreme Court.   "If the court records the submission of the respondent (UP Police) that they are not going to lay their hand upon me, then I am willing to appear before the police personally, provided they give an undertaking," Manish Maheshwari told the court through his counsel CV Nagesh. Ready to appear before UP Police if guaranteed I won't be arrested: Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari, India Today

That was in July.    In August, Twitter transferred Manish Maheshwari to its US office in San Francisco.    He moved to the US with his wife and family.    I don’t think he has any immediate plans to return to India.

[ravishingravi]

Wow. Thanks for that take. Sridhar was so bang on. 

[goose]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-59457015?fbclid=IwAR3F_z8gVKWKb6sO5j223mTk_h2HngPdBSRXNB233uxIAKiS_6wW_Bj_mlQ