Indian-American engineer Sriram Krishnan has been recruited into a core team in a temporary capacity at Twitter by the company’s new owner Elon Musk.
According to The New York Times, which first broke the story of Krishnan and others helping Musk at Twitter, the Indian-American is a former Twitter product leader and partner at the investment firm Andreessen Horowitz. According to the report, the investment firm is an investor in Musk’s buyout of the social media platform.
Krishnan confirmed the development in a tweet on October 31. “Now that the word is out: I’m helping out @elonmusk with Twitter temporarily with some other great people,” he wrote.
“I ( and a16z) believe this is a hugely important company and can have great impact on the world and Elon is the person to make it happen,” added Krishnan, who tweeted a picture showing an inside view of the Twitter office in San Francisco.
Now that the word is out: I’m helping out @elonmusk with Twitter temporarily with some other great people.
I ( and a16z) believe this is a hugely important company and can have great impact on the world and Elon is the person to make it happen. pic.twitter.com/weGwEp8oga
— Sriram Krishnan – sriramk.eth (@sriramk) October 30, 2022
However, it is not clear in what capacity is Krishnan helping Musk. After announcing his involvement, Krishnan retweeted Musk’s tweets about the verification process at Twitter.
Who is Sriram Krishnan?
Education and upbringing
Krishnan was born in Chennai and had a “typical middle-class Indian” upbringing, according to a July 2021 article by The New York Times.
His LinkedIn profile reveals that he was a student at SRM Engineering College, Anna University, from 2001 to 2005, from where he graduated with degree in B.Tech in Information Technology.
His rise in the world of technology began with that of his wife, Aarthi Ramamurthy. The couple met in 2003 when both were students. Born in Chennai, Ramamurthy had a similar upbringing as Krishnan’s.
Microsoft and onwards
Both Krishnan and Ramamurthy were hired by Indian American tech executive S Somasegar for Microsoft in 2005. According to his profile on Andreessen Horowitz, Sriram was involved with projects related to Windows Azure and is the author of Programming Windows Azure.
After working at Microsoft, Krishnan moved on to other Big Tech companies. He held managerial positions at Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook and Snap. Among the mobile ad products, he created and oversaw Facebook Audience Network and Snap’s Direct Response ads business.
What else are Krishnan and Ramamurthy involved with?
According to his profile on Andreessen Horowitz, Krishnan also serves on the boards of Bitski, Hopin and Polywork. He is also an investor in his personal capacity with companies such as Cameo, CRED, Khatabook, Scale.ai, Coda, Notion and SpaceX.
On the other hand, Ramamurthy scripted her own successful career in technology. Prior to launching two start-ups — lingerie e-commerce site True and Co., and gadgets trying service Lumoid — Ramammurthy worked at Netflix. She also worked with Facebook in 2017 as a product director.
In early 2021, she joined Clubhouse as its international head. She left the position a year later in June 2022. However, she remains active on the platform with her highly successful programme Good Time Show — which is co-hosted by Krishnan.
How did Sriram Krishnan and Elon Musk meet?
Musk and Krishnan have known each other for quite some time.
The July 2021 NYT article says that Krishnan met Musk several years ago when the former was visiting SpaceX’s California headquarters with Ramamurthy.
Musk also appeared on Good Time Show, which has seen the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appear as guests.
(Main image credit: Aarthi Ramamurthy via Sriram Krishnan/@sriramk/Instagram; Featured image credit: Sriram Krishnan – sriramk.eth/@sriramk/Twitter)
This story first appeared on Lifestyle Asia India
