‘Being a founder is a state of mind’: what Parag Agrawal learned before Musk fired him

Parag Agrawal did not have standard founder status at Twitter — he rose through the ranks as the company’s CTO before succeeding co-founder Jack Dorsey as CEO. But that technicality didn’t stop him from thinking like one. ‘Being a founder is like a state of mind,’ he said in an interview earlier this year.

Agrawal, who was ousted as Twitter CEO after Elon Musk acquired the platform, said the mindset came from watching Microsoft’s Satya Nadella. ‘When I took the job at Twitter, I was really inspired by Satya, and I used to call him the founder — or a re-founder, or whatever you want to call that,’ he said.

Taking over the top job at Twitter forced him to figure out how the social media giant could evolve under his leadership and differentiate itself in a crowded tech market. ‘The inspiration I got on someone like completely changing a company, a business, a culture, a product came from Satya, and I thought of wanting to be a founder in that mold, in that moment,’ Agrawal said.

Agrawal is now the founder of AI startup Parallel Web Systems, a role that finally gives him the founder title he once described only as a mindset.