From Chennai to Silicon Valley, Aravind Srinivas’ trajectory reads like a blueprint for the next-wave Indian tech founder. Born in Tamil Nadu, he studied electrical engineering at IIT Madras, taught himself Python, and went on to complete a PhD in AI at University of California, Berkeley.

In 2022 he co-founded Perplexity AI alongside Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho and Andy Konwinski, with the aim of transforming search. Rather than returning links, their platform delivers conversational answers with citations, positioning itself as an “answer engine” bridging search and chat.

Within a few years the company scaled rapidly—valued around US$18 billion in mid-2025, and Aravind became India’s youngest billionaire, listed with a net worth of approximately ₹21,190 crore.

His vision goes beyond the product: Aravind emphasises transparency, publisher attribution and independence. He has publicly stated that big tech will copy what’s good — so innovation must be quicker, smarter and mission-driven.

In short: Srinivas is at the helm of a company that could redefine how we ask questions and get answers online. His journey underlines the growing global footprint of Indian-origin innovators in AI—and captures the moment when search, speech and intelligence merge into everyday tools.