When Zoho CEO wanted to hire Trump's AI advisor

Peerzada Abrar/Business Standard

When Sriram Krishnan was studying at SRM Engineering College in Chennai during 2001-2005, Sridhar Vembu, founder of tech firm Zoho Corporation, came across his blog. It was one of the early programming blogs from India at that time.

'I was so impressed, I wanted to recruit him but Microsoft had already taken him on board. We have been in touch on and off as he later moved to Silicon Valley,' recalled Vembu on X, while congratulating Krishnan on being appointed on Sunday as senior policy advisor for AI at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, by US President-elect Donald Trump.

'President Trump has found a great talent for his technology team,' Vembu added.

Krishnan will work with David Sacks, former PayPal COO and Trumps pick to lead the White House policy on AI and Crypto.

'Working closely with David Sacks, Sriram will focus on ensuring continued American leadership in AI and help shape and coordinate AI policy across government, including working with the Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology,' said Trump.

Krishnan was born in Chennai into a traditional middle-class family. In one interview, he shared that his life took a pivotal turn when he persuaded his father to buy him a computer -- a significant luxury in the late 1990s. However, Internet access was out of reach at the time due to the high cost of dial-up connections.

Undeterred, Krishnan turned to coding books, teaching himself the basics and practising every night. When one of Krishnans blog posts about Microsoft caught the attention of a company executive, it led him being hired in 2005.

Krishnan, who began his career as a founding member of Windows Azure, moved to the US in 2007. He became a well-known figure in the technology world of Silicon Valley and beyond and served in senior product positions at big tech companies such as Microsoft, Facebook (Meta), Snap and Twitter.

In addition to building, leading, or overseeing such products as Facebook Audience Network, Twitters home timeline, and trending topics, Krishnan also became a coach, mentor, and advisor to a new generation of up-and-coming founders and quality companies such as Cameo, Figma, Notion, and Scale.

Meanwhile, his wife worked at Facebook and Netflix before founding a few of her own companies and was also an investor and product executive. The couple got American citizenship in 2017. 

Krishnans skills and experiences helped him land a job as general partner at VC firm a16z in 2021. There he opened and ran the a16zs UK office and drove its international strategy. Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of a16z is of the view that Krishnans appointment is a 1,000x upgrade for the US government.

'It puts the US firmly in the drivers seat for AI policy globally. Sriram is the right man for the topic and the time,' said Andreessen on X.
Krishnan came under the spotlight in the recent past, when Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022 and handpicked the Indian-origin tech executive to run the microblogging platform temporarily.

'It was fun to work with Sriram on the X/Twitter Transition and I look forward to doing it again, collaborating on AI policy. Sriram is a well-known and well-liked figure in Silicon Valley, a sign of the extraordinary talent President Trump is attracting to his administration,' said David Sacks on X.