Aravind Srinivas
Cofounder, President, and CEO of Perplexity
About
I'm Aravind Srinivas, the Cofounder and CEO of Perplexity. My journey has been rooted in deep technical research, from my Ph.D. at UC Berkeley to my time as a Research Scientist at OpenAI and intern at DeepMind and Google. Today, I'm focused on building the future of search and AI orchestration, moving toward a world where computers act as persistent digital proxies for users. I'm passionate about high-leverage, efficient teams—having scaled Perplexity's revenue significantly while keeping our headcount lean. Beyond building, I'm an active angel investor in the AI ecosystem and care deeply about creating trustworthy, cited AI tools. I'm always looking to connect with builders and strategic partners who are interested in agentic workflows and the next generation of enterprise intelligence.
Networking
What I can offer
- ›Insights on AI scaling and product vision
- ›Strategic partnership opportunities
- ›Angel investment for AI startups
- ›Expertise in deep reinforcement learning and transformers
Looking for
- ›expanding my professional network
- ›exploring mutual opportunities in AI and enterprise technology
Best fit for
Current Interests
Background
Career
Began as a research intern at OpenAI, DeepMind, and Google; served as a Research Scientist at OpenAI before cofounding Perplexity in 2022.
Education
Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley (2021); Dual Degree (B.Tech and M.Tech) in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras (2017).
Achievements
- ›Scaled Perplexity revenue from $100M to $500M with minimal headcount growth
- ›Reached 100M+ cumulative app downloads on Android
- ›Secured strategic partnership with Samsung for 1B+ devices
- ›Published research in AAAI and ICLR
Opinions
- AI-native hardware is less important than a software 'orchestra conductor' managing existing devices
- Small, high-leverage teams are superior to proportional headcount growth
- AI tools must provide cited, trustworthy answers
- The computer should be a persistent digital proxy running 24/7