Aravind Srinivas

Overview

Aravind Srinivas is an AI researcher and entrepreneur. He held research positions at OpenAI and Google DeepMind before founding Perplexity, and he is the company's co-founder and chief executive^[1]. TechCrunch's author page describes him as co-founder and CEO of Perplexity, which he co-founded in 2022 after working as a research scientist at OpenAI, Google and DeepMind^[3].

Education

Srinivas holds a PhD in computer science from UC Berkeley. He also holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras^[3].

Early research career

TechCrunch reported that he interned at DeepMind and Google before joining OpenAI as an AI researcher^[4]. His subsequent positions are described as research roles at OpenAI and Google DeepMind^[1]. OpenAI and DeepMind are among the laboratories where large language models and reinforcement learning methods have been developed; a research scientist there typically works on training methods and on the behaviour of learned models rather than on a shipped consumer product. Srinivas's public profile rests on that research background and on what he built afterwards.

Founding Perplexity

On 22 August 2022, Srinivas co-founded Perplexity AI with Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho and Andy Konwinski, and he serves as its CEO^[2]. The service launched in December 2022^[2]. Perplexity is an answer engine: a user types a question in ordinary language and gets back a short written answer, produced with the help of a language model and accompanied by links to the pages the answer is based on. That is a different shape of product from a list of ten blue links — an answer first and sources second — and it is what separates an answer engine from a conventional search box.

TechCrunch reported that Perplexity closed a Series A round of $26 million led by New Enterprise Associates, with Databricks Ventures and angel investors including Nat Friedman and Yann LeCun taking part^[4].

Bids and valuation

Under Srinivas's leadership the company made two public bids that went well beyond search. In January 2025 Perplexity bid to merge with TikTok US, and in August 2025 it offered $34.5 billion for Google Chrome^[2]. Both targets are unusual for a young company: one is a social video platform, the other a browser that is one of the main gateways to the web. He led the company from its December 2022 launch to a reported $20 billion valuation by September 2025^[2].

What his case shows

Srinivas is one of a number of AI researchers who have moved from laboratory work on machine learning to running companies that put those models in front of ordinary users. At Perplexity he is the public face of the firm: its funding rounds, its product launches and its bids for TikTok US and Chrome are all reported with him as CEO^[2][4]. For readers following how AI research turns into products, his career is a compact example — a PhD, industry research posts, then a startup whose name became attached to very large offers.