Parag Agrawal is the co-founder and CEO of Parallel, a startup building search infrastructure for the web’s second user: AIs. Before launching Parallel, Parag spent over a decade at Twitter, where he served as CTO and later CEO during a period of intense transformation, as well as public scrutiny.

In this episode, Parag shares what he learned from his time at Twitter, why the web must evolve to serve AI at massive scale, how Parallel is tackling “deep research” challenges by prioritizing accuracy over speed, and the design choices that make their APIs uniquely agent-friendly.

We also discuss:

Why Parallel designs for AI as the primary customer
Lessons from 11 years at Twitter and applying them to a startup
Potential business models to keep the web open for AI
Hiring philosophy: balancing high potential and experienced talent
The evolving role of engineers in an AI-assisted world
Why “agents” are finally becoming useful in production
And much more…

References:

Bloomberg launch coverage: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-14/twitter-ex-ceo-parag-agrawal-is-moving-past-his-elon-musk-drama
Clay: https://www.clay.com/
Index Ventures: https://www.indexventures.com/
Josh Kopelman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkopelman/
KLA: https://www.kla.com/
OpenAI: https://openai.com/
Parallel: https://parallel.ai/
Patrick Collison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickcollison/
Stripe: https://stripe.com/

Where to find Parag:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paragagr/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/paraga

Where to find Todd:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/tjack

Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

Timestamps:

(1:26) Founding Parallel with an AI-first mission

(3:23) From Twitter CTO/CEO to startup founder

(6:20) What the AI era spells for companies

(7:58) The CEO to founder pipeline

(11:18) Reflections on Twitter’s transformation

(17:48) How Parallel was born

(22:31) Early use cases for Parallel

(31:42) How has Parallel’s ICP changed?

(34:37) AI’s impact on competitor dynamics

(36:06) When should founders launch?

(37:43) Parag’s fundraising framework

(40:14) Building a high-impact engineering team

(44:49) Counterproductive uses of AI

(47:35) How will the software engineer role evolve?

(49:10) How are Parallel’s customers using AI?

(53:27) Defining agents in 2025

(55:02) Parallel’s long-term vision

(1:03:43) Parag’s growth as a founder

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