A viral social media post highlighting the career of tech researcher Rishabh Agrawal has sparked widespread admiration, including a nod from billionaire Nikesh Arora. The IIT Bombay graduate responded to a tweet claiming he had opted to leave Meta's Superintelligence Labs to work at an AI startup backed by Nvidia and Jeff Bezos.
It all started with a tweet about Rishabh Agrawal, which claimed that he left his job at Meta despite “ Mark Zuckerberg personally” offering him $1 million.
“And do you know what he's a doing today? But-generation AI company called Periodic Labs,” it continued, adding, “Many of us might not know him well, but in the AI world, he is a big deal. The reason is that he has worked at some of the most elite AI labs on the planet: Google Brain, DeepMind, Waymo, and Meta Superintelligence Labs.”
The post continued, “In spite of that, when he was offered a ₹ 9.5 crore per annum job, after five months at Meta, he denied it, quit, and joined Periodic Labs as a co-founder.”
The tweet says, “Now, Periodic Labs is building the future of next-generation AI. It is backed by NVIDIA and Jeff Bezos , and it's building an AI scientist that can generate hypotheses for real-world experiments to discover new materials, medicines, and even new physics. Instead of being a small fish in a big pond, be a big fish in a small pond.”
Agrawal reacted to the tweet. Though he didn’t comment on any other fact mentioned, he shared that the amount Meta offered him was much higher than $1 million.
Agrawal posted, “Meta's offer was an order of magnitude higher than $1 million.” He also added a “smiling face with tear” emoticon.
The post prompted varied reactions, with one from entrepreneur Nikesh Arora, who is worth $1.7 billion. Resharing the tweet about Rishabh Agarwal, Arora wrote, “Love it!”
Agarwal completed his bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and obtained his PhD from Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute.
He started his career as an intern at Saavn in Mumbai. He joined Google in 2018 as a senior research scientist and then at DeepMind as a staff research scientist.
He joined Meta in 2025 and remained with the tech giant for about five months. He is a founding member of Periodic Labs.
Trisha Sengupta is a Chief Content Producer at Hindustan Times with over six years of digital newsroom experience. Specialising in high-engagement storytelling, she blends viral trends with traditional journalism to cover the intersection of technology, finance, and human emotion. Her reporting spans real estate and personal finance struggles in hubs like Bengaluru and Gurgaon, the NRI experience, and corporate shifts like tech layoffs. Trisha also frequently tracks global figures and writes human interest stories. Offline, Trisha is an avid reader, history enthusiast and solo traveler. She balances her journalism career with family life while actively integrating AI tools into her modern storytelling approach. Read More
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