What to know about Sriram Krishnan, whose AI appointment sparked MAGA outrage
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Sriram Krishnan has become a MAGA lightning rod since President-elect Trump named him as a senior adviser on artificial intelligence, due to both anti-Indian racism and Krishnan's pro-immigration views.
The big picture: Krishnan is an unlikely candidate for controversy, known throughout Silicon Valley for his affability and to the broader world as co-host of a podcast with his wife, tech entrepreneur Aarthi Ramamurthy.
Zoom in: Krishnan was born and educated in India, moving to the U.S. on an L-1 visa (intra-company transfer) in 2007 to work at Microsoft.
- He remained in Seattle for just over six years, mostly focused on Azure, before moving to Silicon Valley and serving in senior product roles at Snap, Facebook, Yahoo and Twitter. He became a U.S. citizen in 2016.
- During the pandemic, Krishnan and Ramamurthy launched a popular show on the Clubhouse audio app, which included interviews with such tech luminaries as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
Moving on: Krishnan in late 2020 became a general partner with venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, a prominent backer of Clubhouse.
- He also would become the firm's emissary to Twitter after Elon Musk's takeover, which Andreessen Horowitz helped finance, spending time in the "war room" with Musk pals like David Sacks (who will serve as Trump's AI and crypto czar).
- Last year Krishnan moved to London to lead Andreessen Horowitz's first European office and to focus on early-stage crypto investments. He announced in November that he'd leave the firm at year-end, although that came before Trump's job offers to either him or Sacks.
The intrigue: Krishnan has advocated for raising country caps on green cards, but hasn't specifically commented on H-1B visas (despite incorrect social media claims to the contrary).
- Krishnan's appointment on Dec. 22 stirred a swift backlash on social media over those immigration views, which quickly turned openly racist. Trump hasn't yet weighed in on the controversy.
- That backlash was the warmup for the full-on outrage that followed Vivek Ramaswamy's X post criticizing American cultural mediocrity.
The bottom line: Krishnan's new job would be to advise the White House on AI policy, not on immigration policy.
- There could, however, be overlap given the skilled labor needs of existing U.S. AI companies, plus the history of immigrants founding successful startups in AI and other tech sectors.
Go deeper: What Silicon Valley's Trump supporters aren't saying
