Sriram Krishnan, an Indian American author, venture capitalist, and entrepreneur, has been appointed by Donald Trump as the Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence. "Sriram Krishnan will serve as the Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy," the president-elect said in an official statement that also included numerous other appointments.
Trump went on to say, "Sriram will work closely with David Sacks to ensure that America remains at the forefront of artificial intelligence. He will also assist design and coordinate A.I. policy across Government, including with the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology." Sriram was a founding member of Windows Azure when he began his career at Microsoft.
Krishnan attended SRM Valliammai Engineering College in Kattankulathur, Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. He started his career with Microsoft, where he worked on the services and APIs for Windows Azure and helped create it. He wrote his book Programming Windows Azure for O'Reilly.
After joining Facebook in 2013, Krishnan was instrumental in growing the company's mobile app download advertising business. Later on, he was employed at Snap as well. Up until 2019, Krishnan was employed at Twitter (now X), where he worked with Elon Musk to restructure the website. In 2021, he joined Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as a general partner. He directed the company's first overseas branch in London later in 2023.
Krishnan thanked the president-elect on X following Trump's announcement. "Working closely with @DavidSacks, I am honoured to be able to serve our country and assure continuing American leadership in AI," he wrote.
Krishnan's appointment is also a testament to the growing influence of Indian-Americans in U.S. policymaking and technology.