Did Rishabh Agrawal quit $1 million Meta job to work at AI startup? He responds

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 Nvidia and Jeff Bezos.AI researcher Rishabh Agrawal. (LinkedIn/Rishabh A)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.What else does the tweet say?“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.”What is he doing now?The tweet says, “Now, Periodic Labs is building the future of next-generation AI. It is backed NVIDIA and Jeff Bezos, and it’s building an AI scient 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.What did Rishabh Agrawal say?Agrawal posted, “Meta’s offer was an order of magnitude higher than $1 million.” He also added a “smiling face with tear” emoticon.Nikesh Arora reacts: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!”Who is Rishabh Agrawal?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 scient and then at DeepMind as a staff research scient.He joined Meta in 2025 and remained with the tech giant for about five months. He is a founding member of Periodic Labs.