Sridhar Ramaswamy

Sridhar Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy in 2020
Sridhar Ramaswamy
Born	1967
Birthplace	Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India
Nationality	American
Occupation	Business executive, computer scientist
Title	CEO of Snowflake Inc.
Known for	CEO of Snowflake Inc., co-founding Neeva, formerly leading Google's advertising business
Education	Brown University (MS, PhD)
Children	2

Sridhar Ramaswamy (born 1967) is an Indian-American computer scientist and business executive who has served as the chief executive officer of Snowflake Inc., a cloud-based data-warehousing company, since February 2024. Before leading Snowflake, Ramaswamy co-founded Neeva, an ad-free, privacy-focused search engine, which was acquired by Snowflake in 2023. His career is most prominently defined by his long tenure at Google, where he spent over fifteen years and rose to oversee the company's massive advertising business — a division that generated over $60 billion in annual revenue during his leadership. Born in Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, Ramaswamy was educated at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and Brown University, where he earned a doctorate in computer science. His trajectory from academic researcher to the head of one of the world's largest advertising operations, and later to startup founder and public company CEO, has placed him at the center of some of the most significant shifts in technology, from the rise of digital advertising to the emergence of artificial intelligence as a transformative force in enterprise computing.

Early Life

Sridhar Ramaswamy was born in 1967 in Tiruchirappalli, a city in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Details about his family background and childhood have not been widely documented in public sources. He pursued his undergraduate education in India before moving to the United States for graduate study, a path followed by many Indian engineers and computer scientists of his generation who sought advanced training at American research universities.

Education

Ramaswamy earned a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), one of India's premier engineering institutions. He then moved to the United States to attend Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he pursued graduate studies in computer science. At Brown, Ramaswamy completed both a Master of Science and a Doctor of Philosophy degree. His doctoral dissertation, titled Indexing for Data Models with Classes and Constraints, was completed in 1995 under the supervision of Paris Kanellakis, a noted computer scientist specializing in database theory and computational complexity. The dissertation addressed fundamental problems in data indexing and database management systems, areas that would prove relevant throughout his subsequent career in technology.

Career

Google (2003–2018)

Ramaswamy joined Google in 2003, relatively early in the company's history, and would remain with the firm for over fifteen years. During his tenure, he rose through the engineering and product ranks to become one of the most influential executives at the company. His career at Google was closely tied to the development and expansion of the company's advertising technology, which constituted the overwhelming majority of Google's revenue.

By 2015, Ramaswamy was serving as the senior vice president overseeing Google's advertising and commerce business. In this role, he controlled a division that generated approximately $60 billion in annual revenue, making it one of the largest advertising operations in the world. His responsibilities encompassed the company's core advertising products, including Google Ads (then known as AdWords), Google AdSense, and DoubleClick, which collectively powered the monetization of Google's search engine, YouTube, and its broader display advertising network.

Under Ramaswamy's leadership, Google's ad business continued to grow and evolve as it competed with Facebook and other digital advertising platforms for market share. In 2015, Ramaswamy publicly commented on competitive dynamics in online video advertising, noting questions about the engagement quality of video views on rival platforms. That same year, he articulated Google's strategic positioning in relation to e-commerce, stating that the company was "not a retailer and [doesn't] intend to be one," distinguishing Google's role as an advertising and information platform from direct retail competitors like Amazon.

Ramaswamy's ascent within Google was chronicled as part of a broader narrative about the company's internal power dynamics and the executives who controlled its most lucrative business lines. According to Bloomberg data, Ramaswamy held the position of senior vice president of ads and commerce at Google.

In October 2018, Ramaswamy departed Google to join Greylock Partners, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm, as a venture partner. His departure was notable given the size and importance of the business he had overseen and came at a time when Google was facing increased scrutiny over its advertising practices, data collection, and market dominance.

Neeva (2019–2023)

After his time at Greylock Partners, Ramaswamy co-founded Neeva, a search engine startup that sought to offer an alternative to the dominant advertising-supported model of internet search. Neeva launched with a subscription-based model that promised users an ad-free search experience with a focus on privacy. The venture was, in part, a response to concerns Ramaswamy himself had developed about the pervasive influence of advertising on the internet experience — a notable stance given that he had spent over a decade building Google's ad infrastructure.

In a 2020 interview with The New York Times, Ramaswamy's move from running Google's advertising machine to building an ad-free search engine was characterized as a significant shift in the technology world. He articulated a vision of search that prioritized the user's interests over those of advertisers, arguing that the ad-supported model created inherent conflicts of interest in how search results were ranked and presented.

In a 2021 profile by Forbes, Ramaswamy discussed the philosophical underpinnings of Neeva, explaining how his experience building Google's advertising business had informed his desire to create a fundamentally different kind of search product.

In an interview with The Indian Express, Ramaswamy discussed Neeva's approach to search and his motivations for leaving Google to pursue a startup venture, emphasizing the importance of aligning the search engine's business model with user interests rather than advertiser demands.

Neeva incorporated artificial intelligence features into its search product, including AI-powered summaries and answers. However, the company faced significant challenges in competing against Google's entrenched dominance in the search market. Despite favorable reviews and a differentiated product, Neeva struggled to attract a sufficient subscriber base to sustain its consumer search business.

In 2023, Neeva announced it would be shutting down its consumer search engine and pivoting to enterprise applications of its AI technology. Shortly thereafter, Snowflake Inc. acquired Neeva, bringing Ramaswamy and his team into the cloud data company. The acquisition was seen as a move by Snowflake to bolster its AI and search capabilities using the technology and expertise that the Neeva team had developed.

Snowflake Inc. (2023–present)

Following the acquisition of Neeva by Snowflake in 2023, Ramaswamy initially joined Snowflake in a senior role focused on AI and product strategy. In February 2024, Snowflake announced that its longtime CEO Frank Slootman was retiring, and Ramaswamy was named as his successor as chief executive officer. The transition marked a significant moment for Snowflake, which had become one of the most prominent companies in the cloud computing and data analytics sector following a blockbuster initial public offering in 2020.

As CEO of Snowflake, Ramaswamy has focused on integrating artificial intelligence capabilities into the company's data platform and expanding its partner ecosystem. In a February 2026 interview with CRN, Ramaswamy emphasized his approach to AI in the enterprise, stating, "I'm not in the business of selling AI. I'm in the business of creating value," and highlighted the growth of Snowflake's partner ecosystem.

Ramaswamy has also been vocal about the competitive dynamics of the AI era and the risks facing enterprise software companies. In February 2026, he warned that software companies risk becoming a "dumb data pipe" to AI models if they fail to adapt, arguing that "the big model makers want to create a world in which all of the data for all of the enterprises is easily available to them." This framing positioned Snowflake as a company that aims to help enterprises maintain control over their data even as they adopt AI technologies from large model providers.

In December 2025, Ramaswamy published predictions for the technology industry in 2026, asserting in Fortune that "Big Tech's grip on AI will loosen" as more organizations develop the capability to deploy AI models independently.

Under Ramaswamy's leadership, Snowflake entered into a $200 million deal with OpenAI, signaling the company's deepening engagement with large language model providers while maintaining its strategic focus on data governance and enterprise value creation.

In mid-2025, Ramaswamy outlined his vision for the company's operational direction, emphasizing efficiency, profitability, and a focus on employee performance. He also discussed plans to invest in AI capabilities and early-career talent as part of a broader strategy to maintain competitiveness in an evolving market.

Leadership and Management Style

Ramaswamy has shared aspects of his management philosophy in several public interviews. In a January 2026 interview with Business Insider, he discussed his approach to hiring, describing a preferred interview question designed to move candidates away from rehearsed answers and reveal their authentic problem-solving abilities.

In December 2025, he outlined four rules for effective meetings, noting that while "meetings are like bureaucracies," he depends on them for decision-making and views structured meetings as essential to organizational function.

Personal Life

Sridhar Ramaswamy has two children. He resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. Details about his personal life beyond these facts have not been extensively documented in public sources. Ramaswamy has maintained a relatively low public profile regarding his private life, with his public statements and media appearances focused primarily on professional and industry topics.

Recognition

Ramaswamy's career trajectory — from leading Google's multi-billion-dollar advertising business to founding a privacy-focused search startup and then becoming CEO of a major public cloud company — has drawn significant attention in technology and business media. His departure from Google in 2018 to join Greylock Partners was covered by CNBC and other major business outlets as a notable leadership change at one of the world's most valuable companies.

His founding of Neeva received extensive media coverage, including profiles in The New York Times, Forbes, BBC News, and The Indian Express, with commentators noting the unusual nature of a former advertising executive building a product designed to eliminate advertising from search.

His appointment as CEO of Snowflake in February 2024 was widely reported in the financial and technology press, including by CNBC and Yahoo Finance. Since taking on the role, Ramaswamy has been featured in Fortune, Business Insider, CRN, and other outlets for his commentary on the future of AI and enterprise technology.

Legacy

Sridhar Ramaswamy's career spans several of the defining developments in the technology industry over the past two decades. At Google, he played a central role in building the advertising infrastructure that underpins much of the modern internet economy. His subsequent decision to found Neeva represented a public reckoning by a senior technology executive with the consequences of the ad-supported business model he had helped to scale — an act that drew attention to growing concerns about user privacy, data collection, and the alignment of technology companies' incentives with those of their users.

Although Neeva did not succeed as a consumer product, its acquisition by Snowflake brought Ramaswamy to the leadership of one of the most prominent companies in cloud computing and data analytics. At Snowflake, his emphasis on helping enterprises derive value from their data while maintaining control in the age of AI reflects broader industry debates about data sovereignty, the role of large model providers, and the future of enterprise software.

Ramaswamy's academic background in database theory and indexing — the subject of his doctoral work at Brown University under Paris Kanellakis — connects to the data management challenges that have defined each phase of his career, from Google's advertising systems to Neeva's search engine to Snowflake's data platform. His career arc illustrates the path of Indian-born engineers who have risen to senior leadership positions at major American technology companies, a pattern that has become increasingly prominent in Silicon Valley.