Agrawal’s parents have said that their son always liked maths, computers and cars, seeking out magazines and literature on the subject whenever they travelled.

Sources told The Washington Post that Dorsey convinced board members that Agrawal is the best choice because of his engineering background and the fact he had been rising through Twitter’s ranks for a decade. One of the insiders also cited the success of other engineers who were relatively unknown before they took the helm at rival organisations, such as Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen.  

Dr Amanda Goodall, an associate professor at Bayes Business School, believes that Silicon Valley’s desire to have bosses with specific technical abilities rather than generic management skills could be a reason the sector has so many Indian-educated engineers in charge.  

“In India, expertise is still worth quite a lot – it hasn’t gone over to the generic management approach,” said Goodall, who has previously lived in the south-eastern coastal region of Andhra Pradesh. “Silicon Valley has managed to keep the technical quality of their CEOs.”

She argues that technical ability rules the roost in Silicon Valley. India’s education system, known for encouraging science and technology, huge population of 1.3bn and thriving technology hubs such as Bangalore – vital for many western firms – make it an obvious place for Silicon Valley firms to seek out talent.

Other potential internal candidates at Twitter may have included Vijaya Gadde, the site’s Indian-born policy chief, but sources told The Washington Post that the company’s top executives as well as investors wanted someone with “expertise in engineering or product development”.