Aravind Srinivas

THE ROBOT PHD WHO CAME FOR GOOGLE'S SEARCH BUSINESS

Srinivas came out of Berkeley's robot-learning lab, did a year at OpenAI, and co-founded Perplexity to challenge search with citation-backed AI answers. The money followed the challenge: a $9 billion valuation chase, 300 million queries a week, and Comet — a full browser aimed at Google's home turf.

1. Aug 2021

   A ROBOT PHD WALKS OUT OF BERKELEY

   Srinivas completed his Berkeley PhD on representation learning for perception and control, emerging from the university's Robot Learning Lab.

   SOURCES: UC Berkeley Robot Learning Labreported

2. 2021

   A YEAR AT OPENAI, THEN HE'S GONE

   Berkeley's Robot Learning Lab listed Srinivas's next position as research scientist at OpenAI, where he worked before starting his own company.

   SOURCES: UC Berkeley Robot Learning Labreported

3. 2022

   HE STARTS THE ANSWER ENGINE THAT CAME FOR GOOGLE

   After his PhD and a year at OpenAI, Srinivas co-founded Perplexity in 2022 around an AI search product that answers questions with web citations.

   SOURCES: UC Berkeley Engineeringreported

4. Nov 6, 2024

   THE AI SEARCH ENGINE CHASES A $9 BILLION VALUATION

   Perplexity sought roughly $500 million in new financing at a $9 billion valuation, after a January round had valued the company at about $520 million.

   SOURCES: Reutersreported

5. Oct 21, 2025

   THE SEARCH STARTUP WANTS THE BROWSER TOO

   By late 2025 Perplexity had launched its Comet browser and was handling more than 300 million queries a week, extending Srinivas's search challenge into the browser itself.

   SOURCES: Berkeley Haasreported