# @ucberkeleyofficial on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DSdKEfnEuVZ
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/64635287-ucberkeleyofficial-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/6be3bcde56.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-12-19T18:45:46.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** UC Berkeley (@ucberkeleyofficial) — https://gondola.cc/ucberkeleyofficial

## Caption

“Our broader vision is to make the planet smarter,” says UC Berkeley alum and perplexity co-founder, CEO, and president aravindsrinivas (PhD ’21, Computer Science).

Srinivas’ AI journey began at the Indian Institute of Technology, teaching computers to play games like Pong and Breakout. That early spark led him into deeper machine learning research, eventually taking him to the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms. Srinivas then set his sights on Berkeley.

“When it came to AI, Berkeley was the most happening university at the time,” he recalls. He was inspired by EECS professor and co-director of UC Berkeley’s AI Research Lab Pieter Abbeel and the students in his lab.

“From them, I learned that software engineering is critical to doing great work in AI,” he says. “It’s not just about mathematical equations on a whiteboard, but rather making them work in practice. So you need to be a good engineer.”

In 2022, Srinivas co-founded Perplexity with the goal of powering curiosity with answers backed by up-to-date sources. “PhD students write papers, and for every sentence they write, they reference another paper. We baked that principle into an AI chatbot, and that ended up becoming Perplexity.”

Since launch, the platform has attracted millions of users looking for clear, credible information. As Srinivas notes, “With Perplexity, we had a vision for creating a completely new search experience, where you’re now able to ask questions that you otherwise would not have been able to ask before.”

His advice for anyone building something new? “A true vision about something can be seen by other people, too. But the most important part — and the hardest — is to persist through the phase where you’re not sure. Never give up, just keep at it”.

🔗 Read Aravind’s full story at the link in our bio: https://bit.ly/4j6XEMP

#UCBerkeley #CalAlumStory #CalGrad

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ucberkeley, calalumstory, calgrad

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