Namma B'luru huduga Rahul Patil named AI firm Anthropic's CTO

Bengaluru: PESIT Bengaluru alumnus Rahul Patil was appointed CTO at AI company Anthropic , joining the league of Indian-origin leaders at the helm of some of the world's most influential technology companies. He succeeds co-founder Sam McCandlish, who is moving into the role of chief architect. In September, Anthropic raised $13 billion and was valued at $183 billion. Patil graduated as part of the 10th computer science batch at PES University in 1998 and later earned a master's degree in computer science from Arizona State University, followed by an MBA from the University of Washington. Patil is married to his batchmate, Aruna Patil, who worked at Microsoft. They live in Seattle and have two children, Yohan and Ishan.

A cricket enthusiast, Patil grew up in Bengaluru, where he studied at Baldwin Boys' School and later at St. Joseph's PU College. His mother, Neelam Patil, who spent over two decades teaching in the computer science department at Bishop Cotton's, says she saw his passion for technology take shape early on. His father, Dr. Vishwanath Patil, is a practising paediatrician. "It was his dream to work in the AI space, and he has achieved it. We are very proud of him," she said. Whenever Rahul returns to Bengaluru, he makes it a point to relive old memories over a plate of masala dosa at Chalukya, one of the city's popular eateries.

Patil joins the AI firm from payment processing firm Stripe, where he was its CTO overseeing engineering and global operations. "I am excited to join a new mission and calling—Anthropic! AI possibilities seem endless, and it is going to be an extraordinary adventure of discoveries and effort to make these possibilities real. More importantly, it is going to require us to make a conscientious set of decisions every day to safely navigate this massive transformation and ensure that responsible AI wins. I am grateful to join the humble, brilliant, hardworking, and conscientious crew at Anthropic that has ignited much of the imagination and excitement around the world," Patil wrote in a LinkedIn post on Friday.

Before joining Stripe, he was senior vice-president at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, where he led the development of high-performance and globally distributed infrastructure-as-a-service technologies in a multi-tenant cloud environment. Patil earlier served on ClearTax's board through Stripe, which invested in the e-invoicing and tax platform. "Rahul was a great mentor and board member," ClearTax founder and CEO Archit Gupta told TOI. "He was a strong partner to us on technology and AI and helped us think through international expansion. One of his best ideas on AI adoption was, ‘what are the first five actions a human does on their task, do that with AI.'" Prof. Jawahar Doreswamy, chancellor of PES University, said, "We are thrilled with Rahul's appointment as CTO of Anthropic, a milestone and one of the highlights of his career. We have been following his work at Stripe and are proud that our alumnus is now leading the forefront of AI innovation. While such roles are often associated with IIT graduates, this proves that PES University, ranked 83, is producing talent capable of shaping cutting-edge technology globally."