Fake Fired Twitter Worker ‘Rahul Ligma’ is a Real Engineer with an AI Data Startup Used by Harvard

Remember Rahul Ligma, the supposed laid-off Twitter engineer who went viral after Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company in 2022? While the name was a prank, the man behind it, Rahul Sonwalkar, is indeed a tech entrepreneur making waves in the AI space.

Despite the initial jest, Sonwalkar boasts a legitimate background as an engineer, including a stint at Uber and participation in Y Combinator. However, he is now gaining serious attention for his AI data analytics startup, Julius.

Founded approximately two years ago, Julius aims to democratize data science by offering a tool capable of analyzing, visualizing, and performing predictive modeling on large datasets using natural language prompts. The platform has already attracted over 2 million registered users.

“I wanted to build something that would make data science very accessible to everyone,” Sonwalkar told TechCrunch.

While existing tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini offer similar functionalities, Julius has impressed academics. Iavor Bojinov, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School (HBS), was so impressed that he collaborated with Sonwalkar to tailor Julius for HBS’s new Data Science and AI for Leaders course. Bojinov noted that Julius outperformed other platforms, including ChatGPT, in head-to-head comparisons.

Julius’ adoption by HBS, which trains approximately 1,000 future business leaders annually, marks a significant achievement for the 12-person startup.

TechCrunch also reports that Sonwalkar has secured a seed funding round led by Talia Goldberg of Bessemer Venture Partners, although details remain undisclosed.

When asked if the “Rahul Ligma” prank helped open doors for Julius in its early stages, Sonwalkar admitted it provided a slight boost initially but has become less relevant recently.