Question 1

True or false: He holds a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois.

Accepted Answer

True. Krishna earned his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1991.

Question 2

True or false: Arvind Krishna oversaw IBM’s record-breaking acquisition of Red Hat for $34 billion.

Accepted Answer

True. As IBM's head of Cloud and Cognitive Software, he led the 2019 acquisition of Red Hat, the largest in IBM's history.

Question 3

True or false: He was the first Indian-born CEO of a major US technology company.

Accepted Answer

True. When appointed in 2020, Krishna became the first Indian-born CEO of IBM, though others like Sundar Pichai preceded him at Google.

Question 4

True or false: Arvind Krishna’s first job was as a software engineer at Microsoft.

Accepted Answer

False. He joined IBM right after his PhD in 1990 and spent his entire career there before becoming CEO.

Question 5

True or false: His father was a famous Bollywood film director.

Accepted Answer

False. Krishna’s father served in the Indian Army, not Bollywood. His family background is in engineering and public service.

Question 6

True or false: He famously banned the use of artificial intelligence within IBM products.

Accepted Answer

False. Krishna is a strong advocate for AI; under him, IBM launched Watsonx, investing heavily in generative AI and hybrid cloud.

Question 7

True or false: Arvind Krishna grew up speaking only Hindi until college.

Accepted Answer

False. He was born in Andhra Pradesh, India, and grew up speaking Telugu at home; he became fluent in English during his education.

Question 8

True or false: Arvind Krishna once played the lead guitar in a college rock band.

Accepted Answer

True. At IIT Kanpur, Krishna played lead guitar in a band called 'The 4 Skins,' surprising for a future IBM CEO.

Arvind Krishna Trivia Questions