Vijaya Gadde

Gadde was born in India.[2] Her father pursued graduate studies in the United States and initially did not have the financial means to send for his wife and daughter until Gadde turned three.[4] Her family moved to Beaumont, Texas.[5] She has described Beaumont as a small town with few other Indian families.

Gadde received a BS in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and her JD from New York University's law school.[6][2]

Before joining Twitter in 2011, Gadde spent nearly a decade working at the Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, then spent time as Senior Director in the legal department of Silicon Valley technology firm Juniper Networks.[6][4] While at WSGR, Gadde worked on the 2006 $4.1 billion McClatchy Co.-Knight Ridder Inc. acquisition and acted as counsel to the New York Stock Exchange’s Proxy Working Group and Committee on Corporate Governance.[5][6]

At Twitter, Gadde has made privacy and opposing the censorship of Twitter internationally policy priorities, notably by filing suit to oppose the 2014 Turkish ban of Twitter.[5] She has also announced Twitter's hiring of researchers to study the health of discourse on the platform.[7]

In 2018, Gadde joined Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for meetings in India where they talked with several Dalit activists about their experiences on Twitter; after the meeting, the activists gave Dorsey a sign reading "Smash Brahminical Patriarchy," which he was later photographed holding.[8] The photograph attracted controversy, with some critics calling the sentiment discriminatory against Brahmins while others deemed it an appropriate response to caste- and gender-based oppression in India.[8] Gadde responded to the social media furor with an apology in a series of tweets, "I'm very sorry for this. It's not reflective of our views. We took a private photo with a gift just given to us - we should have been more thoughtful. Twitter strives to be an impartial platform for all. We failed to do that here & we must do better to serve our customers in India."[8]

On March 5, 2019, Gadde appeared on episode #1258 of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast hosted by Joe Rogan, alongside Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and journalist Tim Pool, to discuss allegations that Twitter was engaging in censorship of free speech and had a social and political bias.[9]