In an era when information is abundant but often scattered beyond usefulness, Arvind Jain, the CEO and co-founder of Glean, stands as a pioneer determined to realign the modern workplace with clarity, efficiency, and meaning. His journey—from building global-scale systems at Google to creating one of the most powerful AI-driven workplace search platforms—reveals a man propelled by curiosity, purpose, and an unwavering belief that technology should make life easier, not more chaotic.
Arvind Jain: A Restless Mind in Search of a Better Way
Long before founding Glean, Arvind Jain developed a reputation as an engineer who thrived on complexity. After earning his B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Delhi and a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Washington, he found himself contributing to some of the most ambitious technology projects of the era.
At Microsoft, Akamai, and Riverbed, Jain learned the rigor of building secure, scalable systems. But it was his leap to Google that became a turning point. Joining the tech giant when it was still a fast-growing private company, he witnessed firsthand how world-class engineering could transform industries. For over a decade, he helped shape critical products like Search, Maps, and YouTube, eventually earning the distinction of being one of Google’s distinguished engineers.
Yet, beneath the impressive titles and accomplishments, something else was brewing—a personal frustration that would one day evolve into a billion-dollar idea.
Falling in Love with a Problem
When Jain co-founded Rubrik in 2014, the company exploded with growth, crossing 1,000 employees in just four years. But the rapid scaling came with a hidden cost: information overload.
Employees spent hours hunting for files, internal policies, project notes, old messages, or documents buried deep inside apps like Google Docs, Slack, Jira, and email. Productivity was slowing. Output wasn’t matching growth. Even leaders struggled to track down essential company knowledge.
This was not a “nice-to-fix” issue. It was a structural roadblock throttling innovation.
In Jain’s own words,
“The heart of entrepreneurship is problem-solving. We realized our productivity wasn’t scaling with our headcount. The scattered knowledge across the enterprise was a silent productivity killer.”
This insight changed everything.
Jain didn’t just want to find documents faster—he wanted to rethink how employees access information fundamentally. He began imagining a digital assistant that understood the company’s knowledge, worked instantly across every app, and answered workplace questions the way a human expert would.
And that was the moment Glean was born.
Arvind Jain: The Birth of Glean: An AI Revolution in the Workplace
Founded in 2019 by Jain and a team of former Google search engineers, Glean tackled one of the most persistent challenges facing modern enterprises: fragmented knowledge.
From day one, Glean was built not as a simple search tool but as an AI-powered enterprise knowledge platform capable of delivering:
• Unified workplace search across all enterprise apps
• Personalized, context-aware recommendations
• Instant summaries through generative AI
• Real-time indexing for the latest information
• A conversational AI assistant to answer business questions
Imagine finding a contract, a benefits policy, or a project decision in seconds—even if it lives in a dozen scattered systems.
That is the promise of Arvind Jain Glean.
The platform became the silent engine that improved productivity at Rubrik, and soon after, at large enterprises around the world. As employees searched more, Glean learned more—refining suggestions, surfacing experts, and even predicting what information they might need next.
How Glean Works: Turning Chaos Into Clarity
Glean leverages a powerful combination of generative AI and enterprise search to transform the way employees interact with knowledge. Much like ChatGPT, it can summarize documents, answer questions conversationally, and eliminate the need for manual digging through lengthy files.
Key capabilities include:
1. AI-Powered Search
Search across hundreds of integrated apps, instantly retrieving the right information—always up to date.
2. Chat for Work
A conversational assistant that provides actionable, context-rich answers using your company’s internal knowledge.
3. Personalized Results
Glean learns from behavior—what you’re working on, your team’s priorities, trending documents—and brings the most relevant information forward.
4. Collective Knowledge in One Place
It becomes a unified source of truth, helping teams reclaim hours of productivity every week.
This clarity didn’t just help teams work faster—it made them happier, more confident, and more capable of focusing on meaningful work.
The Rise of a Tech Unicorn
Glean’s promise resonated across industries. What began as a solution to Jain’s own frustration rapidly expanded into a global movement. The company grew to over 200 employees, attracted enterprise clients early on, and quickly became one of the fastest-growing AI startups.
In 2024, Glean announced a Series D funding round of over $200 million, co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Under Jain’s leadership, Glean surged to a valuation of over $7 billion, solidifying its position as a defining force in AI-driven productivity.