Former England cricketer praises Indian-origin CEO Nikesh Arora, calls him ‘GOAT’

Former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen has praised Indian-origin CEO Nikesh Arora calling him the ‘GOAT’ (Greatest of All Time). Pietersen's endorsement has captured the attention of X (formerly known as Twitter) users, as he celebrated the executive's accomplishments and leadership. Pietersen’s post has amassed about 25k views so far.

Pietersen was responding to a post by former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, who praised Nikesh Arora for his role in Palo Alto's growth. Costolo expressed admiration for how a "head of sales business guy" helped elevate the deep tech company to new heights.
In the post, Costolo wrote: “Random: When @nikesharora took over as CEO of Palo Alto Networks, i remember thinking "head of sales business guy taking over a deep tech company in a space with lots of existing competitors and new entrants. Good luck!" ...Stock is up 5x since he became CEO and they've aggressively kept pace in the rapidly evolving Cloud, Application, and Network cybersecurity landscape with internal development and M&A. Impressive”.
To this, the England Cricket star replied Quite simple - NIKESH IS THE GOAT!

While Costolo’s post praises Arora, it has also sparked controversy after one user, called Sandeep Lakhina, commented that Arora wasn't a “trained engineer.” Arora, who is known for his witty comments, offered an impactful retort to emphasise the broader point that leadership success isn't solely dependent on a specific educational background. To this, Arora wittingly replied “Lol and he actually happens to be a trained engineer from IT-BHU (IIT-Varanasi).”