# Thiru Arunachalam

> Thiru Arunachalam is a San Francisco Bay Area technology entrepreneur, co-founder and former CEO of Peel, and co-founder and CEO of WALT. Peel combined smartphone remote controls with television discovery and grew through partnerships with handset manufacturers. His current work focuses on autonomous data engineering and reliable enterprise AI.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at WALT
- **Organizations:** WALT, Peel, Outfit, Apple, Booz & Company
- **Education:** Engineering degree, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, MBA, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
- **Known for:** Co-founded and led Peel through partnerships with major handset manufacturers including Samsung and HTC., A 2026 conference biography credits his Peel tenure with raising $95 million and reaching more than 150 million users., Co-founded WALT, focused on autonomous data engineering.

## Career timeline

- **Before Peel** — Worked on data engineering and product teams at Apple and in strategy consulting.
- **2009** — Co-founded Peel with Bala Krishnan; accounts differ on the precise founding year.
- **2013** — Alibaba invested $5 million in Peel.
- **2014** — Alibaba’s additional $50 million investment became public; Peel reported 100 million total users by November.
- **2015** — Peel expanded discovery to include streaming and Indian content; Arunachalam discussed its smart remote in a Mobile World Live video interview.
- **2025** — Penn Venture Lab listed him as founder and CEO of Outfit for a March visiting-expert event.
- **2026** — Publicly identified as co-founder and CEO of WALT, writing about enterprise data and autonomous data engineering.

## Achievements

- Co-founded and led Peel through partnerships with major handset manufacturers including Samsung and HTC.
- A 2026 conference biography credits his Peel tenure with raising $95 million and reaching more than 150 million users.
- Co-founded WALT, focused on autonomous data engineering.

## Latest updates

- **2026-10** — Published The Agent Harness We Tuned for Medallion on October 15, discussing WALT’s agent controls and announcing an October 19-22 Gartner event demonstration.
- **2026-09** — Published MCP Isn’t a Warehouse. Don’t Sell It as One. on September 23.
- **2026-08** — Published Accept Fragmentation. Invest in Meaning. on August 19.

## Links

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thiroo
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/thirooh
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/thiru.arunachalam

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/thiru-arunachalam
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-22