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Hindustan Times
05-07-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
How Soham Parekh managed to juggle work between startups without getting caught?
Soham Parekh, an India-based software engineer, has made headlines after admitting to secretly working across dozens of US startups at the same time. Soham Parekh was accused by Suhail Doshi, co‑founder of Mixpanel and Playground AI, of working for multiple startups at the same time.(X/@mhadifilms) The controversy surfaced after entrepreneur Suhail Doshi, in a series of posts on X, called Parekh a 'scammer' who had tricked several startups, including those backed by the Y Combinator accelerator. "PSA: there's a guy named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3-4 startups at the same time. He's been preying on YC companies and more. Beware," San Francisco-based Suhail Doshi posted on X. He added that Parekh worked briefly at one of his companies and was fired within his first week. It was later revealed that Parekh juggled roles at around 34 different companies, including Alan AI, Synthesia, DynamoAI and often with overlapping job periods. Also Read: Soham Parekh breaks silence: Indian engineer admits to working at multiple startups, says it wasn't to scam anyone Ever since the post on X went viral, more companies shared their story showing how Parekh turned up for a job interview and how he managed to fool them. How Soham Parekh operated? Dhruv Amin, co-founder of AI startup Create, took to X to share the story of how his firm hired Soham Parekh as engineer number five and that he was recommended by a recruiter. Parekh called in sick on the very first day of the job and said he would onboard from home, and gave his address to ship his laptop. "Yes, we hired him. we're building an AI agent in SF. he was eng #5.- recommended by a recruiter, which lent legitimacy. He was eager and crushed our in person pair programming onsite. I believe he's actually a good engineer...I gave offer while waiting for responses for the first (and last) accepted same evening. said he had an nyc trip planned, then would first day at 9:30 am he calls in sick (strange). said he'd onboard from home. gave an address to ship laptop," Dhruv said in a post on X. The first red flag, Dhruv said, was the shipping address. Instead of home, Parekh asked for his laptop to be shipped to a San Francisco office building. Also Read: Why is Indian coder Soham Parekh being accused of 'scamming' US startups? Explained Dhruv, who happened to be on a visit to a doctor, checked the place, which housed industrial spaces and Sync Labs, a YC-backed startup. Meanwhile, Parekh called in sick in the first week, while his GitHub account showed late-night activity on private repositories. Over the days, things got even weirder with Parekh missing meetings, delayed deliverables and made excuses. "He then spent 2 days saying he was working on something from home we knew should have taken him 1/2 a day max. always almost ready, just testing something. Finally it started blocking the main thread. So my co-founder asked to take over his branch to get it done. Almost nothing had been done," Dhruv added. When the firm found out that Soham was working for Sync Labs, they confronted him, only to get a denial. Eventually, when the co-founder called Sync Labs and asked if Soham was working there, the response from the YC company was that he was working from home that day. Dhruv added that Parekh was a good engineer, but the "biggest mistake was lying repeatedly." Soham Parekh responds Soham Parekh, who is at the center of the online storm, has publicly admitted to working for multiple startups full-time. Parekh said that the allegations against him were true and he did it due to his financial circumstances. Also Read: Arrested terrorist, influenced by Zakir Naik, a 'big fish' in bomb-making: Andhra Police 'It is true. I'm not proud of what I've done. But, you know, financial circumstances, essentially. No one really likes to work 140 hours a week, right? But I had to do this out of necessity. I was in extremely dire financial circumstances," he said during an interview to tech show TBPN. The controversy has raised concerns on the growing trend of 'overemployment' where people take multiple remote jobs without disclosing them. It has also raised concerns over the hiring culture, especially among the tech startups, that hire people without adequate background checks.
Time of India
05-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Who is Soham Parekh? Silicon Valley's secret star, who juggled multiple jobs without anyone knowing
Soham Parekh, the serial moonlighter Silicon Valley startups can't stop hiring- Soham Parekh, a software engineer based in India, has recently become one of the most talked-about names in Silicon Valley — not for launching a billion-dollar startup or raising VC capital, but for secretly holding jobs at multiple startups at the same time. Over the past week, his story has exploded across social media, after several startup founders came forward to share how Parekh managed to get hired, perform well in technical interviews, and juggle several roles — all while none of the companies knew he was moonlighting. The scandal began when Suhail Doshi, CEO of Playground AI, posted a warning on X (formerly Twitter), revealing Parekh had worked at 3–4 startups simultaneously and allegedly lied about it. Doshi's tweet has since garnered over 20 million views, sparking a wave of revelations from other startup founders who had similar experiences. But who exactly is Soham Parekh, how did he pull this off, and why are startups still hiring him? How did the Soham Parekh story go viral in silicon valley? The entire saga kicked off with a viral X post on Tuesday, July 2, by Suhail Doshi. Doshi warned other tech founders, writing: 'PSA: there's a guy named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3-4 startups at the same time. He's been preying on YC companies and more. Beware.' Doshi claimed that he fired Parekh a year ago from Playground AI after finding out he was working other jobs. Despite confronting him and warning him to stop 'scamming people,' Doshi alleged that Parekh continued the behavior. That post opened the floodgates. Dozens of startup CEOs and founders began sharing their own stories of hiring Parekh — many from Y Combinator (YC)-backed companies — only to later discover red flags. Among them: Live Events Flo Crivello, CEO of Lindy, hired Parekh recently and fired him after Doshi's post. Matt Parkhurst, CEO of Antimetal, said Parekh was their first engineering hire in 2022 but was let go in early 2023. Sync Labs, an AI lip-sync startup, also reportedly fired him after he appeared in one of their promo videos. Pally AI and Mosaic, both YC-backed, reported that Parekh either applied or was offered roles. Agency and Cluely, two other AI startups, interviewed Parekh and later raised concerns. Why did startups keep hiring Soham Parekh despite red flags? The most surprising part of the story is that Parekh consistently did well in technical interviews. Founders say he came across as talented, skilled, and driven. For instance, Rohan Pandey, formerly at Reworkd (a YC startup), told TechCrunch that Parekh performed among the top three candidates in algorithm tests. However, the team became suspicious when Parekh claimed he was in the U.S. — a requirement for the role — but an IP logger from a Zoom invite placed him in India. Adam Silverman, co-founder of Agency, said Parekh initially seemed like a solid candidate but kept rescheduling meetings. In total, Parekh postponed five different interview slots. Though technically impressive, he refused to relocate or even reveal his actual location, which raised doubts. Similarly, Roy Lee, CEO of Cluely, noted Parekh 'seemed to have strong React knowledge' during interviews but wasn't hired due to concerns that eventually surfaced. Who is Soham Parekh and how did he respond to the allegations? Soham Parekh finally addressed the controversy in an interview with the Technology Business Programming Network (TBPN) . In a conversation with hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays, he admitted to working multiple jobs at the same time since 2022. He denied using AI tools or outsourcing the work and instead claimed he managed the workload himself — working 140 hours a week, or 20 hours a day, seven days a week. He described himself as sleep-deprived, obsessed with coding, and motivated by a financial crisis. According to Parekh, he turned down a master's degree program he had been accepted to, in favor of earning through jobs at various startups. Ironically, a resume shared by Doshi claims Parekh already earned a master's degree from Georgia Institute of Technology. When asked why he didn't just ask for a raise instead of juggling multiple jobs, Parekh said he liked keeping his personal struggles private. However, this conflicted with the fact that he chose lower salaries and high equity at his jobs — which doesn't quite align with the idea of financial desperation. He also said, 'I'm not proud of this. I don't endorse it,' and emphasized that he genuinely cared about the mission of the companies he worked for. Is Soham Parekh facing consequences or capitalizing on the attention? While many call Parekh a scammer or liar, some in the startup world are treating the episode as yet another moment of viral tech culture. In a Silicon Valley ecosystem where controversy can lead to capital, Parekh seems to be attempting a rebound. Soon after the TBPN interview, Parekh announced on X that he's now working exclusively at a startup called Darwin Studios, focused on AI video remixing. However, both Parekh and Darwin CEO Sanjit Juneja deleted the announcement post shortly after. Still, Juneja issued a statement to TechCrunch through a representative: 'Soham is an incredibly talented engineer and we believe in his abilities to help bring our products to market.' This follows a recent trend in tech — where companies like Cluely, known for its controversial marketing and 'cheat-on-everything' AI tagline, managed to raise a $15 million seed round from Andreessen Horowitz despite its provocative reputation. Will Soham Parekh become a cautionary tale or silicon valley's next controversial hire? Soham Parekh's story is still unfolding. With multiple firings, red flags, and a trail of skeptical startup founders behind him, he remains a controversial figure. Yet, in a tech ecosystem that often rewards attention — even negative attention — Parekh could still land on his feet. Startups are increasingly looking for standout talent who can hit the ground running. In a world of remote-first work, high-speed development cycles, and experimental hiring, Parekh's saga raises an important question for Silicon Valley: Where do we draw the line between hustle and deception? Whether he ends up building the next viral AI product or fades from the scene, Soham Parekh's name is now embedded in one of 2025's most bizarre tech stories — a strange blend of hustle, deceit, and raw engineering skill. FAQs: Q1: Who is Soham Parekh in Silicon Valley tech? Soham Parekh is a software engineer who secretly worked at multiple startups at the same time. Q2: Why is Soham Parekh called a serial moonlighter? He's called a serial moonlighter because he held several jobs across different startups without informing them.
Indian Express
05-07-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
After Soham Parekh, YC rejects X user for an ‘extremely disappointing' reason: ‘This world is doomed'
The Internet is still buzzing over Soham Parekh – the man who managed to work multiple startup jobs at once and allegedly duped several YC-backed founders. But just as that story continues to unravel, another viral post tied to Y Combinator has caught everyone's attention – and it's all because of… lowercase letters. A user named Maze (@mazeincoding), who warns followers not to take '99% of what I say seriously,' recently shared a screenshot of a rejection email from Y Combinator. His caption read: 'Just got rejected from yc for using all lowercase in our application.' The email he posted offers more detail. It reads: 'One recurring piece of internal feedback: the decision to format the entire application in lowercase made it difficult to evaluate. While unconventional formatting isn't disqualifying on its own, it signals a lack of attention to detail and clarity – both of which matter to us.' It goes on to explain: 'We understand stylistic choices, but in a high-signal, high-noise environment, presentation is part of communication. Yours detracted from the content.' couldn't independently verify the email. just got rejected from yc for using all lowercase in our application — Maze (@mazeincoding) July 4, 2025 Unsurprisingly, the post blew up, racking up over a million views and sparking a wave of commentary. Maze later posted a screenshot showing that Y Combinator had liked the tweet, asking, 'uh should i be concerned?' Reactions poured in. One user argued, 'Given the ubiquitous autocorrection features, it actually takes extra effort to write in all lowercase. So no, it doesn't signal a lack of attention to detail — on the contrary, it shows huge dedication to details and contrarian thinking.' Another user said, 'God forbid you try not to look like ChatGPT wrote the whole thing.' A third user wrote, 'yUo shOldVe MAde IT lOoK lIkE tHiS.' While didn't work at Y Combinator, many of the companies he allegedly misled were part of its network. Founders, including Playground AI's Suhail Doshi, have accused Parekh of holding multiple jobs at once across YC-backed startups, without disclosing it to any of them. Doshi and others claim Parekh took advantage of remote work setups to juggle roles, access sensitive information, and in some cases, allegedly funnel projects to his own ventures. So while the lowercase controversy might be funny, the backdrop of YC's recent headlines is far from light – making Maze's viral post both oddly timed and perfectly in sync with what's buzzing on the Internet.
Mint
04-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
Have you hired software developer Soham Parekh yet?
A few days ago, Soham Parekh was just another full-stack developer. Then his name began surfacing across founder circles: Hacker News threads, Slack channels, Twitter jokes, Reddit threads. One YC-backed startup after another realized they'd hired him. Not in sequence—at the same time. Some found out after a few weeks. One team said he worked with them for nearly a year. The stories converge on the same arc: stellar interviews, fast onboarding, some early output. Then missed meetings. Odd excuses. Gaps in availability. In one case, Soham turned up for a trial in person, then left halfway through the day, saying he had to meet a lawyer. He didn't disappear. He just kept showing up somewhere else. The question isn't how he got away with it. The question is why it was so easy. Soham Parekh is not the first engineer to work multiple jobs in parallel. In November 2022, Vanity Fair published a piece titled 'Overemployed in Silicon Valley: How Scores of Tech Workers Are Secretly Juggling Multiple Jobs." It told of engineers quietly holding down two, three, even four full-time roles. Some used mouse-jigglers to fake activity. Others ran multiple laptops. One admitted to outsourcing work to Fiverr. A few worked in coordinated Discord communities, sharing tactics. 'I'm not sure if they even know I'm here anymore," one engineer told the reporter. 'All my paychecks are still coming in." At the time, it read like a side effect of the remote-work boom. A strange consequence of too many laptops and not enough oversight. Soham didn't need any of that infrastructure. He used his real name. Real resume. Showed up on video calls. Wrote code. Left a trail. He just moved through the system cleanly. What his story shows is how little it takes to get hired—and stay hired. One startup said he 'crushed the interviews." Another called him 'top 0.1%." Founders praised his GitHub, his side projects, his email follow-ups. They only saw the red flags once the real work began. That gap—between performance in a vetting process and actual engagement—isn't incidental. It's structural. Startups, especially ones chasing growth, have narrowed hiring into structured calls and take-home tasks. Processes are recycled across founder networks. Culture fit becomes a checkbox. Most of the time, it comes down to gut feel. Which is just another way of saying: we don't really know. In that kind of system, someone who interviews well and ships enough can coast for months. If that person is also working three other jobs, the signs fade gradually. By the time someone notices, it's already awkward to ask. There's another wrinkle. Soham may not have been doing anything that couldn't be done today by an AI agent. More than one founder joked—what if he was a bot? That question no longer lands as satire. Agents today can write code, answer support tickets, even joke in Slack. At some point, you stop noticing the difference. And if you can't tell whether you're working with a disengaged employee or a competent script—what exactly are you hiring? We've seen this fragility before. In 2022, Wipro fired 300 employees for 'moonlighting." Chairman Rishad Premji called it 'cheating—plain and simple." The company said some were working for competitors. The backlash was swift. Critics pointed out that many executives sit on multiple boards. Others questioned the demand for loyalty from a system that rarely offers the same in return. That episode surfaced a buried truth: the rules of work have changed. Expectations haven't. Soham Parekh is a consequence of that mismatch. He's not a rogue actor. He's the product of a hiring culture that values performance over presence, delivery over connection. A culture that claims to build teams but rarely asks who's actually part of them. So what happens when the next Soham is indistinguishable from an AI agent? Srikanth Nadhamuni, the former CTO of Aadhaar, believes we'll need to rethink identity itself. In a recent paper, he proposed Personhood Credentials—a cryptographic and biometric framework to prove that a person behind a digital interaction is real, unique, and singular. The concept sounds abstract, even dystopian. But Nadhamuni argues that in a world of deepfakes and synthetic voice agents, systems like Aadhaar—originally built for public verification—could help anchor digital interactions to actual humans. He describes it as a privacy-preserving firewall against the collapse of trust online. It raises real questions. About privacy, about exclusion, about the kind of infrastructure we're willing to accept in the name of certainty. But it also names the thing most companies pretend not to see: if you don't know who's on the other side of the screen, you're not hiring a person. You're hiring a pattern. And if Soham Parekh passed every test and still wasn't who we thought he was—what happens when the next Soham isn't even human? Pankaj Mishra is a journalist and co-founder of FactorDaily.
Mint
03-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
How one developer outsmarted dozens of startups—and what it says about work today
Soham Parekh wasn't hiding. He used his real name. Showed up on calls. Wrote some code. Then vanished—only to surface again at another startup, mid-sprint, fully onboarded. By the time each team realised something was off—missed meetings, odd excuses, clashing updates—he was already clocking hours elsewhere. No fake profiles. No aliases. Just a clean trail of GitHub commits and Slack intros. Soham wasn't gaming the system. He simply walked through it. And he did it over and over again. *** Parekh, a full-stack developer, became an open secret in founder circles this month. Hacker News threads, Slack screenshots, Twitter jokes, Reddit rants—all echoed the same disbelief: 'Wait, we hired him too?" One YC-backed startup claimed he worked with them nearly a year. Others noticed earlier, spotting odd overlaps in his LinkedIn timeline. One founder even recalled Soham attending a trial day in person—only to leave halfway through, saying he had to meet a lawyer. But Parekh didn't disappear. He kept showing up. Just somewhere else. 'So this whole time, AI wasn't taking jobs. Soham was." — @ArthurMacwaters The rise of the overemployed Parekh is not the first engineer to work multiple jobs in parallel. In November 2022, Vanity Fair published a piece titled Overemployed in Silicon Valley: How Scores of Tech Workers Are Secretly Juggling Multiple Jobs. It told of engineers quietly holding down two, three, even four full-time roles. Some used mouse-jigglers to fake activity. Others ran multiple laptops. One admitted to outsourcing work to Fiverr, an online marketplace for freelance services. A few worked in coordinated Discord communities, sharing tactics. 'I'm not sure if they even know I'm here anymore," one engineer told the reporter. 'All my paychecks are still coming in." At the time, it read like a side effect of the remote-work boom. A strange consequence of too many laptops and not enough oversight. Some employees simply treated employment like a short-term asset. If no one was watching, why stay loyal? Parekh didn't need any of that infrastructure. He used his real name. Real resume. Showed up on video calls. Wrote code. Left a trail. He just moved through the system cleanly. 'He crushed our interviews. Worked for us almost a year. Solid job. We only let him go when we found out he was working multiple jobs." — commenter 'dazzeloid', Hacker News *** What his story shows is how little it takes to get hired—and stay hired. One startup said he 'crushed the interviews." Another called him 'top 0.1%." Founders praised his GitHub, his side projects, his email follow-ups. The problem, they said, began only when the job did. That gap—between performance in a vetting process and actual engagement—isn't incidental. It's structural. Startups, especially ones chasing growth, have narrowed hiring into structured calls and take-home tasks. Processes are recycled across founder networks. Culture fit becomes a checkbox. Most of the time, it comes down to gut feel. Which is just another way of saying: we don't really know. In that kind of system, someone who interviews well and ships enough can coast for months. If that person is also working three other jobs, the signs fade gradually. By the time someone notices, it's already awkward to ask. As one Hacker News commenter put it: 'Lots of YC companies copy each other's hiring process. Same blind spots. Same playbook. Easy to scam with the same persona." The AI comparison isn't a joke There's another wrinkle. Soham may not have been doing anything that couldn't be done today by an AI agent. More than one founder joked—what if he was a bot? It's a joke that lands dangerously close to reality. AI agents today can write code, respond to support tickets, and mimic Slack chatter. The boundary between human contributor and AI script is already thinning. And if you can't tell whether you're working with a disengaged employee or a competent script—what exactly are you hiring? *** We've seen this fragility before. Back in 2022, Wipro fired 300 employees for moonlighting. Chairman Rishad Premji called it 'cheating—plain and simple." The public backlash, however, told a different story. Critics pointed out hypocrisy—executives sit on multiple boards, consultants juggle clients, why not engineers? The Soham episode surfaces the same tension. It's not just about overemployment. It's about trust, and the changing texture of work. Who gets to be considered present? What does loyalty mean in a system built on churn? Parekh is a consequence of that mismatch. He's not a rogue actor. He's the product of a hiring culture that values performance over presence, delivery over connection. A culture that claims to build teams but rarely asks who's actually part of them. *** So what happens when the next Soham is indistinguishable from an AI agent? Srikanth Nadhamuni, the former CTO of Aadhaar, believes we'll need to rethink identity itself. In a recent paper, he proposed Personhood Credentials—a cryptographic and biometric framework to prove that a person behind a digital interaction is real, unique, and singular. The concept sounds abstract, even dystopian. But Nadhamuni argues that in a world of deepfakes and synthetic voice agents, systems like Aadhaar—originally built for public verification—could help anchor digital interactions to actual humans. He describes it as a privacy-preserving firewall against the collapse of trust online. Startups often claim to be 'people-first." But what happens when you can't even confirm there's a person? The Soham Parekh story isn't about scamming startups. It's about the gap between how we hire and how we work. A system optimised for speed and scale, not relationship or accountability. He didn't crack the system. He revealed it was already broken. Pankaj Mishra is a journalist and co-founder of FactorDaily. Read more stories by the author: AI didn't take the job. It changed what the job is. Factory floors reimagined: How Quess is putting AI agents to work AI saved a boy from leukaemia in rural Maharashtra—before it was too late India's unicorn obsession has a human cost
