Who Is Soham Parekh? How This Indian Techie Tricked YC-Backed Startups By Moonlighting; Full Story Inside

You must be living under a rock if you haven't heard about the Soham Parekh controversy, which is about the Indian software engineer accused of moonlighting, or secretly working multiple full-time jobs at various U.S.-based startups simultaneously without informing his employers.

Who is Soham Parekh?

Soham Parekh is a 26 year old software engineer, reportedly from Mumbai, India, with a bachelor's degree in IT engineering from the University of Mumbai and possibly a master's from Georgia Tech, as per his resume. He worked remotely for multiple U.S. startups, particularly those backed by Y Combinator (YC), a well-known startup accelerator.

Parekh faced accusations of working full-time at three to four startups at the same time, and not disclosing this to his employers which included companies like Playground AI, Lindy, Fleet AI, Antimetal, and others, where he was hired as a software engineer.

How the Controversy Began?

On July 2, Suhail Doshi, co-founder of Mixpanel and Playground AI, posted on X, stating, "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 he fired Parekh within a week of hiring him after discovering his duplicity and noted that Parekh continued the practice a year later.

This tweet has got about 21.8 million views and is going viral for the right reasons. After Doshi's post got widely circulated, founders from startups like Lindy, Fleet AI, Antimetal, and Mosaic confirmed hiring Parekh, praising his intelligence and interview skills but later terminating him after finding out that he has been working simultaneously elsewhere.

Arkadiy Telegin, co-founder of Leaping AI, accused Parekh of manipulating him by falsely claiming to be in a conflict zone during an India-Pakistan conflict, Operation Sindoor, in May 2025. Parekh sent him messages saying that a drone was shot down near his home in Mumbai as an excuse for delays in work.

Soham Pareskh's response

In a July 2025 interview on the TBPN YouTube channel, Parekh admitted to moonlighting, confirming that he worked up to 140 hours a week across multiple jobs. Parekh said he wasn't motivated by greed but "did what I had to do to get out of a tough situation." He stated, "I'm not proud of what I've done... No one likes to work 140 hours a week, but I had to do it out of necessity."

Parekh privately messaged Suhail Doshi, saying, "Have I completely sabotaged my career? What can I do to improve my situation?" He also expressed willingness to "come clean.

Soham's New Job Update

Despite the backlash, Parekh announced on July 3, 2025, that he had joined Darwin Studios, a San Francisco-based AI video remixing startup, as a founding engineer working exclusively on their platform, Wayve.

Public Reaction to the Soham Parekh Saga

Since the story broke, the internet has exploded with reactions, and they're all over the place. The meme community is having a field day as hilarious memes have already flooded social media.

But not everyone is laughing. Many have criticised Soham Parekh's actions, calling them unethical and a serious breach of trust, especially in a world where remote hiring relies heavily on honesty.

Still, a lot of people on the internet are super impressed by this guy, calling him a "genius" for managing what would be impossible for most people while fooling multiple high-growth startups and collecting hefty pay cheques from each.

The incident has made people start talking about moonlighting versus outright fraud. While side gigs are common in tech,holding multiple full-time roles without informing employers is totally unethical.

Amid all this drama, the scandal draws attention towards the flaws in remote hiring systems where no proper background checks are conducted, which makes it easy for people like Soham to take advantage of it.