One identify is popping up rather a lot throughout tech startup social media proper now, and also you may’ve heard it: Soham Parekh. On X, individuals are joking that Parekh is single-handedly holding up all trendy digital infrastructure, whereas others are posting memes about him working in entrance of a dozen totally different screens or filling in for the hundreds of those that Microsoft simply laid off.
From what social media posts counsel, Parekh is definitely a software program engineer who appears to have interviewed at dozens of tech startups through the years, whereas additionally juggling a number of jobs on the similar time. A number of startups had this revelation on July 2nd, when Suhail Doshi, founding father of the AI design instrument Playground, posted a PSA on X, saying:
PSA: there’s a man named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3-4 startups on the similar time. He’s been preying on YC corporations and extra. Beware.
I fired this man in his first week and instructed him to cease mendacity / scamming individuals. He hasn’t stopped a yr later. No extra excuses.
Doshi’s put up was shortly flooded with replies that included comparable tales. “We interviewed this man too, however caught this throughout references checks,” Variant founder Ben South mentioned. “Seems he had 5-6 profiles every with 5+ locations he truly labored at.” When requested what tipped him off about Parekh, South instructed The Verge that his suspicions arose throughout Parekh’s interview, prompting his group to do a reference verify sooner than they often would. “That’s after we realized he was working a number of jobs,” South mentioned.
Parekh’s resume and pitch e-mail look good at first look, which helps him garner curiosity from a number of corporations. “He had a prolific GitHub contribution graph and prior startup expertise,” Marcus Lowe, founding father of the AI app builder Create, instructed The Verge. “He was additionally extraordinarily technically robust throughout our interview course of.”
Simply sooner or later after this all unfolded, Parekh got here ahead in an interview with the every day tech present TBPN. Parekh confirmed what many tech startup founders had suspected: he had been working for a number of corporations on the similar time. “I’m not happy with what I’ve finished. That’s not one thing I endorse both. However nobody actually likes to work 140 hours per week, I needed to do it out of necessity,” Parekh mentioned. “I used to be in extraordinarily dire monetary circumstances.”
Parekh appears to have made an excellent first impression on many individuals. Digger CEO Igor Zalutski mentioned his firm “practically employed him,” as he “appeared so sharp” throughout interviews, whereas AIVideo.com cofounder Justin Harvey equally mentioned that he was “THIS near hiring him,” including that “he truly crushed the interview.” Vapi cofounder Jordan Dearsley mentioned Parekh “was the perfect technical interview” he’s seen, however he “didn’t ship on his initiatives.”
The startups that did rent Parekh didn’t appear to maintain him round for lengthy. Lowe mentioned that he observed one thing was off when Parekh stored making excuses to push again his begin date. After telling Lowe that he needed to delay working as a result of he had a visit deliberate to see his sister in New York, Parekh later claimed that he couldn’t begin working following the journey as a result of he was sick. “For no matter cause, one thing simply felt off,” Lowe mentioned.
That’s when Lowe visited Parekh’s GitHub profile and realized he was committing code to a non-public repository in the course of the time he was imagined to be sick. Lowe additionally discovered current commits to a different San Francisco-based startup. “Did some digging, observed that he was in a few of their advertising supplies,” Lowe mentioned. “I used to be like, ‘Huh, however he didn’t declare this on his resume. This feels bizarre.’” Create ended up letting Parekh go after he failed to finish an project.
It seems to be like Parekh even had a stint at Meta. In 2021, the corporate revealed a put up highlighting his story as a contributor engaged on mixed-reality experiences in WebXR. Within the put up, Parekh mentioned that he discovered “that one of the best ways to get higher at software program improvement is to not solely apply it however to make use of it to resolve actual world issues.” Meta didn’t instantly reply to The Verge’s request for remark.
Parekh’s purported scheme could have been uncovered, however his outlook may not be all dangerous — in the event you imagine him. Parekh claims he landed a job at Darwin, an AI video remixing startup. “Earlier right now, I signed an unique founding deal to be founding engineer at one firm and one firm solely,” Parekh posted on X. “They have been the one ones prepared to wager on me presently.”
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