In the past few weeks, social media has blown up with one name: “Soham Parekh.” He’s an Indian software engineer who was caught working at 3–4 Y-Combinator start-ups in the USA. Y-Combinator is one of the most prestigious start-up accelerators that helps start-ups grow in exchange for a small percentage of equity, usually 7%.
Soham graduated with a Master’s from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2022 in Computer Science. He was the celebrated gem in Silicon Valley; employers described him as “talented,” “gifted,” and overall a star in their employee list. They praised him for “crushing the most challenging interviews.” For several months, Soham juggled these jobs and maintained a façade that was about to cause a huge scandal within Silicon Valley.
Dominoes Fall
On July 2, 2025, a start-up founder named Suhail Doshi tweeted the following on X: “PSA: there’s a guy named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3–4 start-ups at the same time. He’s been preying on YC companies and more. Beware. I fired this guy in his first week and told him to stop lying / scamming people. He hasn’t stopped a year later. No more excuses.”
Suhail’s tweet spread like wildfire, and overnight, many start-up founders tweeted that this same man was currently working for them. They claimed that he was fired because they either noticed him hopping between jobs during working hours or that he had mentioned false credentials on his résumé. A copy of his résumé was made public, and it turned out 90% of the links on it were false. Soham also told his employers that he was residing in the USA, as they were looking for someone who was present there. Soham was in India, and all of the jobs were remote.
Soham’s Response
Soham decided to come clean about the “allegations” against him, saying he really was talented and “loved to build.” Along with that, he added, “I have written every inch of that code myself.” In his interview with TBPN, he said, “I am notorious among my friends for not sleeping. I work 140 hours a week.”
Upon asking how he was juggling these jobs and what the reason behind this stunt was, Soham claimed that nobody likes working 140 hours a week—his “hustle” was because of his financial crisis. Although many people refuse to buy into his financial crisis reasoning, he further went on to deny any claims of using AI tools to craft his code or hiring a team of junior engineers who helped him with his workload. He admitted that what he did was wrong by keeping different employers under the myth that he was exclusively available for them. It was further revealed that he was earning between $30,000 to $40,000 per month.
Current News on Soham
After being fired from his jobs, Soham came back as founding engineer at Darwin Studios, a start-up that focuses on AI-driven videos. Soham has said that he is currently focusing on this project and is not taking up any other jobs. According to him, “They’ve bet on me, and I intend to prove them right.” CEO and founder of Darwin, Sanjit Juneja, told TFN, “At Darwin, we are solely focused on building the most innovative software products for both brands and content creators. Soham is an incredibly talented engineer and we believe in his abilities to help bring our products to market.” As of now, no legal action has been taken against Soham.
Soham’s journey with the tech world tells us two things:
- There are still jobs in the market, but for the ones who have a high level of creative thinking to bring a revolution.
- His “scam” has redefined the working paradigms, especially for individuals who work independently or on contract.
Experts’ take on this case is that his extreme routine was fuelled by the unhealthy hustle culture that we have created. That is true if we peek into the craze of companies looking for engineers who can do the work of 10 people or can possess superhuman levels of intelligence.
How Soham’s Case Can Redefine Working in IT
Soham was working as someone we can call an “independent contractor.” They are people—or a team of people—who take up jobs on a contract basis and work for start-ups or companies as employees for the time being. As soon as the project ends, they leave. In the past, these contractors were individuals looking for jobs and companies were the ones providing them. Now, they are “companies” that lease their services to others. This creates a shift in the paradigms: now they are the service providers, and companies or start-ups are their clients.
Soham’s case proves that contract-based workers will now take power into their own hands. Think of it as a one-man show where the lines between employee and entrepreneur are blurring.
Soham’s scandal proves that people can now work as single-person companies with their clients, capitalizing on remote work, time zone differences, and the tech world’s hunger for talent and creative people.
While what Soham did was unethical and one should not go for this approach, it has shifted our mindsets: the work culture is rapidly changing. Individuals providing services are slowly getting out of the web of companies that pay minimum wage for extraordinary work. In a world where tech talent can be accessed globally, this scandal has redefined employment, remote work, productivity, and loyalty.
