Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash
Software Engineer Goes Viral For Juggling Multiple Jobs At Silicon Valley Startups
- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
An Indian software engineer, Soham Parekh, has been accused on the social media platform X this week of simultaneously working full-time remote positions at multiple startups in Silicon Valley. Parekh’s name went viral on the social network as more companies acknowledged hiring him—some of them for years. Parekh confirmed some of the claims in a recent interview.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- CEO Suhail Doshi exposed software engineer Soham Parek for working full-time remote positions at multiple startups in Silicon Valley.
- The post went viral on X, and Parekh confirmed some of the claims.
- Multiple startup founders confirmed they had unknowingly hired and interviewed Parekh.
The founder and CEO of Playground AI, Suhail Doshi, shared a post that went viral on the social media network X and sparked surprise in the startup community as more startup leaders recognized Parekh as their employee.
“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,” wrote Doshi. “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.”
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. 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 (@Suhail) July 2, 2025
Doshi included an image of the engineer’s CV and said he tried to talk to Parekh and even gave him a second chance. The post reached over 20 million views and caught attention, as more tech leaders and CEOs also reported hiring Parekh.
Flo Crivello, the CEO of the startup Lindy, was one of the CEOs who had hired Parekh and fired the engineer after reading Doshi’s post on X. “We hired this guy a week ago. Fired this morning,” wrote Crivello in a post . “He did so incredibly well in interviews, must have a lot of training. Careful out there.”
According to other posts shared by Doshi, multiple investors, managers, and CEOs reached out to confirm the information, saying they too had hired or interviewed the talented engineer.
The podcast show TBPN interviewed Parekh on Thursday, who confessed to working at multiple startups simultaneously.
“I’m not proud of what I’ve done. That’s not something I endorse either,” said Parekh. “But no one really likes to work 140 hours a week, I had to do it out of necessity.”
We asked @realsohamparekh if he had been working multiple full-time jobs at once. “It is true.” “I’m not proud of what I’ve done. That’s not something I endorse either. But no one really likes to work 140 hours a week, I had to do it out of necessity.” “I was in extremely dire… pic.twitter.com/IC3qXOPdSt — TBPN (@tbpn) July 3, 2025
Dubbed “Soham-Gate” on social media, the situation has sparked heated debate. Hundreds of users also shared memes and jokes as the news went viral. “Microsoft just laid off 9,000 workers. All of them Soham Parekh,” wrote user Daniel , referring to the recent wave of layoffs announced by Microsoft this week .
Image by Freepik
How An AI Band Fooled Spotify’s Charts
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
More than half a million Spotify users are unknowingly listening to music made entirely by artificial intelligence.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- The band released two albums in under a month.
- Band members and Instagram photos are clearly AI-generated.
- Spotify doesn’t require AI-generated music to be labeled as such.
The Velvet Sundown released two albums this month, called Floating On Echoes and Dust and Silence, which quickly gained popularity. But there’s one catch: the band members don’t exist. The music was created by AI.
ArsTechnica , who first reported the story, reports that some listeners suspected something was off. The band members were exposed as non-existent through discussions on Reddit and X. The group members appeared only in the album bios and social media, but numerous inconsistencies revealed the truth about the band. Their Instagram account, launched on June 27, displays strange AI-produced images.
AI-generated bands aren’t new. John Oliver recently highlighted The Devil Inside as an AI musical group, which has released 10 albums. The lyrics of both bands contain repeated references to “dust” and “wind,” which sparks doubts about the training methods of machine models, as noted by ArsTechnica.
Meanwhile, the controversy around AI in the creative world continues to grow. Over 13,500 artists , including Julianne Moore, Thom Yorke, and Kazuo Ishiguro, have signed a petition organized by composer Ed Newton-Rex, calling for a stop to AI companies scraping their work for training.
The petition warns that “the unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works.” As AI music becomes harder to detect, experts are calling for better labeling.
