Soham Parekh, alleged ‘moonlighting conman’ developer, scammed many US-based YC companies into hiring him while he was already working 3-4 jobs. Leaping AI founder Arkadiy Telegin fueled the fiery discussion on X sharing an anecdote from Operation Sindoor. However, he called it the “India-Pakistan thing”.
The post showed a screenshot between a now-deleted account, allegedly of Soham, who claimed that a drone was shot near his house. It was later discovered that he was located in Mumbai, far from the sensitive zones in northwestern India. “Soham also used to guilt-trip me for his being slow on PRs when the India-Pakistan thing was going on, all while he was in Mumbai,” shared Arkadiy.
Soham also used to guilt trip me for his being slow on PRs when India Pakistan thing was going on, all while he was in Mumbai.
Next person should hire him for the Chief Intelligence Officer role. pic.twitter.com/kYZqkpWIse
— Arkadiy Telegin (@akyshnik) July 2, 2025
In the chat, “Soham” wrote, “They shot a drone in the air near my house 10 mins away”. Responding with concern and shock, Arkadiy asked if everything was okay. To which “Soham” replied, “just some damage at a building around the house” and claimed he still has power and internet. Minutes after the message, he also revealed that “we had a ceasefire”. While the date of the online conversation has not been revealed, the claims made by Parekh give the reader an impression of him being near a site of disturbance.
This is not the first time, however, the founder who ousted his sham, Suhail Doshi, claimed that he made them believe he was working from the US. “He lies about his location. We thought we were hiring someone in the US. Even sent a laptop to a US address. Got it back! Allegedly, it was sent to his ‘sister,’” the founder wrote in a comment on X.
The internet still hasn’t been able to identify Soham’s location. Whether he is in India, US or elsewhere is still not known.
Netizens still divided
“This guy single-handedly destroyed the reputation of remote work for devs while adding fuel to the fire on racism against India,” opined a user. “Soham himself may get away as he looks to be a pretty cracked dev but the consequences could be on others…sigh,” said another echoing the same sentiment.
On the other hand, there are twitterati who have started a meme war on the situation. Commenting on the situation, they have found it funny, hilarious and even called him a “legend” as other call him a “scam artist”.
Who is Soham Parekh?
According to San Francisco-based Playground AI founder Suhail Doshi, Soham Parekh is someone who preys on Y Combinator companies. Sharing what appears to be Parekh’s lengthy resume, Sohail Doshi argued that probably 90% of the claims made in it are fake, with most links having gone missing. As per the summary of Soham’s professional graph provided by the AI exec, the techie seems to have completed his MS in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2022 and BE in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai in 2020.