Soham Parekh has become an overnight internet sensation after he was named and shamed by an Indian entrepreneur for duping them. His modus operandi? Soham charmed his way to get jobs at 3-4 startups simultaneously by moonlighting under several roles, as per Indian origin American entrepreneur Suhail Doshi.
Founders and CEOs took to X and shared the emails they received from Parekh, noticing a common pattern.

Several screenshots were shared on social media calling Parekh out for his “lying and scamming”. Doshi even shared his resume and alleged that it was all a part of fabricated lies.

Soham Parekh’s emails: ‘I love everything about…’

Amidst so many layoff and high employment how did Soham secure 3-4 jobs at the same time? It may have started with his charming introductory mail sent out to companies. Many such emails have now gone viral and have a similar pattern. They all started with one line, “I love everything about…”

He mentioned a significant experience of five years working with names like DynamoAI, Antimetal, Union.ai and Alan. Adding to that, he listed the various skills he possesses, which helped him “scale internal micro-services to thousands of workflows and users.”

Starting off with high praises for the firms he approaches, Parekh email “gogititso” did not raise a single eyebrow until now. Addressed to Happenstance, Parekh started off by saying, “I love everything about what Happenstance is doing. I don’t have many hobbies outside coding. I am not athletic, bad at singing, don’t drink, can’t dance. Building is the only thing I am good at…”

He mentioned a significant experience of five years working with names like DynamoAI, Antimetal, Union.ai and Alan. Adding to that, he listed the various skills he possesses, which helped him “scale internal micro-services to thousands of workflows and users.”

Adding on to his email, he writes, “Being a part of super lean teams, one of my strongest suites has been ability to work across the stack…” Listing his proficient skills, he said that he has built “several end-to-end systems that involve several layers at the intersection of UI (Next.js), Backend (Python, Node + Go based services using GraphQL and GRPC) as well as infrastructure pieces (AWS + GCP over K8s).”

IS Soham Parekh a scam artist or “competition”: Netizens react

While Parekh’s access to top YC companies is a strong testament to his alleged profile but it has also led to a meme fest online. Netizens are divided whether to condemn him for the moonlighting or praise him for his clever approach. “Is your startup pre or post Soham?” wrote a user on X jokingly.

He “knows how to write email, bookmarking it for future reference”, wrote a user praising his straightforward approach. However, many users are pointing out the technical flaws in the email such as the “capitalised “G” in GRPC and others called the first paragraph a “red flag”.

Soham Parekh scam unravels

In other such introduction mails he reportedly approached for work was ComfyUI. Robin Huang from the firm shared, “We worked with Soham Parekh for 3 weeks in June. He seemed extremely cracked in the technical interview and said all the right things. That he loved open source and ComfyUI. Then things started to fall apart.”

However, this was not the only experience shared by YC companies online. Applying for the same post of “Software Engineer”, Cassidy AI founder and CEO Justin Fineberg shared he, too, received a mail from Soham. Loaded with keywords like “5 years of experience” and “super lean teams”, this email was from August 2024.

Screenshot shared by Justin Fineberg, Founder-CEO of CassidyAI

Similarly, Daniel Dhawan, Co-founder of Rork App shared the email he received. While praising Parekh’s “contrarian views and great sales”, the email practically read the same as he sent to Happenstance.

Allegedly, Soham is Atrium Academy’s newest hire, or should it be the other way round? Bhaumik Patel, CEO of Atrium, shared, he was “excited to announce Soham Parekh as our first Protocol Engineer. First hire I’ve made with 0 interviews.” Listing down Parekh’s alleged achievements, he shared that he had “won 14 hackathons, authored white papers for 6 ICOs, $34.2m in bug bounties, exploring new research into L-1s”.