An Indian-origin tech founder in San Francisco took to X to share how he had been misidentified as a food delivery app worker despite being dressed in iconic startup gear.

Mehul Agarwal, the founder of a startup called ‘koyal’, shared that he wearing a Y Combinator jacket, carrying a Carnegie Mellon backpack, and sporting Meta Ray-Bans when an elderly Indian person spotted him.

Standing at their apartment porch, the person asked Agarwal if he was from DoorDash, referring to couriers for the popular US food delivery app.

Sharing the encounter online, Agarwal wrote “SF is cooked”.

‘Your post implies that…’

Agarwal’s post triggered an array of reactions from netizens, with one user writing that Agarwal’s post reeked of elitism.

“Your post implies the whole world should know you are some sort of big shot… It is normal for door-dash delivery drivers to dress like millionaires in the bay area. Common for our physical appearance to match a profile of someone we are not…not a big deal at all,” they wrote.

Another user echoed their thought, saying, “$400 pair of glasses makes you a status symbol to the general public? You think far to highly of yourself”.

‘No shade to DoorDash drivers’

Replying to this, Agarwal clarified that he didn’t intend to throw any “shade” at DoorDash delivery executives, adding that he only meant to share a humorous instance online.

Meanwhile, other netizens had lighter takes on the situation, with one joking about how the Indian person who mistook Agarwal for a delivery partner probably “didn’t want to blow his cover”.

“[The man] thinks you are high level VC running some undercover test as doordash food delivery dude trying to figure out the math for YC brand new drone delivery system but he doesn’t want to blow your cover,” they wrote.

Another person joked about how hadn’t invited Agarwal for ‘chai naashta’.

Responses to the viral moment were largely good-natured, with many reflecting on how appearances in the city no longer reliably signal a person’s job or socio-economic status.