Soham Parekh, the Indian software engineer at the centre of a growing moonlighting controversy in Silicon Valley, has finally responded to allegations that he held multiple jobs at once across several startups. In a candid interview with The Backslash Podcast Network (TBPN), Parekh confirmed the accusations but maintained that he had not acted out of malice or greed.
“It is true,” Parekh said when asked directly whether he had been employed at several companies simultaneously. “Honestly, going back to how it started and what the motivations were… I would want to preface by saying I’m not proud of what I’ve done. It’s not something I endorse either.”
The explosive saga first surfaced when Suhail Doshi, co-founder of Mixpanel and Playground AI, accused Parekh on X (formerly Twitter) of scamming multiple startups by secretly working for three to four companies at the same time. Doshi, who claimed he had hired Parekh briefly before discovering the duplicity, called him a serial moonlighter who had deceived several well-funded companies, including Y Combinator-backed startups.
The backlash quickly snowballed, with at least five other founders confirming they had hired Parekh and subsequently let him go after learning of his alleged double-dealing. While many accused him of unethical conduct, some others blamed inadequate hiring processes across startups.
In his TBPN interview, Parekh defended his actions by pointing to personal hardship. “Financial circumstances, essentially,” he said. “No one really likes to work 140 hours a week, but I had to do it out of necessity.”
He elaborated, “It wasn’t about greed. I know my decisions seem counterintuitive. I always took lower pay, higher equity offers. I was more interested in building things than just earning money.”
Parekh said he was originally scheduled to move to the United States in 2018 to pursue graduate studies, but mounting financial difficulties forced him to shelve those plans. “I was born in Mumbai,” he said, “and I relocated to the US in 2020, after securing a job.” It was only after arriving in America that he began juggling multiple roles at once.
Social media allegations had also claimed that Parekh had turned moonlighting into a business by outsourcing his workload to junior developers. He strongly denied these claims. “I wrote every inch of code,” he insisted.
Despite the scandal, Parekh appears to have landed on his feet. During the interview, TBPN host Jordi Hays asked him about his plans moving forward, suggesting that he could now easily start a dev shop or leverage the attention to build a solo venture. Instead, Parekh revealed that he has joined an AI company named Darwin Studios.
“I’m really excited about what I’m going to be a part of next,” he said. “Working with a company called Darwin. They are essentially building a new AI-driven data platform… a video platform for UGC-style media.”
He added, “This is the only thing I am going to focus on. They’ve put a bet on me and I have a lot to prove. There’s not a lot for me to say.”
According to Darwin Studios’ website, the startup is focused on building personalised AI media experiences—a space that is gaining increasing investor and developer interest in the post-LLM boom.
When Hays pressed him on how he plans to turn this highly publicised controversy into a “win,” Parekh declined to elaborate further, reiterating his intent to focus solely on Darwin and rebuild trust through performance.
The TBPN host acknowledged Parekh’s honesty during the conversation. “You have the attention of the entire tech ecosystem,” Hays said, before floating the idea that Parekh could easily parlay the notoriety into a consultancy or even a founding engineer role.
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