Soham Parekh working many tech jobs directly takes hustle tradition to ‘excessive’

The tech business is reeling after a software program engineer was uncovered as working at a number of Silicon Valley startups on the similar time — and specialists say it is a lesson on hustle tradition gone too far.

Soham Parekh, a software program engineer from Mumbai, went viral on social media after being accused by Playground AI founder Suhail Doshi on X of working at numerous startups concurrently.

Doshi wrote: “There is a man named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3-4 startups on the similar time. He is been preying on YC [Y Combinator] corporations and extra. Beware. I fired this man in his first week and informed him to cease mendacity / scamming individuals. He hasn’t stopped a 12 months later. No extra excuses.”

The publish racked up 25,000 likes with extra founders coming ahead about hiring Parekh, together with AI startup Lindy, which fired him after seeing Doshi’s publish. Soham Parekh didn’t reply to CNBC Make It is request for an interview.

Matthew Parkhurst, founding father of software program startup Antimetal, mentioned Parekh was the corporate’s first engineering rent in 2022 and was sensible and likable. “We realized fairly rapidly that he was working at a number of corporations and let him go,” Parkhurst mentioned on X.

Different founders like Haz Hubble, the co-founder of social media scheduler Pally, additionally got here ahead about providing Parekh a founding engineer function.

Doshi confirmed to CNBC Make It through electronic mail that Parekh labored on the firm. “We realized he was working a number of jobs shortly after he joined, primarily based on fixed giant fluctuations in his availability and the standard of his output. He additionally attended an off-site, the place it grew to become fairly clear,” Doshi mentioned.

Lindy, Antimetal, and Pally didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.

In an interview on tech present TBPN on Thursday, Parekh admitted that it was true he was working for a number of startups directly and wasn’t happy with what he had achieved.

“Nobody actually likes to work 140 hours every week, however I had to do that out of necessity,” Parekh mentioned within the present. “I used to be in extraordinarily dire monetary circumstances.”

Parekh mentioned he solely began doing this in 2022, and the grueling life-style meant he grew to become a “serial non-sleeper.”

He added that he “cared about these corporations” and “greed wasn’t an incentive,” regardless of his monetary state of affairs. He mentioned he all the time took the decrease pay, larger fairness supply at corporations.

The tech group on social media is split, nonetheless, with some questioning the ethics of secretly working a number of jobs, whereas others marvel how Parekh pulled it off.

The story of Parekh isn’t distinctive inside the tech business, with many tech staff covertly working a number of jobs lately in an effort to defend themselves from mass layoffs and job market uncertainty.

A subreddit referred to as “r/overemployed” was created in 2021, with customers sharing recommendation on how they handle to steadiness a number of jobs with out being detected.

“Through the peak of Covid, there was this rush from tech corporations to fireplace expertise, and there was this intense competitors for expertise,” Alexandru Voica, head of company affairs and coverage at AI firm Synthesia, informed CNBC Make It in an interview.

“It prompted, in some circumstances, such a habits to be extra widespread than it was throughout non-pandemic instances.”

Voica famous that the rise of distant work was instrumental in enabling this habits amongst tech staff. “That led to clearly unimaginable advantages for hard-working individuals, but in addition allowed individuals who have perhaps such a angle to, rapidly, get jobs that they would not have earlier than.”

Having no less than two jobs can also be frequent inside India’s IT sector. There was a 25-30% enhance in moonlighting seen between 2020 and 2023, based on Randstad India, with staff citing components equivalent to low pay and distant work.

Whereas Parekh’s grueling work hours are uncommon — even in tech — it is a reminder of how deeply hustle tradition is entrenched inside the business.

“Silicon Valley’s obsession with productiveness metrics and quick hiring has created situations the place an individual can juggle 5 roles — and never as a result of it is environment friendly, however as a result of nobody is actually wanting,” Dmitry Zaytsev, founding father of expertise administration firm Dandelion Civilization, mentioned to CNBC Make It.

“What we’re seeing is the intense finish of hustle tradition: when work turns into efficiency, and id turns into fragmented.”

Zaytsev defined that Parekh primarily handed a number of rounds of technical interviews as a result of gentle expertise aren’t as valued in tech. Qualities like dedication, reliability and group presence “are sometimes ignored till there is a disaster,” he mentioned.

“Burnout is a predictable final result when the office tradition rewards overcommitment and treats exhaustion as a badge of honor. Soham’s admission that he labored 140 hours every week isn’t just unhealthy, it is a reflection of a system that equates price with output,” he added.

It comes as European tech startups face stress from some VCs to undertake a extra rigorous work schedule — equivalent to China’s “996” or Silicon Valley’s 24/7, always-on tradition — to raised compete on a worldwide tech stage. This has been met with backlash, with founders telling CNBC Make It that overwork can result in a disaster of productiveness, burnout, and even resentment.

Suranga Chandratillake, basic accomplice at Balderton Capital, mentioned this debate took place as a consequence of “a fetishization of overwork” and a glorification of hustle tradition within the tech and startup scene in Silicon Valley.

Synthesia’s Voica warned that staff who benefit from versatile working insurance policies danger portray different engineers in a foul gentle, and will have these advantages taken away.

“A lot of the engineers that I do know are very arduous working, very devoted, very passionate, after which when you’ve got such a extra cavalier habits, it units this tone that that is regular habits locally,” Voica defined.

This would possibly trigger employers to second-guess whether or not they need to maintain hybrid working insurance policies in place, he mentioned.

“That is going to influence ladies. It should influence individuals with disabilities [and] the extra weak, who truly benefited from this [flexible] work association, and now they will be impacted by such a habits,” he added.

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