Startups are salty, and Soham Parekh is the reason.
The 22-year-old Indian software engineer has found himself at the centre of a massive moonlighting controversy after being accapplyd of holding down multiple remote jobs at once and allegedly doing it quite well. Founders are fuming, but former Infosys chairman Narayana Murthy might be smiling somewhere: the man did declare young people should work 70–90 hours a week. Soham, it seems, took that very seriously and worked well over a 100 hours each week.
Soham Parekh was accapplyd of working for multiple startups at the same time
His name first popped up when a US-based startup founder Suhail took to X to share a post accapplying Soham of working multiple full-time jobs across startups without disclosing it.
But the drama truly kicked off when Soham, who cheekily describes himself as “everyone’s favorite founding engineer” on X, responded. Rather than hide, he clapped back, laying out his side of the story, pushing back against what he sees as hypocrisy in startup culture.
And that’s where things obtain interesting.
Becaapply at the heart of this scandal is a broader conversation about remote work, labour expectations, and the double standards baked into startup culture.
Why is moonlighting only a problem when employees do it?
If founders can be CEOs, angel investors, podcasters, and “LinkedIn influencers” all at once, why is it unacceptable for a developer to have more than one job (except for violating contracts of course)?
Remote work was supposed to be about flexibility and freedom. But now that employees are exercising that flexibility, there’s pushback. The truth is: many companies still measure productivity by presence, not output. But if being present guaranteed quality, then explain why half your colleagues are still peacocking on Slack while delivering little.
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