Developer Accused of Defrauding YC Companies Through Simultaneous Employment Scheme (msn.com) 34
Mixpanel co-founder Suhail Doshi has publicly accused an Indian developer of simultaneously working at multiple startups under false pretenses. Doshi posted on X that Soham Parekh works at "3-4 startups at the same time" and has been "preying on YC companies." (YC, or Y Combinator, is a popular startup accelerator and venture capital firm.)
Doshi fired Parekh within a week at his company Playground AI and warned him to stop the practice, but said Parekh continued a year later. Parekh's resume lists positions at Dynamo AI, Union AI, Synthesia, and Alan AI, along with degrees from the University of Mumbai and Georgia Institute of Technology. Doshi called the CV "probably 90% fake and most links are gone." Several other startup founders confirmed they had either hired Parekh in the past, or had been approached by him. Nicolai Ouporov of Fleet AI said Parekh "works at more than 4 startups at any given time." Justin Harvey of AIVideo said he nearly hired Parekh, who "crushed the interview." Doshi said he corroborated the account with more than six companies before posting publicly.
Doshi fired Parekh within a week at his company Playground AI and warned him to stop the practice, but said Parekh continued a year later. Parekh's resume lists positions at Dynamo AI, Union AI, Synthesia, and Alan AI, along with degrees from the University of Mumbai and Georgia Institute of Technology. Doshi called the CV "probably 90% fake and most links are gone." Several other startup founders confirmed they had either hired Parekh in the past, or had been approached by him. Nicolai Ouporov of Fleet AI said Parekh "works at more than 4 startups at any given time." Justin Harvey of AIVideo said he nearly hired Parekh, who "crushed the interview." Doshi said he corroborated the account with more than six companies before posting publicly.
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According to TFA:
Suhail Doshi’s accusations against Indian ex-employee
“PSA: there’s a guy named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3-4 startups at the same time."
See the "(in India)" part? I doubt ICE will be going to India to deport him.
Re: Overemployment is not illegal (Score:2)
With the budget bump theyâ(TM)re about to get, they could if he commits crimes against wealth.
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If it pays the bills
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They can deport him from India to the US!
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This guy is however guilty of Labor fraud
I don't see why this would be formal labor fraud - I mean misrepresentation of history on resumes is bad - but I don't think criminal. Frankly, the IRS doesnt care how many W2s/1099s you submit. The taxes are paid and they get their pound of flesh
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I don't see why this would be formal labor fraud
Exactly. I think this is startups with too much funding and not enough places to put it. The folks that should be paying attention are the investors in these startups.
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I don't see why this would be formal labor fraud
As long as he keeps his billable hours straight, he should be OK.
I mean misrepresentation of history on resumes is bad
Did he say he worked at X, Y and Z? Was that correct? Did he overlook the fact that he did so at the same time? If nobody asked ...
Frankly, the IRS doesnt care how many W2s/1099s you submit.
Yes and no. You report your income and pay your taxes, you should be OK. But taxing authorities (many states) have big problems with people working as contractors/sole proprietors. You don't have a boss and employer? How will the unions know who to picket and squeeze for dues and concessions?
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"You don't have a boss and employer? How will the unions know who to picket and squeeze for dues and concessions?"
WTF is this bullshit?
What relevance does that have to "But taxing authorities (many states) have big problems with people working as contractors/sole proprietors."?
Which are those "many states"?
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Well, Washington State for one. California another. Can't be a gig worker or independent contractor. Have to be an employee. And WFH is frowned upon for, among other reasons, union organization and labor laws are written around "work places". Unions organize one Starbucks at a time. They hate WFH because they can't even find the people to sign up.
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Well, Washington State for one. California another. Can't be a gig worker or independent contractor. Have to be an employee.
What nonsense is this?
There are no laws in the USA forbidding anyone from being self-employed, a gig worker, or a contractor, or anything of the sort. You do have to pay taxes, of course.
It is illegal everywhere for an employer to hire you as an employee and then claim to the government that you are an independent contractor (therefore company does not have to pay you properly, give you required benefits, payroll taxes, etc.) There is a simple test to determine if you are actually an employee. It revolves
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It is illegal everywhere for an employer to hire you as an employee and then claim to the government that you are an independent contractor
Unless I say that I am an independent contractor.
therefore company does not have to pay you properly, give you required benefits, payroll taxes, etc.
I negotiate a higher fee and then take care of all the benefit stuff myself. You just don't understand how badly employees are being ripped off by being maneuvered into employee benefit programs.
There is a simple test to determine if you are actually an employee.
I don't work as an employee. It's a part of my contract. If anyone says I'm an employee, I'm walking out the door. It's in my contract.
Now, here's an interesting exercise for you: Take a look at Washington States history in trying to force people into "employee" stat
Re: Overemployment is not illegal (Score:2)
Under employment contracts you are required to be fully committed to your employer for a given number of hours a day. Full attention and focus. With 2 or more contracts and other commitments outside of work such as sleep or rest, it becomes obvious very quickly that multiple running multiple employment contracts violates basic maths - number of hours in a day.
Additionally, most employment contracts explicitly prohibit employees from taking on any other employment to avoid conflict of interest - both in term
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Re: Overemployment is not illegal (Score:2)
Employment contracts sometimes specifically outline restrictions on "moonlighting", noncompetes, exclusivity of employment or intellectual property ownership *precisely* because they are not implicit assumptions of "exempt" employees.
Many exempt employees have second and third sources of income - whether thats a side gig, hobbies, volunteer work, consultancy or business ownerships... or for the C-suits being a member of other corporate boards is actually a plus.
If there is some implicit legal obligation on
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The formal labor fraud would be that there aren't enough hours in the day to be a full time employee of 4 employers at the same time. If he was doing contract work or part time, there wouldn't be much case for fraud though.
Of course, as a matter of practicality, the only real recourse U.S. companies have is firing him.
Re: Overemployment is not illegal (Score:2)
Exempt employees are not paid by hour - they don't get overtime but also you cannot substract for undertime. The whole point is they are hired for the role/job not for hourly output, and as long as they do the job its fine.
You can fire the person for not doing the job, but this is true whether you took 4 small jobs and stretched too thin or you took 1 big job and underperformed.
If he did not lie and did not share confidential data (e.g. outsourcing his job) this not a problem of fraud, this is a problem of
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Tell that to the back to office zealots that expect 8 hr/day 5 day/week attendance.
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[...] you're going to have an extremely hard time trying to make the claim that it overemployment is illegal especially when California and other states have made non competes illegal.
CA may have made non-competes illegal, but those are the “you can’t work for our competitors after you leave us” non-competes. It is generally considered valid to prevent someone from working for a competitor while they are actually working for you. Like Apple and Google both say you can’t work for a competitor while employed by them. Both consider each other to be operating in the same markets and thus competitors.
The claim Google/Apple would make isn’t that you can’
Re: Overemployment is not illegal (Score:2)
Correct. I'd give you some points if I had any left at the moment.
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California made post-employment non competes illegal. During employment non competes seem to be a bit more of a grey area. Employees are still governed by Conflict of Interest, Non-Disclosure Agreements, and Duty of Loyalty requirements. Working for multiple AI companies at the same time has got to violate at least one, if not all of those rules unless his job duties were incredibly well defined and orthogonal in scope for each position.
Re: Overemployment is not illegal (Score:2)
Over employment in itself is not illegal. However, most employment contracts state that you're not allowed to work for anyone else and if you take on other employment while under such legal contract - yes, it is then illegal.
Strategic overemployment (Score:5, Interesting)
If he was "crushing" the interviews, part of me sees this as a pretty clever way to "date" several companies before deciding which one(s) to commit to. Or maybe he's just trying to pull in as much income as possible in a short-term and dishonest fashion.
In the modern job market where the company/employee relationship is often very adversarial, this seems like an almost natural next evolutionary phase/exploit. Similar to all those "remote employees" in N. Korea. If companies will continue to treat employees as assets and adversaries, they'll need to step up their opsec game accordingly.
just make workers 1099ers with lots of rules and j (Score:2)
just make workers 1099ers with lots of rules and no min wage!
Who is he? (Score:2)
He is the ten times (AI) engineer!
Next Headline (Score:2)
Turns out that "he" is an LLM who aces interviews.
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If you believe Altman, LLMs are the 100x engineers.
I've had the opposite problem (Score:3)
I once had a single IT job that contained about 2 jobs worth of work. Maybe I should hook this guy up with them?
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Basically this guy is the other side of the coin you're describing.
What I wonder is whether the companies he worked for were unhappy with his work.
Soham Parekh? (Score:2)
How common of a name is Soham Parekh in India?
At one time I was in a tech group with three Mike Johnsons. Assuredly different people, though slightly confusing.
But I don't really feel sorry for these startups going for global minimum wage and getting burned.
Hire an American named Steve from Akron and you'll be less likely to be scammed.
Claiming degrees (Score:2)
Who does he think he is? Elon Musk? (Score:2)
Elon Musk is the CEO of half a dozen companies.
But, we workers have to only work for single company; and be at the sole mercy of a single boss and if you don't do that, you're fired and black-listed.
If he's producing good work then let him work whatever he wants. If he isn't then fire him. Don't be a super-asshole and blast the guy. It just shows Suhail Doshi is such an asshole.
I can't even tell if this is the American culture of Indian culture that is the root of this. It feels like the intersection of the
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Elon Musk is the CEO of half a dozen companies.
But, we workers have to only work for single company.
You are free to set the rules and work at any of the companies that you create and/or own.
Which in your case will obviously be zero companies.
Because that's Elon Musk's fault.
Did it (Score:2)
Did this for a bit. Made a good chunk of change and stopped. The thing is when you do it with the intention of actually doing all the work you burn out fast. But to be honest it was worth it. 50k in the bank that I otherwise would not have.