Soham Parekh confesses to moonlighting at Silicon Valley startups: No one likes to work 140 hours a week, but I had to do it out of ....

Indian software engineer

Soham Parekh

has publicly admitted to working at multiple

Silicon Valley startups

simultaneously after being exposed in a viral social media post, claiming financial desperation drove his controversial employment scheme."It is true," Parekh confirmed in a TBPN interview when asked about allegations of holding multiple full-time jobs. "I'm not proud of what I've done. That's not something I endorse either. But no one really likes to work 140 hours a week, I had to do it out of necessity."The scandal erupted when

Mixpanel co-founder Suhail Doshi

publicly warned the startup community about Parekh on X, alleging he was "preying on YC companies" by working at three to four startups simultaneously. Doshi's post garnered over 20 million views, with dozens of founders sharing similar experiences of hiring and quickly firing the Mumbai-born engineer.

Parekh says 'extremely dire financial circumstances' drove multi-startup employment

The engineer, who relocated to the US in 2020 after originally planning to start graduate school in 2018, said his financial situation forced him to abandon his academic plans. When asked about potential contract violations, Parekh acknowledged his actions weren't defensible but emphasized they stemmed from desperation, not malicious intent.

Parekh attributed his actions to severe financial circumstances rather than greed. "I was in extremely dire financial circumstances," he explained in the interview. "I'm not a very people person. I don't share much about what's going on in my life. So I just thought: if I work multiple places, maybe I can elevate myself out of the situation faster."Despite the public backlash, Parekh announced securing an exclusive

founding engineer position

at an

AI video startup

. "Earlier today, I signed an exclusive founding deal to be founding engineer at one company and one company only," he posted on X. "They were the only ones willing to bet on me at this time."