Developer Accused of Defrauding YC Companies Through Simultaneous Employment Scheme (msn.com)
- Reference: 0178272242
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/07/03/1814215/developer-accused-of-defrauding-yc-companies-through-simultaneous-employment-scheme
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/us-founder-calls-out-indian-techie-for-scamming-multiple-startups-i-fired-this-guy-in-1-week/ar-AA1HOKcT
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.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/us-founder-calls-out-indian-techie-for-scamming-multiple-startups-i-fired-this-guy-in-1-week/ar-AA1HOKcT
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!
I've had the opposite problem (Score:2)
I once had a single IT job that contained about 2 jobs worth of work. Maybe I should hook this guy up with them?
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)
Fun fact, you don't need to attend an educational institute to claim to hold a degree. Some institutes will refuse to confirm if a person has been given a degree by them "for privacy reasons". So to pass the first round of background checks all you need to do is claim you have a degree from such an institute and there is no easy way to prove otherwise.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
If it pays the bills
Re: (Score:2)
> 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
Re: (Score:2)
> 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.
Re: (Score:2)
> 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?
Re: (Score:2)
"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"?
Re: (Score:2)
> [...] 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: (Score:2)
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.