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Who is Soham Parekh, the serial moonlighter Silicon Valley can't stop hiring?
- softwaredoug 1y agoIf the guy is good at the job, why does it matter? Maybe we should think of him more like a folk hero than a criminal.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoHe sucked at the job (made excuses for being behind on everything). Very good at interviewing.
- dyauspitr 1y agoDoesn’t sound like it. A tweet says he’s was smart and likable and only let go because they found he was moonlighting. Another tweet says he was a really good coder.
- enraged_camel 1y agoThis isn't really true based on at least one account that is noted in the article: https://x.com/mprkhrst/status/1940443347581337925 https://x.com/mprkhrst/status/1940443347581337925 "Really smart and likable; enjoyed working with him" People generally don't enjoy working with people who suck at their job.
- whoknowsidont 1y ago>People generally don't enjoy working with people who suck at their job. That's news to me. Fabulous news even. Not sure when this change took place but it's for the better.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoLet me rephrase: this would be interesting if he acquired and succeeded at several high-demand jobs. He did not. It is therefore not that interesting of a story.
- hardwaresofton 1y ago> It turns out that Parekh did quite well in many of these interviews and received offers, largely because he’s a gifted software engineer. > For instance, Rohan Pandey, a founding research engineer of the YC-backed startup Reworkd, told TechCrunch that he interviewed Parekh for a role and he was a strong candidate. Pandey, who is no longer with the startup, says Parekh was one of the top three performers on an algorithms-focused interview they gave candidates.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoThat is exactly in line with what I just stated.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mrtksn 1y agoAn employee on salary is different from a consultant on hourly rate. Essentially, the employee is an ally whom all the intellectual output is retained and will be paid in full regardless of their performance. By all accounts Parekh did not fulfill his obligation, apparently he is a very good engineer, but he did not give his time to the companies he was hired by. He was constantly calling sick, fail to finish his tasks up until got fired. Since he was a salaried employee, he still received the paycheck despite his abysmal performance. That said, he definitely became a folk hero :) He is a charming person who pulled a fascinating stunt.
- TZubiri 1y agoJoel Spolsky explained this to me in https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-projects/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr... >>Your game designer works for a year and invents 7 games. At the end of the year, she sues you, claiming that she owns 4 of them, because those particular games were invented between 5pm and 9am, when she wasn’t on duty. >>Ooops. That’s not what you meant. You wanted to pay her for all the games that she invents, and you recognize that the actual process of invention for which you are paying her may happen at any time… on weekdays, weekends, in the office, in the cubicle, at home, in the shower, climbing a mountain on vacation. Also >>Being an employee of a high tech company whose product is intellectual means that you have decided that you want to sell your intellectual output. So the case of an Overemployed engineer who signs an exclusivity deal and works 8 hours at one job and then 8 hours at another job, is still breach of contract, the employee is not well rested, the focus is literally split in half, and there's also concerns of mixing and polluting IP claims. What's more, the Soham Parekh case is an even clearer case of breach and even fraud, it's not like the dude was fulfilling or apparently fulfilling his obligations, he never worked, first week he took the week off and lied about why, just 0 output but still trying to get that first paycheck. There is a subtler discussion on OverEmployment, but this is not it, we should all agree that this is fraud.
- yuzuquat 1y agoI thought the premise was that he’s an exceptional interviewer (and maybe good engineer), but did no work so as to eventually get pip-ed and laid off. If he was exceptional at getting work done, then you’re right and a lot of the critique is misplaced. Would love to be corrected if that was indeed the case
- proc0 1y ago"good at the job" is elusive and vaguely defined in most companies. They want you be a part of the company and get excited for the product and invest all of your focus in it. It's an unwritten rule but it's there. People who just do the job are not promoted and are looked down upon, in my experience. I wish it was just doing the job, it should be that way unless you are on commission or one of the owners *edit: assuming he did the job that is..
- TZubiri 1y agohe isn't, he commits fraud by not delivering and lying about why there are no results.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- analog31 1y agoI realize this is an employee-centric forum, but playing devils advocate, if these are otherwise good employers, why does it matter?
- enraged_camel 1y agoI'm probably in the minority here: when I was a manager, I was always totally fine with my employees moonlighting. Even if they didn't tell me and I found out later (as I did in one case). The only thing I've really cared about is whether they did good work. I believe the main reason employers have an issue with moonlighters is that they view it as lack of loyalty. There may be other reasons, such as concerns regarding whether the employee can perform at 100% at two or more jobs, but I really do think that loyalty is the primary concern by a large margin.
- tuesdaynight 1y agoI wouldn't call it loyalty. I would say that it's more about assymetrical dependency, even if it's a subconscious thing. A lot of managers/bosses want the employees to be dependents of the job.
- dahart 1y agoIn the US, many companies have exclusivity clauses in the employment contract, meaning it’s breach of contract to do paid work for another company at the same time. The typical agreement being made by an employer is salary in return for the employee’s full time attention, where full time means ~40 hours of work per week, or sometimes more. As a manager I do care if my employees work significantly less than full time and devote that time to other paying jobs, especially if they do good work. That’s opportunity cost; if they could be producing more in the ~40 hrs/week agreement we have, they’re cheating the company and violating the agreement they made. I don’t care if they do hobby work or open source projects in their spare time, if they’re fulfilling their agreed upon obligations.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoI really think people need a hobby or something. Cool we found the 99th percentiler of a thing that everyone knows was happening. All it is is someone who's phenomenally good at interviewing and decided to use that to defraud a bunch of companies. Is there much else to learn? This is simply not as interesting a story as it's being made out to be.
- tuesdaynight 1y agoProbably the reaction is because of who (whom?) he defrauded: some YC founders. People have higher expectations for them, I think.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoIf someone legitimately interviews well and then just decides to stop working, what exactly does that say about the founders/recruiting teams? Literally nothing. Interviews are hackable by bad actors who then incur a bunch of cost to get rid of after the fact -- not news.
- esafak 1y agoIt means you need to be diligent when interviewing people; do background checks.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoWhat sensible level of background check would've caught this without incurring stupid costs given that 99.99999% of applicants are not Soham?
- esafak 1y agoUse your judgement. I do most of my filtering before the interview, from the resume and LinkedIn. Get references from his last company. If something feels off, probe some more. You develop a nose for it.
- rvz 1y agoIf you really didn't want your employees moonlighting, maybe you should just pay them more so that they don't have to work 5+ jobs at the same time? (Of course they won't) and require them to be in the office. But this is the archetype of engineer that companies really want: Exceptional at passing technical interviews, willing to work 24/7 to make it happen, but as cheap as possible but all made up for promising 'equity'. This is an actual "10x engineer" that exists, but somehow it has upset some VCs because he was moonlighting at multiple companies as a hack. The best part is, remote YC startups were targeted and they are all talking about banning Soham secretly on bookface. It is now clear that some are "allowed" to hack the system of others to their advantage but you are "not allowed" to do it against YC.
- dumbledoren 1y ago> It is now clear that some are "allowed" to hack the system of others to their advantage but you are "not allowed" to do it against YC. That party will last until the regulators notice...
- x3n0ph3n3 1y agoDuring interviews, he said he preferred equity over salary.
- schmookeeg 1y agoBold strategy given how most vesting cliffs work. He was betting on not being caught for a year.
- nocoiner 1y agoHow do SV equity grant agreements work? I assume that even if he had cliff vested his initial tranche, there’s still a way for the company to cancel or repurchase vested shares if a “for cause” situation existed?
- bradlys 1y agoIt is in some contracts but I wouldn’t say it’s in every contract. Only one startup I worked at had a clawback cause.
- hardwaresofton 1y agoRemember, the rules are always different for capital holders, the professional managerial class, and labor.
- laweijfmvo 1y agohaven’t met a tech CEO who didn’t have at least 3 jobs. conflicts of interest be damned.
- ants_everywhere 1y agoI've known people who did this. It didn't make a lot of sense, but they seemed to like the optionality of not being tied down to one place.
- avikonduru 1y agoIf a 100x engineer works 10 jobs, does he then become a 10x engineer at each job?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- WealthVsSurvive 1y agoHe's an Ai marketing scheme by some y-combo felons. Top-to-bottom, pre-planned commercial to distract from the copyright issues central to everyone's mind, the recent ruling on which only served to further illegitimize US courts, highlighting obvious conflicts of interest, skirting due process, and making every citizen question the efficacy of the current Republic and constitution in regards to protecting our personal liberties.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoDiscussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44448461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44448461
- punkbit 1y agoTrying to run three marathons at the same time will only keep you from finishing any of them. You can show up for the photo or just the final mile, but that only proves who you really are! It's very hard on other people, who, in some cases, are making tremendous efforts, such as running marathons again, due to these types of people...
- sdfathi34234234 1y agoI don't mean to be rude, but a "Marathon" ? What world are you living in ? Most tech-jobs are boring-as-hell bullshit jobs that are required to deal with stupidly designed systems whose phil. is stuck in the dark-ages of PDP-10 (which is why a lot of it gets shipped off to India, or not to 'AI').
- flufluflufluffy 1y agoSource?
- punkbit 1y agoThe article mentions startups where you have to help create or develop an actual product, and a scam artist.
- nradov 1y agoSome athletes literally run and finish ultra marathons that are longer than three regular marathons. https://www.wser.org/ https://www.wser.org/
- kevmo314 1y agoWhat's the incentive to finish the marathon? 0.05% of a 1% chance of a billion dollars?
- siliconc0w 1y agoThe real problem is that companies say they want 10x engineers but they don't even pay 2x if you deliver outsized value compared to your peers. If you create a culture of high performance with associated high compensation, you'll find that engineers will spend their free time working on company problems rather than side-hustles.
- rich_sasha 1y agoThere's a risk-adjusted payoff, at least in theory. A 10x doesn't get paid 10x, but also doesn't get immediately fired if the project shuts down, gets paid when sick, doesn't get paid 30% less if company revenues go down. At least in Europe. I guess in US it's all different.
- pluto_modadic 1y agoIf the business wants 10x growth right now, they should pay 10x salary, right now.
- illiac786 1y agoWho is going to measure this value? Few can, management doesn’t trust these few not to be in cahoots, hence, not possible. At least, that’s how I perceive it in my professional environment.
- aircrickets 1y agoSoham Parekh, hired by Suhail, Adish, Rohan, Sanjit, et al. >how could this have happened
- giardini 1y agoThe question is not "Who is Soham Parekh?" but "Where is Soham Parekh Now?"
- commandersaki 1y agoPeople keep saying he's really good at his job; but I saw an interview with him recently and he looks like stupid young - has he built anything or accomplished anything except serial moonlighting?
- parekh-soham 1y agoHe's a legend for sure.