A young Indian techie, Soham Parekh, has set Silicon Valley ablaze this week – not with code, but controversy. Accused by several AI founders of moonlighting at multiple US startups under false pretences, Parekh’s story has snowballed into what the internet now calls Soham-gate. As memes pour in and tech Twitter explodes, it is worth pausing to reflect on what his saga reveals about work, ethics, and the delicious irony at the heart of India’s bulwark IT sector.
Also read: 30% more tech workers in India moonlighting despite boss’ disapproval.
For the uninitiated, Parekh was called out by Suhail Doshi, co-founder of Mixpanel and Playground AI, who alleged that the techie worked at “three to four startups at the same time,” preying on Y Combinator companies and scamming them with fake resumes and progress updates. Doshi says he tried to talk sense into Parekh before firing him within a week, but the young engineer continued his pattern elsewhere. Other founders corroborated this, calling him a “liar” who aced interviews but failed to deliver.
To many in Silicon Valley, this is an open-and-shut case of deception. But as the debate spills over into Indian circles, it’s reignited a far more uncomfortable question: Why is moonlighting, in itself, so controversial?
Moonlighting, or holding a second job alongside a primary one, is hardly new. Yet India’s biggest IT companies remain adamant that it is unethical. Infosys has warned employees of termination if found moonlighting; Wipro sacked 300 staffers for it; IBM’s India head called it “not ethically right.” Even Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), though not penalising its moonlighters, considers it an “ethical issue.” They argue it leads to inefficiency, data security breaches, and conflict of interest.
Yet, scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find this moral grandstanding rests on shaky foundations. CP Gurnani, Former CEO of Tech Mahindra and currently CEO of AIonOS, has been on the record as saying moonlighting is fine if productivity remains intact. Zoho allows it with managerial consent. Former Infosys director TV Mohandas Pai questions why companies care what an employee does outside paid hours, while Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar calls captive work models outdated, saying, “Companies cannot chain employees down to one job.”
This ideological divide is revealing. Because if there’s one truth India’s IT giants do not like to acknowledge, it is this: They themselves owe their very existence to moonlighting.
Consider Narayana Murthy, Infosys’ iconic founder. In the late 1970s, he was an employee at Patni Computer Systems when he launched Infosys with his colleagues. Flipkart’s Sachin and Binny Bansal were Amazon employees when they set up what became India’s e-commerce poster child. Freshworks founder Girish Mathrubootham built the company while still at Zoho. The examples abound. Indian IT’s entrepreneurial success stories – the very ones that today sit atop regulatory boards pontificating on ethics – were born out of moonlighting.
Of course, there is a difference between moonlighting transparently and scamming employers with fake resumes and overlapping jobs under false pretences. What Soham Parekh is accused of goes beyond mere side hustles. If true, it is deception – accepting salaries for undelivered work while lying to multiple employers. But equally, one must ask: why is moonlighting seen as deception at all? Why do companies reflexively reject the idea of an employee utilising their skills elsewhere, as long as there is no breach of confidentiality or performance?
Moonlighting has always been a tool for economic mobility in India. In a country where wages often stagnate, a second income can mean paying EMIs on time, funding a sibling’s education, or finally starting up on one’s dream product. Covid-era remote work normalised it further, as geographical constraints melted away. In fact, moonlighting is not just tolerated in developed ecosystems; it is seen as a marker of hustle. The same Silicon Valley that now roasts Parekh celebrates gig-based flexibility and portfolio careers. But the moment the employee’s leverage increases, legacy companies cry foul.
What is truly ironic is how India’s IT sector was once lionised for its moonlighting culture – until it became large enough to police it. The offshore coding boom of the 90s was fuelled by engineers working nights on Western projects while upskilling or side-hustling by day. The ecosystem thrived because of this enterprising drive. Today, it is convenient to brand moonlighters as “unethical” when it is the very spirit of moonlighting that created the ecosystem enabling these IT firms to exist.
Yet, there are legitimate questions raised by the Soham Parekh saga. Remote work has upended traditional verification and oversight. Founders spoke of how Parekh aced interviews but delivered nothing, lied about locations, and defrauded them. This is not moonlighting in the sense of a second job; this is simply bad faith. Worse, it exposes just how unprepared tech companies are to vet remote hires beyond a LinkedIn page and slick portfolio site.
But instead of sparking a nuanced conversation on background checks, probation practices, and remote onboarding frameworks, the debate has degenerated into moral panic around moonlighting itself. The reality is that not every moonlighter is a scammer, and not every scammer is a moonlighter. Parekh’s case may reveal individual flaws, but it also reveals a system designed to favour employers’ monopolistic control over employees’ time.
Doshi’s frustration is understandable. Founders at early-stage companies bet their runway on each hire; a non-performing employee is not just wasted payroll, but lost competitive edge. The same applies in India’s services industry, where tight timelines and NDAs make dual employment risky. But rather than banning moonlighting outright, it is time to design contracts and working models that reflect 21st-century realities.
In a global talent economy, employers will increasingly hire people who work on multiple projects – openly, transparently, and under clearly defined deliverables. Companies unwilling to accommodate this shift will simply lose talent to those that do. As Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) President Harpreet Singh Saluja pointed out, moonlighting is not a new thing. It has merely become visible in the Zoom era.
For Soham Parekh, the story is not yet over. In his own response, he struck a defiant note, saying, “There’s a lot being said about me right now… I’ve been isolated, written off, and shut out by nearly everyone I’ve known and every company I’ve worked at. But building is the only thing I’ve ever truly known, and it’s what I’ll keep doing.” He has announced his new exclusive role as founding engineer at a video AI startup launching this month, claiming he now has “something to prove.”
Perhaps he does. Or perhaps, like so many before him, his ambition simply outstripped his ethics. Either way, his story is not just about personal failing. It is about an entire industry’s fear of the very entrepreneurial zeal that once birthed it. Because Indian IT did not rise by chaining talent to cubicles. It rose on the backs of engineers moonlighting on dreams, writing code at dawn, freelancing at dusk, and building companies on the sly. Today, as India aspires to produce the next wave of global tech giants, perhaps the sector’s leaders need to remember that history before they dismiss moonlighters as scammers.
After all, behind every scam lies deception. But behind every moonlighter lies a dream. And it is those dreams – and the freedom to pursue them – that built Indian IT in the first place.
