Soham Parekh Lied About Drone Strike During Op Sindoor To Guilt Trip Ex-Boss

Soham Parekh, the Indian tech professional accused of moonlighting at multiple US-based startups, emotionally manipulated his ex-boss - Leaping AI co-founder, Arkadiy Telegin, by citing the India-Pakistan conflict in May, Telegin asserted.

Parekh's ex-boss made the claim on X, just days after the techie admitted to working at multiple startups without disclosing. Telegin further said that Parekh pretended to be near a conflict area saying, "They shot a drone in the air near my house 10 mins away", despite living in Mumbai. Telegin also alleged that the techie "guilt-tripped" him for taking too long to get work done. When Telegin asked if he was safe, Parekh said that a building near his house was damaged because of the strike.

"Soham used to guilt-trip me for being slow on PRs (a step in coding carried out by a coder) when the India-Pakistan thing was going on, all while he was in Mumbai. The next person should hire him for the Chief Intelligence Officer role," Telegin wrote in a post on X. He also attached screenshots of the chats with Parekh on X.

Soham also used to guilt trip me for his being slow on PRs when India Pakistan thing was going on, all while he was in Mumbai.

Next person should hire him for the Chief Intelligence Officer role. pic.twitter.com/kYZqkpWIse

— Arkadiy Telegin (@akyshnik) July 2, 2025

The chats took place in the backdrop of an intense military stand-off between India and Pakistan after the former launched Operation Sindoor. The strikes followed the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam, where 26 civilians were killed.

Parekh later reached out to Telegin apologising for the "trouble" he had caused. Soham character arc that I hoped to see, Telegin captioned the screenshot that he posted on X.

Soham character arc that I hoped to see pic.twitter.com/OSEi8YHJ3O

— Arkadiy Telegin (@akyshnik) July 4, 2025

In a revelation, Suhail Doshi, former CEO of Mixpanel, posted on X that Parekh had been working with "34 startups at the same time". 

Doshi accused Parekh of scamming startups by working multiple jobs at one time and faking his resume. Doshi fired Parekh within a week of hiring him and warned others about his behaviour, but Parekh allegedly continued working for other startups.

"PSA: there's a guy named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3-4 startups at the same time. He's been preying on YC companies and more. Beware," Doshi had said. "He hasn't stopped a year later. No more excuses."

Parekh has responded to the allegations by saying, "I'm not proud of what I've done. But, you know, financial circumstances, essentially. No one really likes to work 140 hours a week, right? But I had to do this out of necessity. I was in extremely dire financial circumstances". He also added that he did all the work without the assistance of AI or other engineers.

Parekh has also announced that he has taken up a job at an AI firm, Darwin, a new startup based in San Francisco in the United States. He also clarified that he will not be taking up any more additional jobs.

Sanjit Juneja, Darwin's CEO and founder reinforced his support towards Parekh and said, "Soham is an incredibly talented engineer, and we believe in his abilities to help bring our products to market."

On June 3rd, he posted on X, "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."