In a world that celebrates hustling, Soham Parekh is what you get

India Today

07-07-2025

There is a popular adage: Hate the game, don't hate the player. Nowhere has it applied as aptly as it does in the Soham Parekh saga. The man is the talk of the town in San Francisco and Bengaluru. Aka within the IT industry. Reason? Soham is a player who is playing the game of hustling so well that he is its Messi and Ronaldo rolled into one. As mysterious as TS Eliot's Macavity, he is also like the same cat, nowhere and everywhere all at once. Soham is the apex hustler that you get in a world where work is all about hustling and money, and nothing else.advertisementSome call Soham a scammer. Some say he is a genius. Some say he is in the US. Some swear - pinky promise - that they have texts from him confirming that he is in India. Some say he worked 20 hours a day. Some say all his work was farmed out to a team of coders he employed. Soham's CV says he was once at Georgia Tech in the US. The university says it has no such record. Some say Soham is a great engineer. A few others say they fired him within days of hiring him. Yes, Soham is the talk of the town.But before we look at the game, let's try to seize the player. Soham is a 26-year-old software engineer currently based in the US, or so we learn from all the chatter so far. He finished his Bachelor's in computers from the University of Mumbai and, apparently since 2020, is finding a way into internships, fellowships and remote jobs in various Silicon Valley startups.
He has apparently cleared job interviews, which can be quite technical with all the LeetCode questions, over 70 times in the last four years, and at times, he has worked four to five jobs simultaneously, reportedly without informing his employers.In other words, he has hustled, and has not just hustled but has done it in a way that defies all logic or common sense. Somewhat like Macavity of TS Eliot, which could defy the laws of gravity, Soham has flown under the radar all this while. Compared to Macavity, 'there never was a cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.' The words might as well describe Soham.As more and more people from Silicon Valley talked about their own interactions with Soham, the man, the myth, the hero and the villain of the moment, himself stepped forward in an interview on Friday. 'I am not proud of what I've done,' said Soham. '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.'The claim reeks of disingenuity. And it probably is. But is it really the fault of Soham that he gamed the entire Silicon Valley recruitment process? Or that he doesn't care enough about his job - one job - to sit down with it and give it everything he can, instead of doing multiple jobs at the same time and relying on deceits? The question is more complex than you might think. And the answer is more revealing than you might believe.advertisementIn the early 21st century, for this reason and that, we now live in a world where hustling is not only celebrated but is probably even needed if you wish to carve out a space for yourself. Everything, including work, has become ONLY about money. Sure, money has always been an important factor in our lives, but in the last few decades, it has become the ultimate arbiter with which we make our life choices. Everything else has become secondary.If your passion doesn't pay, then it is not worth chasing. If your marriage is not going to bring financial advantage, then it is not a good marriage. If your work is not going to pay you, then you need to get out of it even if it nourishes your soul and gives you joy. In fact, the joy and meaning itself is now all about money.advertisementThere is a culture now that celebrates hustling. It doesn't matter that you make money through OnlyFans. What matters is that you make money. It doesn't matter that you make money jumping through jobs every six months, it doesn't matter that jumping through hoops doesn't let you create anything significant. What matters the most is that you are getting the money.And there is plenty of money to be made this way. Soham understood that brilliantly and early. In an email reportedly sent by Soham to a tech founder, he claimed that he loved building and creating things. But his actions don't match his words. You can't build something great if you are changing the nature of your work and workplace every few months.A few years ago, I was reading Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich. Like her other books, this one too is a collection of oral histories. The book straddles memories of people who lived in Soviet Russia as well as through the time when it disintegrated in the 1990s. In it, whenever people were talking about their life, there was one common thread that emerged. Almost all of them said that their world changed after the 1990s because some core values - commitment, passion, deeply-held belief in a purpose and mission - in their lives were replaced by money. And with money came hustling. Many Russians hated it. One said, 'The world is shit, all people are w****s, and the sun is just a f***ing street light.'advertisementBut the change was also welcomed by many Russians, mostly young or well-connected, who could hustle faster and better than others. There is one named Alisa Z, who is in this camp. 'It's the twenty-first century: It's all about money, sex, and two smoking barrels,' she tells Alexievich. "People are interested in the beautiful life. It's what's on everyone's mind.'Alisa is quite prescient in seeing which way the wind was blowing, and that beautiful life means a life of money. She talks of reading Dead Souls, a story of deceit that Russian children would read in school to understand how people scam each other. 'Dead Souls is a tale of a swindler. That's what they taught us in school,' she says. 'Today, the children are a different breed. (They think) What makes him so bad? He built a pyramid scheme up out of nothing. It's a cool idea for a business!'advertisementSince the early 2000s, the culture of hustling and primacy of money has only grown. As the old world and norms wither away, we are yet again in a world where success means just one thing and one thing only - how much money do you have? In fact, within some industries and societies, monetary success is so necessary and celebrated in such a way that there is no other way but to hustle. 'I hate people who grew up in poverty, their pauper's mentality,' Alisa told the writer of Secondhand Time. 'I don't like the poor, the insulted and the humiliated.'Well, with her words, Alisa might have been channelling the spirit of current Silicon Valley tech founders and technocrats, who walk around carrying the gospel of Peter Thiel. In such a world, Soham did what anyone would do - notice the crack and seize the opportunity. He might not have done anything honourable, but then we live in a dishonourable world and a man gotta do what he gotta do.(Javed Anwer is Technology Editor, India Today Group Digital. Latent Space is a weekly column on tech, world, and everything in between. The name comes from the science of AI and to reflect it, Latent Space functions in the same way: by simplifying the world of tech and giving it a context)- Ends(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)Trending Reel