Latest news with #YCombinator‑backed
News18
29-07-2025
- Business
- News18
‘Outwork System, Outbuild Giants': Soham Parekh's Advice For Tech Workers Amid Layoffs
Last Updated: TCS plans to lay off 12,000 employees, about 2 percent of its workforce, to realign its strategy amid evolving tech needs. Tech giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has announced to lay off around 12,000 employees—or roughly 2 per cent of its global workforce—over the course of the current financial year. The move is part of the company's broader effort to realign its workforce strategy and position itself as a 'future-ready" organisation, amid evolving technology and operational requirements. The industry is in shock with many criticising the move while others see it as inevitable with the rise of artificial intelligence in the sector. Meanwhile, Soham Parekh, the Indian tech professional who shot to infamy for working full-time at multiple startups simultaneously, weighed in on the layoffs news and offered advice to tech professionals. Reacting to a post that claimed 'TCS will freeze the hiring of experienced personnel and pause annual salary increases globally," Parekh advised techies to outwork the system. 'Don't wait for handouts. Learn fast. Build harder. Your skills are your leverage. Outwork the system. Outlearn the gatekeepers. Outbuild the giants," he said in a post on X. His reaction came after TCS confirmed that the layoffs will primarily affect middle and senior management positions. The company stated that rehiring for these roles would not be feasible. 'Several reskilling and redeployment programs have been in progress. However, some associates will be released as their roles cannot be restructured to match future demands," TCS said in its official statement. The decision, which marks one of the largest retrenchment drives in TCS's history, comes amid multiple structural challenges — ranging from margin pressures and skill mismatches to disruption from artificial intelligence (AI). TCS currently employs over 6.13 lakh people. Who Is Soham Parekh? Soham Parekh, an Indian software engineer based in Mumbai, made the headlines after he was publicly accused by Suhail Doshi, co-founder of Playground AI and former Mixpanel CEO, of secretly working full-time at 3–4 US-based startups simultaneously, including Y Combinator‑backed firms such as Dynamo AI and Synthesia. Parekh admitted to this in an interview, explaining that dire financial hardship forced him into the arrangement and that he often worked 140-hour weeks. While some praised his technical skill, most expressed concern over the ethical breach. view comments First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
News18
16-07-2025
- Business
- News18
‘My Life Hasn't Changed One Bit': Techie Soham Parekh Reflects On Life After Moonlighting Row
Social media users responded with a mix of concern and relatability. One person wrote, 'This is either peak dedication or a cry for help." Soham Parekh, the Indian tech professional who shot to infamy for working full-time at multiple startups simultaneously, is back in the spotlight. The techie, who had previously admitted to juggling several roles across companies—causing widespread debate over moonlighting in the startup world—has now opened up about his life post-scandal. In his latest post on X (formerly Twitter), Parekh claimed that life after the controversy has remained largely unchanged. 'My life hasn't changed one bit," he wrote, sharing a screenshot of a conversation where someone asked him how he manages to work so much. Parekh's response was simple: 'I love what I do. Lol," followed by, 'I don't have anything else to do." The post, while casual in tone, struck a chord with many online, reigniting conversations about work-life balance, hustle culture, and the emotional toll of modern work habits. Social media users responded with a mix of concern and relatability. One person wrote, 'This is either peak dedication or a cry for help," while another questioned whether Parekh ever felt lonely or burned out. Some, however, empathised with his mindset, saying his words were 'so relatable" and reflective of the all-consuming nature of professional life for many in the tech space. Parekh's latest remarks come months after he first broke his silence and admitted that he had not taken on multiple jobs to scam anyone, but out of a personal drive to work. His honesty, however controversial, continues to stir debate around ethics, productivity, and the pressures of today's hyper-competitive work environment. What's The Soham Parekh Case Soham Parekh, an Indian software engineer based in Mumbai, was publicly accused by Suhail Doshi, co-founder of Playground AI and former Mixpanel CEO, of secretly working full-time at 3–4 US-based startups simultaneously, including Y Combinator‑backed firms such as Dynamo AI and Synthesia. Parekh admitted to this in an interview, explaining that dire financial hardship forced him into the arrangement and that he often worked 140-hour weeks. While some praised his technical skill, most expressed concern over the ethical breach. view comments First Published: July 16, 2025, 08:48 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Arabian Post
25-06-2025
- Business
- Arabian Post
Privacy‑First Code Editing Gains Traction
Void, a Y Combinator‑backed, open‑source AI code editor, has entered beta testing, promising developers full control over their code and data while delivering advanced AI capabilities. Launched this month, it positions itself as a credible contender to proprietary rivals like Cursor and GitHub Copilot. Developers can now choose whether to host models locally via tools like Ollama and LM Studio, or connect directly to APIs for Claude, GPT, Gemini and others, bypassing third‑party data pipelines entirely. Built as a fork of Visual Studio Code, Void offers compatibility with existing themes, extensions and key‑bindings. It supports familiar developer workflows—integrated terminal, Git tools, language‑server support—and overlays powerful AI‑driven features such as inline coding suggestions, chat assistant capabilities, and agent modes that understand a full codebase. Unlike most proprietary editors, Void is fully open source, enabling users to inspect and modify prompts, index their own files, and control how AI interacts with their repositories. The founders—twins Andrew and Mathew Pareles—come from Cornell and previously launched a platform for technical interview preparation. Their vision: create an open‑source IDE compatible with Cursor and Copilot features, without locking user data into a closed backend. A LinkedIn preview indicates upcoming support for a third‑party extension marketplace, with integrations including Greptile for codebase search and DocSearch for documentation retrieval. ADVERTISEMENT Developers testing Void praise its responsiveness and privacy focus. One review demonstrates connecting Void to a local Gemma 3 12B LLM via LM Studio, allowing summarisation and inline code queries without data leaving their machine. Performance reportedly improves significantly on proper GPU drivers. On Hacker News and Reddit, users highlight the freedom to self‑host AI models and steer clear of vendor‑locked services. Some caution that deep integration with the VS Code UI may present long‑term maintenance challenges. Meanwhile, competitors press ahead. Cursor, a proprietary AI IDE developed by Anysphere Inc, recently rolled out version 1.0 on 4 June 2025 after raising its valuation to US $9 billion in May. It features agent‑mode tasks and SOC 2 certified privacy options. However, its closed‑source nature means all processing occurs on remote backends, which some developers view as a risk. Security analyses of AI‑generated code caution that tools like Copilot and Cursor can introduce vulnerabilities. An empirical study found that nearly 30 per cent of AI‑generated Python code contained security issues, such as injection flaws, underscoring the need for developer scrutiny. Void mitigates some of these concerns by granting users full transparency and editability over prompts and code flows. This setup may help reduce hallucinated or insecure output, provided developers systematically inspect and test the results. Academic research also reveals broader concerns: open‑source extensions, including AI‑powered ones, have sometimes exposed sensitive keys in IDE environments. Void's model, which processes data locally unless explicitly routed to trusted APIs, could lessen this risk compared to cloud‑first tools whose extension frameworks may inadvertently leak secrets. Void's roadmap includes planned features like multi‑file operations, checkpointing for AI‑powered edits, and visual diff tools. Community contributions are encouraged via GitHub, and weekly contributor meetups are hosted on Discord. Adoption so far has drawn interest from privacy‑focused and FOSS‑oriented developers who value self‑hosting. Questions remain about long‑term maintainability, performance optimisation, and whether the editor can match the polish and ecosystem of its proprietary competitors. However, early signs indicate strong potential for reshaping the AI‑IDE landscape by prioritising transparency and user control over convenience and lock‑in.
