Plus: How One Software Engineer Worked With All Of Silicon Valley At The Same Time | Nearly 1 Million Americans Get A Pay Raise | AI Comes For Wimbledon Jobs |
| The hottest job of the summer? AI Ph.D.s. Some of the top AI engineers and researchers are receiving multimillion-dollar offers to switch firms and work for their competitors as the AI talent battle heats up. Fresh off of a $14 million investment into Scale AI, Meta has been leading the charge in acquisitions, reportedly offering $10 million salaries and over $100 million in total compensation packages to folks from Open AI and other major players in the industry. Just this week, Apple lost top AI models executive Ruoming Pang to Meta, according to Bloomberg. And it’s not just Silicon Valley fighting for this tech talent. Universities have long had to compete with lucrative private sector salaries in order to retain the post-doc students conducting research on their campuses. But between hiring freezes and cuts to federal grants, academia is looking less appealing. Some experts are worried it could all lead to an academic brain drain. All of that to say, the people building the machines and large language models probably don’t have to worry about AI taking over their jobs anytime soon. And even if they do, these hefty salaries could ease the blow. If you, like me, don’t have a Ph.D. in machine learning and are wondering how to “AI-proof” your career, I’ll be speaking with Forbes editors, contributors and members about what you can do on Wednesday, July 9 at 1 p.m. EST. You can register for this member-exclusive event here. Happy reading, and hope you have a lovely week! |
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| Practical insights and advice from Forbes staff and contributors to help you succeed in your job, accelerate your career and lead smarter. How to prepare for the rising white-collar gig economy. Could AI decide your next promotion at work? Here’s what you need to know. Being too helpful in the office can hurt your career—here’s how to say no. |
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 | | The case of one engineer working for 3 to 4 startups at the same time is just one instance of how peope are working multiple jobs at once in the search of financial stability. Vector Illustration, GETTY |
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| | | How One Software Engineer Worked With All Of Silicon Valley—At The Same Time |
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| Soham Parekh shocked the startup world last week when multiple founders discovered the Indian coder had been working for multiple companies at the same time. A viral tweet by Suhail Doshi, founder of Playground AI, detailed how he had fired Parekh last year after discovering he was working for multiple companies at once. Other founders were quick to join the conversation, detailing how they’d hired Parekh and discovered his multiple jobs. According to a newly-launched SohamTracker, Parekh has worked at at least 19 companies since 2021, with stints as short as three days and as long as 250. Between the fears of getting laid off, replaced by AI and an uncertain economy, some workers are turning to multiple income streams to protect themselves against sudden financial changes. Polyworking—holding multiple jobs at one time—has become increasingly common, with 47% of surveyed workers by Monster saying they polywork. As the pandemic took the vast majority of jobs online, a number of remote workers discovered they could work for multiple employers at once, and the trend has continued throughout a push for hybrid workplaces and full return-to-office mandates. Polyworking goes beyond part-time workers or freelancers who rely on multiple contracts to meet their monthly expenses and can include folks working multiple full-time jobs. It’s how Parekh explained his multiple employers on a tech podcast, saying that “dire financial circumstances” and mental health struggles led him to work at numerous startups at once. But unlike most remote workers, Parekh attended in-person interviews and worked onsite for a few days before calling in sick and moving on to his next employer, according to the San Francisco Standard. Parekh’s case also showcases the growing worry over hiring fake workers. In the last year, multiple startups looking to hire remote engineers have unknowingly brought on fake workers, opening up privacy and cybersecurity risks for their firms. It’s grown to such a scale that the Department of Justice has charged numerous U.S. and North Korean citizens for participating in schemes to fund the North Korean regime through remote IT work for American companies. |
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| News from the world of work. “Your unemployed friend” TikTok videos, Instagram stories and LinkedIn posts are showing the new reality of the American workforce—nearly 2 million people are unemployed, the most since the pandemic. Recent college graduates under the age of 27 have been hit hardest, of which 5.8% are unemployed compared to all college graduates (2.7%). Still, hiring in June topped analysts’ expectations, as the U.S. added 147,000 nonfarm jobs. While private sector employment shrank, the lift in the Department of Labor’s data defied recession warnings. Though the true impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs remains unclear. After five years of rapid growth, the boom in mental health jobs is coming to a sudden stop. The industry has seen an increase in positions since the start of the pandemic, becoming the fastest-growing industry in the U.S., according to Bloomberg. But more than $12 billion in federal cuts to funding could cause the growth to stall. Did staffing cuts at the National Weather Service play a role in how prepared officials were to respond to the recent deadly floods in Texas? The White House has denied it, but the subject has been at the center of a national debate. Democratic candidate for New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has gained both supporters and enemies after saying in an interview that he doesn’t believe billionaires should exist. The reality of eliminating billionaires in the U.S. will never happen, reports Forbes’ Kyle Khan-Mullins, but here’s how and when it’s been tried before. |
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| Presented by Forbes Vetted | | The Best Amazon Prime Day 2025 Deals, Approved By Our Editors |  | Amazon Prime Day 2025 starts today, July 8, and runs through Friday, July 11, making it a four-day-long sales event—the longest Amazon has ever run. Our editors scoured the retailer’s site to find the best sales on home, fashion, beauty, tech, and more.
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880,000 | That’s how many Americans got a pay raise on July 1 as Alaska, Oregon, Washington, D.C. and 12 other cities and counties raised their minimum wages, according to the Economic Policy Institute. | |
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| | At Wimbledon, which is the latest role to get replaced by AI? | | A. | Tennis coaches | | B. | Line judges | | C. | Commentators | | D. | None of the above |
| | Check if you got it right here. |
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