Indian man lists himself as CEO of US startup in prime example of gaslighting

An Indian man listed himself as the CEO of Anysphere on LinkedIn and managed to gaslight even financial data provider PitchBook.

Updated on: Nov 20, 2025, 14:46:59 IST

By Sanya Jain

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An Indian man listed himself as the CEO of Anysphere on LinkedIn and managed to gaslight even financial data provider PitchBook, underscoring how not everything you see on the internet is true.

Ashish Bagade listed himself as the CEO of Anysphere on LinkedIn.

Ashish Bagade is a Pune-based man who has put himself down as the chief executive officer of Anysphere, the $29 billion company behind AI coding assistant Cursor.

Ashish Bagade calls himself CEO of Anysphere

His blatant act of misdirection was first noticed by venture capitalist Zach DeWitt, who posted about it on the social media platform X. “A random guy (Ashish Bagade) from India lists himself as Co-CEO of Cursor (Anysphere) on LinkedIn,” DeWitt pointed out, sharing a screenshot of Bagade’s LinkedIn profile.

The real CEO of Anysphere is Michael Truell. Truell launched the San Francisco-based startup in 2022 along with his MIT batchmates.

While LinkedIn has no checks and verifications, which means anyone can list themselves as an employee at any company, Bagade managed to fool even a respected database like PitchBook.

DeWitt, founder of Firefly and now a partner at Wing Venture Capital, noted how PitchBook — a website checked by most venture capitalists — lists Bagade as a co-CEO at Anysphere.

Internet amused

Ashish Bagade’s blatant lie left many amused. Some called it a prime example of gaslighting, while others called him a successor to Soham Parekh. (Also read: Indian techie Soham Parekh accused by at least 5 US CEOs of moonlighting: 'Holy sh*t, we hired this guy a week ago')

“It always felt weird to me that on LinkedIn anyone can just set any job title they want. No verification at all,” one X user said.

“LinkedIn has zero verification when it comes to titles and job experience. Anyone can claim to be anything over there. But Pitchbook including it is stupid. Basically they have no credibility anymore if they can’t even verify anything,” another agreed.

“Lemme add myself as Co-CEO of OpenAI,” X user Priyanshu joked.

“This is insane - one can just do anything with their digital presence,” a person added.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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