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Nik Pash, AI head at Cline, was fired after his racist comment on a hackathon photo sparked outrage on social media. But the sacking triggered a chain reaction of debates over what many called mob justice and overreaction to a 'harmless' comment.
The San Francisco Hackathon photo on which the Cline AI chief posted a racist comment. (Image: X via taycaldwell)
New Delhi,UPDATED: Dec 16, 2025 07:33 IST
Nik Pash, the AI head at Cline, an open-source autonomous LLM (large language model) coding tool, could never have imagined that a three-word comment on a photo of techies would spark a firestorm on social media and even cost him his job. "Imagine the smell", Pash wrote under an X post about a San Francisco hackathon where most participants were from Indian and South Asian communities.
Pash likely assumed the remark was "casual" and "harmless", but the backlash over the racist comment snowballed into a major controversy, and Pash is now reportedly booted out of Cline AI.
Cline AI CEO, Saoud Rizwan, tried to defend Pash, saying his comment had been gravely misunderstood, and that packed events like Hackathons always "smelled bad", but his efforts were in vain, and Pash was reportedly sacked.
But the decision to sack Pash only intensified the debate and triggered a chain reaction of anoth round of anti-India trolling, with social media users alleging mob justice and an overreaction to "an innocent joke".
WHAT DOES "IMAGINE THE SMELL" REMARK MEAN
"Imagine the smell" is an all-too-common dog whistle used by racists across the world, and particularly in the US to dehumanise Indians, people of Indian origin, or South Asian origin.
The remark stems from colonial propaganda and stereotypical depictions of Indians in Western media as being "poor", "dirty" and "unhygienic" and eating "strong-smelling food".
The phrase found a new lease of life in the 2010s on platforms like Reddit, where it became an easy way to insult entire communities while keeping plausible deniability.
It is a hidden jab designed to trigger disgust and reinforce prejudice against Indians and South Asians without saying anything outright.
HOW NIK PASH'S REMARK LED TO HIS FIRING
The controversy began when an X user named "Taylor" shared a picture showing a packed hall of participants, with the caption, "A full audience of hardcore builders and engineers at the @xai hackathon!".
Most of the participants of this hackathon, as apparent from the shared image, were composed mostly of individuals of Indian or South Asian origin.
In Nik Pash was quick to comment, "Image the smell".
The consequences came flowing thick and fast. Users were quick to point out the racist undertones of Pash's remark and pointed out that coming from a senior AI executive, the remark wasn't just offensive but irresponsible, reinforcing prejudice in a tech industry that relies heavily on Indian talent.
Pash responded by doubling down on his words, arguing that his comment was at worse, a harmless joke, refused to apologise or remove the remark, and dismissed any concerns made by his critics.
His superior and Cline AI founder and CEO Saoud Rizwan joined in, arguing similarly that Pash's jokes were being taken out of context.
A tweet by Rizwan, which is now deleted, announced Pash was being let go.
In the tweet, Rizwan acknowledged that while he was still of the opinion that Pash's remark wasn't by any means offensive, but his refusal to apologise did not align with Cline AI's values, leading to his dismissal.
Rizwan also condemned users for harassing Pash, and ended the tweet with an apology, saying, "To everyone who was hurt by this
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Published By:
Anand Singh
Published On:
Dec 16, 2025
