Dhananja Jayalath

VP of Product, Palmetto · 1 appearance on the record.

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Dhananja "DJ" Jayalath is the co-founder and former CEO and CPO of Athos, a smart fitness apparel company backed by Social Capital and DCM Ventures. He later transitioned into clean technology, leading product initiatives at residential energy platform Palmetto.

8statements → 2claims → 1claims resolved → 4.12/5average certainty → 1.75/5average debate potential → 4.2/5argument clarity · the sources →

0 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 1 assertion · 1 opinion · 1 insight · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertion are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Dhananja argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.2 / 5 directness 4.6 · coherence 4.4 · precision 3.6 · compression 3.4

answered every one of 14 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

250 words/min while actually speaking · 15.4 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 2,848 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

Everything Dhananja Jayalath said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Disclosure
Athos secured seed investment from Chamath Palihapitiya within three hours of meeting
“We got here. I think we had a seed deal about three hours afterwards.”
Dhananja Jayalath Aug 5, 2016 ▶ 6:22 20VC: Turning Down Apple & Getting Funded By Chamath @ Social Capital with Dhananja Jayalath, Co-Founder & CEO @ Athos
Opinion
Jayalath rejects Marc Andreessen's thesis that software distinguishes hardware winners
“I kind of don't think about it in terms of that. I think people buy experiences and people want to be part of experiences.”
Dhananja Jayalath Aug 5, 2016 ▶ 11:58 20VC: Turning Down Apple & Getting Funded By Chamath @ Social Capital with Dhananja Jayalath, Co-Founder & CEO @ Athos
Insight
Jayalath: New tech adoption relies on integrating into existing routines
“It's very hard to get people to adopt new technology if they have to build a new habit around it. But if you integrate into existing routine, they're much more likely to use it.”
Dhananja Jayalath Aug 5, 2016 ▶ 4:31 20VC: Turning Down Apple & Getting Funded By Chamath @ Social Capital with Dhananja Jayalath, Co-Founder & CEO @ Athos
Disclosure
Athos founders rejected signed job offers at Apple to launch startup
“Chris and I had already signed job offers to join. I was going to join Apple. Chris was going to be joining analog devices. Idea was like, let's just like make some money and work on this on the side so that, you know, we can make a better prototype and figure…”
Dhananja Jayalath Aug 5, 2016 ▶ 6:30 20VC: Turning Down Apple & Getting Funded By Chamath @ Social Capital with Dhananja Jayalath, Co-Founder & CEO @ Athos
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jayalath: No manufacturing process existed for smart clothing before Athos
“No one has ever integrated technology Into clothing the way we've done it. There was no manufacturing process when we started doing it.”
Dhananja Jayalath Aug 5, 2016 ▶ 7:35 20VC: Turning Down Apple & Getting Funded By Chamath @ Social Capital with Dhananja Jayalath, Co-Founder & CEO @ Athos
Prediction Partly held up
Jayalath: Athos will focus on high school athletes market
“We're really focused on capturing and really enabling high school athletes to perform at their best. How do we do that Is going to evolve over time as we expand the market of all these high school athletes that really could use the best trainers, training them…”
Dhananja Jayalath Aug 5, 2016 ▶ 19:10 20VC: Turning Down Apple & Getting Funded By Chamath @ Social Capital with Dhananja Jayalath, Co-Founder & CEO @ Athos
Disclosure
Jayalath: Athos manufactures smart clothing with Sri Lanka's MAS
“We work with one of the best manufacturers in the world. They call it MAS based in Sri Lanka, and they do work for Nike, Lululemon.”
Dhananja Jayalath Aug 5, 2016 ▶ 7:46 20VC: Turning Down Apple & Getting Funded By Chamath @ Social Capital with Dhananja Jayalath, Co-Founder & CEO @ Athos
Disclosure
Athos Charges for Apparel and Hardware While Offering Software for Free
“We're really just focused on like, right now it's like, let's sell, let's go through a very traditional model where the clothing and the hardware you purchase, the physical product and the software is completely free.”
Dhananja Jayalath Aug 5, 2016 ▶ 13:38 20VC: Turning Down Apple & Getting Funded By Chamath @ Social Capital with Dhananja Jayalath, Co-Founder & CEO @ Athos

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Turning Down Apple & Getting Funded By Chamath @ Social Capital with Dhananja Jayala Aug 5, 2016 13m
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