Jonathan Downey

Founder & CEO, Airware · 2 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

Jonathan Downey is the founder and CEO of Airware. He works on enterprise use cases and systems for commercial drones.

4statements → 2claims → 2claims resolved → 3.5/5average certainty → 1.75/5average debate potential →

2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 1 assertion · 1 opinion · 1 insight · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertion are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved. 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 Jonathan argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Downey: The FAA granted over 4,000 commercial drone exemptions by mid-2016

“Yeah, so the section three 33 exemption process was created last fall, and now just, you know, nine months later or so, there's over 4000 granted exemptions in the U.S. For commercial use of drones across a variety of different industries”

Jonathan Downey Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 5:47 a16z Podcast | Airspace as the Next Internet-Like Platform

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

100% certainty 3

100% certainty 4

none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

249 words/min while actually speaking · 11.7 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Jonathan Downey: only 1 usable question→answer exchange on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews.

Measured by listening to 3,676 words across 2 episodes, but every recording we have of Jonathan Downey is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

What they said4 Episodes2

Everything Jonathan Downey said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported

Downey: The FAA granted over 4,000 commercial drone exemptions by mid-2016

Jonathan Downey Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 5:47 a16z Podcast | Airspace as the Next Internet-Like Platform

Insight

Downey: Tech controls will overcome drone privacy concerns just as with GPS

“I think that the same thing is playing out here with drone use, which is to say, yes, this is a technology that could be used to invade people's privacy, but with some basically, you know, technology controls on it can also add a tremendous amount of value to …”

Jonathan Downey Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 30:27 a16z Podcast | Airspace as the Next Internet-Like Platform

Opinion

Downey: Privacy laws should be technology-agnostic regardless of whether drones are used

“These types of laws should be technology agnostic. Shouldn't matter whether it's binoculars used or whether it's a drone used or a ladder.”

Jonathan Downey Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 31:47 a16z Podcast | Airspace as the Next Internet-Like Platform

Prediction Held up

Downey: Major enterprises will deploy commercial drones operationally by late 2017

“So I think that's the thing that's most exciting to me and something that I also expect we're going to see in the next 18 months. Commercial companies actually move forward with, you know, commercial drones and aerial data as a way of doing business.”

Jonathan Downey Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 33:56 a16z Podcast | Airspace as the Next Internet-Like Platform

Appearances (2)