Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal Clarifies ‘Temple’ Buzz: Prototype, Not Product

In the age of clips, memes, and instant expertise, it takes very little for a private experiment to turn into a public controversy. Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO of Eternal, learnt that firsthand after a brief podcast appearance triggered days of speculation around a small device worn on his temple.

The device—quickly dubbed “Temple” by the internet; went viral after Goyal appeared on entrepreneur Raj Shamani’s podcast. Within hours, social media had decided it was everything from a “brain tracker” to an unproven health gadget, complete with warnings, diagnoses, and buying advice for a product that does not yet exist in the market.

A Clarification, Not A Launch

As commentary escalated, Goyal broke his silence with a post on LinkedIn and X, pushing back against what he described as premature analysis. In a message addressed to “concerned doctors and/or influencers”, he made one thing clear: Temple is still a prototype.

“We haven’t made any public commercial announcements about Temple yet. We haven’t released any official device benchmarking data. A lot of the work is still underway; we’re months away from introducing preview devices to the public, if at all,” Goyal wrote.

He also called out what he saw as the irony of the situation: experts advising people not to buy an “unvalidated” device that cannot be ordered, pre-ordered, or tested by the public. “That’s funny,” he added, underscoring how far the conversation had drifted from the facts.

How A Prototype Became A Talking Point

The controversy highlights how quickly speculation can outpace information, especially when high-profile founders are involved. Temple was never introduced as a product. There was no launch, no pricing, and no claims made to consumers. Yet, within days, it became the subject of heated debate around medical validity, ethics, and wellness innovation.

Some doctors and researchers publicly dismissed the device’s relevance, questioning its scientific grounding and warning against what they saw as premature hype. Their comments, in turn, fuelled further online discussion, less about what Temple actually is and more about what people assumed it might become.

Goyal’s response did not dispute scepticism itself. Instead, he questioned its timing.

“We will share all the science if and when we decide to sell Temple. You can judge and give all your advice at that moment,” he wrote, adding that scepticism is valuable when there is real data to evaluate.

Between Curiosity And Credibility

The episode sits at the intersection of founder curiosity, personal experimentation, and public scrutiny. Goyal has previously indicated that Temple is an experimental device aimed at understanding brain blood flow, part of his personal research interests, rather than a consumer-ready health product.

For now, no scientific datasets, clinical validations, or commercial roadmaps have been released. And according to Goyal, they may not be, unless the project ever moves beyond experimentation.

The Temple debate reflects a broader pattern in the tech ecosystem, where prototypes and internal research can quickly be mistaken for market-ready innovation. In a landscape shaped by short-form video and algorithmic amplification, nuance often gets lost between virality and verification.

For founders operating in emerging or sensitive domains like health tech, the line between transparency and premature exposure is increasingly thin. Goyal’s clarification serves as a reminder that not every device seen in public is a product pitch, and not every experiment is an invitation for judgement.

Until Temple crosses the line from prototype to product, Goyal’s message is simple: stay curious, stay sceptical, but wait for the data.