Inside Temple’s Controversial Hiring Criteria: Why Deepinder Goyal Wants Engineers Who Are Also Athletes

February 28, 2026

On the same day Deepinder Goyal announced a stunning $54 million funding round for his health-tech startup Temple, he dropped another bombshell—one that has sparked intense debate across India’s tech and startup communities.

Temple, which is building a cutting-edge wearable to track cerebral blood flow and other biomarkers for elite athletes, is recruiting engineers with an unusual twist: candidates must meet specific physical fitness benchmarks, including body fat percentages, alongside strong coding skills .

Those who don’t meet the fitness criteria can still join but will remain on probation until requirements are met. The move has ignited conversations about inclusivity, discrimination, corporate culture, and what it means to build products for high-performance users .

The Hiring Criteria: What Temple Is Asking For

The Fitness Benchmarks

In a sweeping hiring call posted on X (formerly Twitter) hours before the funding announcement, Temple laid out specific fitness requirements for applicants :

Gender	Body Fat Requirement
Male	Below 16%
Female	Below 26%

The Probation Clause

For candidates who don’t meet these criteria but are still interested, Temple offers a pathway:

“If you don’t meet the fitness criteria but want the job, you can still apply. You’ll get three months on probation to hit the numbers; if you don’t, you’re out” .

This means candidates effectively have a 90-day window to transform their body composition while simultaneously proving their engineering capabilities.

The Roles

Temple is hiring across a wide spectrum of engineering and science roles :

Analog Systems Engineers
Electronics Design Engineers
Embedded Systems Engineers
Design and Validation Engineers
CMF (Color, Material, Finish) Engineers
Adhesive Materials Engineers
Sensor Algorithms Engineers
Deep Learning Engineers
Computational Neuroscientists
Computer Vision Engineers
Neuroimaging ML Engineers
Product Managers (who must independently use Figma without relying on a separate design team)

The Rationale

Goyal’s explanation for the unusual criteria is straightforward:

“We are building for people who push their bodies to the edge. We want to be those people, not just serve them” .

The philosophy: if you’re building products for elite athletes, you should understand—through lived experience—what it means to push the human body to its limits. This isn’t about discrimination; it’s about alignment between product and team .

The Debate: Reactions from the Tech Community

Supporters: “Pure Skin in the Game”

Many in the startup community have defended Goyal’s approach, framing it as a legitimate cultural fit requirement for a company building athletic performance tools.

One observer described it as “pure skin in the game” and a “massive signal of alignment,” especially given the execution risks associated with hardware-plus-neuro innovation .

Raj Shamani, a Temple investor and popular content creator, posted a video dissecting the criteria, suggesting that for a company building the “ultimate wearable for elite athletes,” having a team that embodies that lifestyle makes strategic sense .

Supporters argue that:

Startups have the right to define their culture
Mission alignment is a legitimate hiring criterion
Physical readiness may be relevant for testing products in extreme conditions
Transparency about expectations helps candidates self-select

Critics: Discrimination and Exclusion

The backlash has been equally passionate. Critics raise several concerns:

Concern	Argument
Discrimination	Body fat requirements may disproportionately exclude women, older workers, and people with certain medical conditions
Relevance	Questioning whether body fat percentage correlates with engineering ability
Legality	Potential violation of labour laws in some jurisdictions
Inclusivity	Sends message that only certain body types belong in tech
Health assumptions	Body fat percentage alone doesn’t measure fitness or health

An AIIMS radiologist publicly called the underlying device a “toy” with “zero scientific standing,” though this criticism was directed at the product rather than the hiring practice .

Others have pointed out that requiring specific body composition metrics may run afoul of equal opportunity employment principles, particularly if the requirements aren’t demonstrably tied to job performance.

The Nuanced Middle

Between the extremes lies a more nuanced view:

Mission alignment matters, but could be measured through demonstrated interest in fitness rather than specific body composition
Startup culture can be distinctive without being exclusionary
Transparency is valuable, but so is inclusivity
Physical readiness might be relevant for some roles (product testing) but not others (embedded systems coding)

The Context: Why Temple Cares About Fitness

The Product: Built for Elite Athletes

Temple is developing a non-invasive wearable device that users wear on their temples to measure cerebral blood flow in real time . The device is designed for:

Elite performance athletes pushing physical and cognitive limits
Optimising recovery under extreme stress
Monitoring brain response to training loads

The company’s stated goal is to build “the ultimate wearable for elite performance athletes” —measuring what no other wearable in the world measures, with precision that doesn’t yet exist .

The Team Philosophy

Goyal’s rationale rests on a simple premise: you can’t build authentically for a user you don’t understand. If your users are athletes pushing their bodies to the edge, your team should include people who understand—through lived experience—what that feels like.

This isn’t unique to Temple. Companies building for specific user segments often hire from within those communities:

Outdoor brands hire climbers and hikers
Gaming companies hire competitive gamers
Fitness apps hire trainers and athletes

Temple is simply extending that logic to include physical readiness as a hiring consideration.

The Continuum of “Fit”

Most companies assess “cultural fit” through interviews, personality assessments, and values alignment. Temple is adding a physiological dimension to that assessment.

Whether this is innovative or overreach depends on one’s perspective. Proponents see it as alignment; critics see it as discrimination.

The Legal and Ethical Dimensions

Employment Law Considerations

In India, the legal framework around hiring criteria is less prescriptive than in some Western jurisdictions. The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 prohibits discrimination based on gender for same or similar work, but doesn’t explicitly address physical appearance or body composition.

However, companies must still ensure that hiring criteria are:

Job-related and consistent with business necessity
Applied consistently across all candidates
Not disproportionately excluding protected groups

Temple’s criteria may face challenges on the second and third points. Body fat requirements could disproportionately affect women (for whom healthy body fat ranges are naturally higher) and older workers (for whom body composition changes with age).

The DEI Lens

From a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) perspective, the criteria raise red flags:

Diversity —May reduce diversity of body types, ages, and potentially gender representation
Equity —Candidates with medical conditions affecting body composition may be unfairly excluded
Inclusion —Sends message that certain bodies don’t belong

The Startup Exemption

Startups often argue for greater flexibility in defining culture, particularly in early stages when every hire shapes the organization’s DNA. Temple’s defenders note that:

Early-stage startups have more latitude to define distinctive cultures
Mission-driven ventures can legitimately prioritize alignment
Transparency allows candidates to self-select out if uncomfortable

What This Means for Different Stakeholders

For Candidates

Self-selection is critical—if the criteria don’t resonate, there are many other companies
Transparency about expectations helps you make informed decisions
Physical readiness may be part of the job for product-testing roles
Legal rights —if you feel discriminated against, consult employment counsel

For Temple

Brand perception will be shaped by how this is communicated and implemented
Talent pool may be narrowed, but potentially deepened in alignment
Legal risk exists but is likely manageable in India’s current framework
Culture will be distinctive—for better or worse

For the Tech Community

Sets precedent for other startups considering similar criteria
Sparks important conversations about inclusion in tech
Tests boundaries of what’s acceptable in hiring
Generates attention—which may be partly the point

For Investors

Founder conviction is clearly high—Goyal invested ₹104 crore personally
Execution risk remains significant regardless of hiring approach
Market reception will ultimately judge the product, not the hiring process

The Broader Trend: Wellness Culture in Tech

Temple’s hiring criteria reflect a broader trend of wellness culture permeating the tech industry.

Silicon Valley’s Biohacking Obsession

In Silicon Valley, biohacking—optimizing the body through technology, supplements, and lifestyle interventions—has long been a fascination of the tech elite. Founders track sleep, glucose, ketones, and heart rate variability with religious devotion.

Companies like Whoop, Oura, and Levels have built billion-dollar businesses serving this obsession. Temple’s device—tracking cerebral blood flow—represents the next frontier of this movement.

The “Founder Lifestyle” as Brand

Successful founders increasingly embody their products:

Elon Musk works at Tesla factories and talks about production hell
Sam Altman preaches longevity and takes supplements publicly
Tim Cook is known for his 4 AM wake-up and fitness regimen

Goyal’s own transformation—from Zomato CEO to longevity researcher to fitness-focused founder—mirrors this pattern. His personal commitment (including the ₹104 crore investment) gives him credibility to ask for physical commitment from employees.

The Risks of Overreach

But there’s a fine line between mission alignment and overreach. When wellness culture becomes mandatory, it can:

Exclude people who don’t fit the mold
Create pressure to conform to unrealistic standards
Mask discrimination as “culture fit”
Divert attention from actual job performance

What This Means for Product Development

Dogfooding at Scale

Tech companies have long practiced dogfooding—using your own products to understand them better. Temple is extending this principle to the entire team.

If every engineer experiences the product in their own training, they’ll:

Understand user pain points intuitively
Spot bugs more quickly
Feel motivated by seeing their own data improve
Build empathy for athletes using the device

The Testing Advantage

Having a fitness-focused team also enables:

Continuous testing of prototypes during workouts
Rapid iteration based on real-world feedback
Validation across diverse activities (running, weightlifting, sports)
Credibility with early-adopter athletes

The Representative Risk

The counter-argument: if your team consists only of people with low body fat, you may miss insights relevant to:

Recreational athletes with different body compositions
Returning athletes recovering from injury
Older users with age-related changes
Users with medical conditions affecting fitness

A truly representative team might include diverse body types, all using the product in their own contexts.

The Funding Context: Why This Matters Now

Temple’s hiring controversy landed on the same day as its $54 million funding announcement—a deliberate or fortunate coincidence that amplified both stories.

The Funding Round

Aspect	Details
Amount	$54 million
Valuation	$190 million
Investors	Peak XV, Steadview, Info Edge, Dharana Capital; founders including Kunal Shah, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Nithin Kamath, Varun Alagh
Goyal’s Investment	₹104 crore (21% of round)
Employee Participation	30+ Temple employees at par valuation

The Connection

The hiring criteria and funding are connected in Goyal’s mind:

“Their own money. That’s the kind of belief you can’t buy” —referring to employees investing at par.

If employees are willing to put their own money into the company and transform their bodies to meet its standards, that’s the deepest possible alignment.

The Road Ahead for Temple

Hiring Challenges

Temple now faces the practical challenge of recruiting world-class engineers who also meet physical criteria. This narrows the talent pool significantly—especially for specialized roles like computational neuroscientists and neuroimaging ML engineers, where supply is limited regardless of fitness.

The company will need to:

Attract candidates who resonate with the mission
Retain those who join through the probation period
Support their fitness journeys without overstepping
Measure outcomes to validate the approach

Product Development

Meanwhile, the core work continues: building a wearable that accurately measures cerebral blood flow, miniaturizing the technology, achieving clinical validation, and ultimately bringing it to market.

The device has faced scepticism from some medical professionals, with an AIIMS radiologist calling it a “toy” with “zero scientific standing” . Temple will need to address these concerns through rigorous testing and published research.

Market Positioning

Temple’s distinctive culture could become a brand asset—positioning the company as authentically athlete-focused, staffed by people who live the lifestyle they’re building for.

If successful, this could create a powerful narrative: “Built by athletes, for athletes, by people who understand what it takes.”

Conclusion: A Signal of Deep Conviction

Temple’s unusual hiring criteria have sparked debate—and that debate is itself revealing. It shows that people care deeply about who gets to build technology, what qualifies as fair hiring, and how companies should balance mission alignment with inclusion.

Deepinder Goyal’s position is clear: for a company building the ultimate athletic wearable, the team should include athletes. Not exclusively—the criteria apply to specific roles, not the entire organization—but meaningfully.

Whether this approach proves visionary or exclusionary will depend on execution. If Temple hires a diverse team of athletes and non-athletes alike, with clear pathways for those who don’t meet initial criteria, the controversy may fade. If the criteria become a barrier that screens out talented engineers without clear justification, the backlash will intensify.

For now, Temple has achieved what every startup needs: attention. The conversation is happening, the brand is being defined, and the world is watching.

As Goyal might say, that’s the kind of belief you can’t buy.