Sanjay Dayal – Sumer Johal’s friend

Sanjay Dayal did Computer Science from IIT, Delhi. He did his coaching at Brilliant Tutorials. 

His Hiring at Xamplify, Berkeley

After I was hired at rock bottom salary of $1,000 a week, less than a fresh graduate earned that time) by Sumer Johal who cited company’s difficult financial situation. Soon afterwards he told our system programmer to place and ad for a computer engineer. In front of me Sumer told him to put “Must be IIT graduate” and “Must know weblogic” in the ad. We never used weblogic – before or later.

Sanjay Dayal was hired at $120,000 per year, more than twice my salary. He had no work to do. To pass time he smoked frequently and drank coffee at Starbucks. He took me to Starbucks and paid for my coffee. At my salary paying for coffee was ruled out.

He drove his Acura car to Starbucks, about 3-4 blocks away in Berkeley downtown. In Berkeley parking situation was very tight. He took out the handicapped placard which his ex-wife, a medical doctor, a Punjabi , had issued for his parent’s visit to US just a few months ago. He could park almost everywhere. We enjoyed coffee – very slowly. After a could of hours when we went back Sumer Johal will just smile at us.

After some time Sumer told the management that Sanjay Dayal had a groundbreaking idea – Databases “listen” or “whisper”, exact details I don’t recall. One day Jefferey Bruce Klein, when he was not eating his bagels, in evening came to my desk and asked about Sanjay Dayal and his database “whispering.” I kept a straight face and told his that Sanjay is a genius (‘at smoking non-stop this part I forgot to mention), he is a Computer guy from IIT, Delhi, I guess he is up to something big. And I got ready to watch the show.

Jeffrey Klein hired a patents lawyer. Sanjay, Sumer, Jeffrey Klein, Julian Brookes, the journalist guy from Cambridge were present in these meetings. Things were kept away from me.I don’t know what happened but would guess the lawyers made money.

It appears that his silent listener showed by on the web site as the next big thing useful for catching money laundering. Andrew Rudd, Bob Oliver, big names in finance, joined, and lost money to Sanjay Dayal.

Seven months after I had quit, I went to the local hospital – Highland hospital – and confirmed what I had suspected a few months ago – that I had suffered a heart attack. Just one reading and doctors knew. Wrote to Bob Oliver to help me. Seemed like he wanted to help financially and wanted me to get a high paying job at a financial institution.

Sanjay Dayal interfered. He told Bob that he was a very good friend of mine (had not talked to me over 7 months since Sumer was kicked out of the company). He called me and told me he wanted to talk to me on Bob Oliver’s order. I made the mistake and agreed.

He came, we met at the coffee shop, he expressed his disbelief at my heart attack. He left and that was the last I heard from him and Bob. I am guessing that he told Bob that I was lying to extort money from him.

His job continued till Bob’s money got over. I survived next three years without job and no money. I was almost homeless until I got a job at Option One Mortgage. Could not go to India for a family emergency. More of that later.