The a16z Show
00:19:19 · S2, David Booth
[00:19:19] S2: Wow. That's so interesting to me because a lot of this information right now is completely gated away. You can't actually parse it. [00:19:26] S0: There's the... There's there's so many fun layers to this, and and I'm gonna start with a call out to people who are thinking about this kind of stuff. DMs are open, and I wanna chat. But there is... A lot of what Dhruv is talking about rightly is about the search problem. And search is, I think, still a problem, but it's getting easier and easier. There is a new... Yeah. Exa is phenomenal. There's so many different databases that you can you can search across. You've got more powerful models. I think that there's kind of two two ways to find... To get alpha in talent. One of them is like a quant fund. You take the same public information that every other fund has, but you can analyze it [00:20:01] S2: better. Mhmm.
00:20:01 · David Booth
[00:20:01] S0: And I think that as models get better, you... You're gonna be able to analyze the public commoditized talent data. The the thing that I've been thinking a lot about is what does it mean when agents can kind of negotiate with each other on behalf of their owners? So I've been following along so closely with a personal agent wave of the last, like, month. Seems insane that it's only like a let's say, month or two, users hit 10,000,000 users now, I think. There's this line, I I realized that your personal agent could know you extremely well. It could know all of what you want to achieve. It could be that you're asking questions about how to get promotions and how to find new jobs and how to, like, develop skills, but it still doesn't have a way to actually connect with the people that is finding you. The best it can do is draft an email in your inbox and send it to someone else's inbox where maybe an agent picks it up and sends back in. So we realized that recently there was some very early show... Showing of like agent to agent communication and customer success is one. Decagon was one of the first to introduce their agent to agent protocol with news and instincts, and they, you know, their customers who might be big companies like a car rental company, say, and the personal user can just negotiate directly with the agent on the other side. And then we started thinking, go down that rabbit hole, you realize that, well, what if I'm looking for a job, and in fact, like, our agents should connect with... My agent should be able to connect with the company's agent and do a first pass of whether it's worth elevating me to the hiring manager, or maybe it's Dhruv and I are looking to connect, and it's our agents are having a first conversation, whether it's like, what are our mutual goals? What is the the coincidence of intents? And is there one here? Where if there is, then the agents can connect us. So there's a lot of fun to be had here. We're basically, at the moment, prioritizing building at at cosign.co/agents. I don't know if we tweeted that out yet, but people can go there and they can connect their MCP. They can text the the agent. They can find... Ask Cosign, super powerful, just conversational agent built... Baked right in the UI. And there's a lot more coming. Yeah.
00:22:11 · Dhruv Gupta, S2, David Booth
[00:22:11] S3: I mean, on networks right now, the the inbox works the same way for Sam Altman as it does for me as for my 14 year old little sister. Well... And I probably shouldn't. And I think that that's one of our core beliefs as well is that we really want to, like, be able to preserve that signal and make sure that you are meeting the people who you should be meeting and you don't have to spend time looking through a ton of people who you probably shouldn't be meeting. [00:22:37] S2: Definitely. One last thing for you guys since I know we're kind of out of time. What's next for Cosign? What can people expect to see from you all in the next few months? [00:22:46] S0: Well, we've gotta close out these Cosign awards. That's a big one. Voting is open or nominations are open through the end of the month... Sorry, through the end of November. So we've got about three weeks left. Cool. Now the coolest thing about this, by the way, is that everybody who was, like, with the judges' participation selected as the winners of the categories we're gonna invite to bring together. So I think that people don't need another trophy or another certificate. The opportunity to build relationships with the other category winners is the the real thing I'm honestly the most excited about. So that's a big one for us. A lot [00:23:18] S3: of product coming. So much product coming. Yeah. And I can't answer what it's gonna be a week from now, much less a few months from now. All you know is that you're busy.
00:23:18 · Dhruv Gupta, David Booth, S2
[00:23:18] S3: of product coming. So much product coming. Yeah. And I can't answer what it's gonna be a week from now, much less a few months from now. All you know is that you're busy. [00:23:28] S0: What we can say is that the product changes rapidly with feedback. So the more that people can come and share... One of the biggest ones that we've been hearing over and over again is that the onboarding needs to be a lot smoother opportunity to learn how we can help people. So so there's Yeah. A lot of changes coming there. And, yeah, just hit us with your your questions, and we're excited to be building more. [00:23:55] S2: Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for joining us today on announcing the Cosign Awards. I had you on earlier when Cosign first launched, and so excited to have you on again to talk about the latest updates. But thank you so much for joining us. [00:24:07] S0: Haven't announced the winners in a month. [00:24:09] S2: I can't wait. About that. Can't wait. It'll be happening live on MTS. Maybe we'll get a little exclusive. We'll see. It'll be fun.
00:24:09 · S2, Erik Torenberg
[00:24:09] S2: I can't wait. About that. Can't wait. It'll be happening live on MTS. Maybe we'll get a little exclusive. We'll see. It'll be fun. [00:24:17] S1: Thanks for listening to this episode of the a 16 z podcast. If you like this episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating or a review, and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Follow us on x at a sixteen z, and subscribe to our Substack at a16z.substack.com. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode. This information is for educational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy, hold, or sell any investment or financial product. This podcast has been produced by a third party and may include paid promotional advertisements, other company references, and individuals unaffiliated with a16z. Such advertisements, companies, and individuals are not endorsed by Ah Capital Management LLC, a16z, or any of its affiliates. Information is from sources deemed reliable on the date of publication, but a16z does not guarantee its accuracy.