a16z General Partner Erik Torenberg announced the launch of Cosign, a curated professional network aimed at the startup community, featuring directories of investors, companies, and operators, documenting what each person has done and who they have worked with.

The core of the platform is the Cosign Map: who shaped your career path, who truly collaborated with you on projects, who is willing to work with you again, and who believes you are worth watching. The site includes profiles of both companies and individuals, with example profiles generated from public funding, job changes, and public statements, without requiring prior registration.

Torenberg stated that high-quality endorsements appearing daily on X get lost in the information flow, while Cosign permanently attaches these signals to individuals and companies. The discovery layer answers who the best fintech angels are, which AI companies to watch, and who the best designers are. The intention network allows private tagging of "I would invest in him," "I would hire him," "I would work with him," and in the future could extend to "I would acquire this company," facilitating mutual interest.

Joining requires being cosigned by others, but direct applications are also accepted. He and David Booth had a similar idea seven years ago, but lacked the computational power and organizational capability to realize it; now they have it. He likens the product to a combination of Wikipedia, LinkedIn, and early AngelList, emphasizing that Cosign is a community rather than a company selling ads. Concurrently, a16z released a discussion featuring Josh Elman, Olivia Moore, and Booth discussing the product's form.

Profiles only provide positive endorsements. The three main signals are who has worked with you, who is willing to fight alongside you again, and who is an unpriced observation target. An early "people worth watching" experiment was conducted around 2019 via email, where a Tesla engineer later became the president of Cognition, illustrating the value of early record-keeping.

In market mechanics, buyers are founders and investors looking for talent, projects, and collaborators, while sellers are recommenders willing to stake their reputation on specific individuals. The event-driven nature arises from recruitment being overwhelmed by AI, diluted LinkedIn signals, and the inability of X endorsements to solidify. Capital and attention flow towards individuals and companies that can be named and endorsed, with early discoverers gaining traceable social capital; those without signatures from insiders face pressure, and LinkedIn-style self-statement profiles are relatively downgraded.

Source: Public Information