“I mean, on networks right now, the inbox works the same way for Sam Altman as it does for me and for my 14-year-old little sister. And it probably shouldn't.”
a16z Podcast · Startups & Venture · October 2026
Context
The conversation was about agent-native professional networking and how AI agents could make introductions. Gupta uses this to describe a core flaw of existing networks: every inbox treats every sender the same.
Transcript
That's so interesting to me because a lot of this information right now is completely gated away. You can't actually parse it.
…building at cosign.co forward slash agents. I don't know if we've tweeted that out yet, but people can go there and they can connect their MCP. They can text the agent. They can find Ask Cosign, super powerful, just conversational agent baked right into the UI. And there's a lot more coming.
Yeah. I mean, on networks right now, the inbox works the same way for Sam Altman as it does for me and for my 14-year-old little sister. And it probably shouldn't. And I think that that's one of our core beliefs as well: that we really want to 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.
Definitely. One last thing for you guys, since I know we're kind of at time. What's next for Cosign? What can people expect to see from you all in the next few months?
Well, we've got to close out these Cosign Awards. That's a big one. Voting is open or nominations are open through the end of the month. So through the end of November. So we've got about three weeks left.
Cool.
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