Voice Onboarding Unlocks Deeper Skill Matching

Traditional platforms like LinkedIn, GLG, Third Bridge, and AlphaSights rely on job titles and forms, yielding shallow matches. Ethos uses AI-driven voice interviews with curated questions to extract sub-specializations, public data from blogs/papers/social, and natural language processing for complex queries. This handles requests like 'people who worked at funded startups by top VCs in finance automation' or pharma doctors with subject papers and drug development knowledge. Voice captures authentic expertise people can't articulate in writing, as a16z's Anish Acharya notes: 'Voice is the original form of human communication.' Result: better matches for hedge funds, PE firms, AI labs, and consultants paying 30%+ project fees.

Rapid Scaling Fueled by AI Labs Demand

Founded in 2024, Ethos grows via targeted invites, hitting 35,000 expert signups weekly without disclosing total count. AI labs' talent mapping spend acts as tailwind, targeting professions in law, health, finance, management for model training and feedback. On track for eight-figure annualized revenue with an eight-person team aiming to stay lean. Competes with Listen Labs and Outset on voice interviews but leverages proprietary expert network.

Founders Blend Business and AI Expertise

James Lo (ex-McKinsey, SoftBank on WeWork/Arm) focuses on economic opportunities; Daniel Mankowitz (DeepMind on YouTube compression, Gemini, AlphaDev) views economy as knowledge graph for entity matching. They shift from title-based to skill/capability focus, anticipating human-agent economy convergence.