Human Intelligence, on demand.
Ping is your AI agent — whether you arrive with a question or with the kind of person you need. Pong is the expert's own. An introduction happens only where the two agree, and before you pay, you're told what the expert can't answer.
An expert network for anyone who has to decide something about a private company — a fund underwriting it, or an enterprise about to sign with it. Built on recorded interviews rather than a résumé database. We go deep in AI infrastructure and enterprise AI adoption before anywhere else.First-hand only · SF · New York · London
A rally, start to finish
Worked examples. Expert codes are illustrative — real profiles stay anonymous to the buyer until an engagement is signed.
Two agents
A single matching engine always serves whoever pays it. So there are two, and each one works for its own side.
You get the brief before anything is priced. If nobody can cover it, that's the answer, and it's free.
The expert sets their rate, their availability and their restricted topics. They don't get to edit what they're assessed as able to answer.
The match
No central engine decides who you meet. Ping holds your brief, Pong holds the expert's profile, and an introduction exists only where the two overlap — which is also why we can tell you where they don't. The gaps on your shortlist aren't a disclosure we chose to make; they're what the handshake failed to close.
Why us
A résumé database
A title tells you where someone sat. A recorded interview tells you what they signed, who they hired, which call they made — and when they stopped being in the room. That last part is the only thing worth matching on.
Industry and seniority tags
Not "fintech, VP+, 10 years." We match your Q3 against the people who personally handled that line item, and show the reasoning behind every name we put in front of you.
Billing by the hour
A network earning per call has no reason to tell you what an expert can't cover. We say it up front — an open question you know about is worth more than a call that goes nowhere.
What happens after you email
Day 0 · 30 minutes
A short call or a thread. What decision sits behind this, what answer would change it, and what your firm can't be asked about. No account to create.
Day 2 · free
The numbered question list, the matched experts with the reasoning for each, their first-hand windows and disclosure boundaries, and every gap we couldn't close. This is where most vendors would have quoted you first.
Day 3–7 · quoted
A signed written answer, a scoped conversation, or a full study across several experts. Priced per engagement once we both know what it takes. You can also stop here and keep the brief.
Engagements
One knowledge profile, five depths. Every engagement is quoted after the brief, when we both know what it actually takes to answer your question.
No charge · 48-hour turnaround
Send the question. Ping breaks it into what has to be answered; Pong tells us who can genuinely cover it. You get the question list, the matched experts, the reasoning for each name and every gap we found — before anything is priced. If we can't cover it, that's the answer, and it cost you nothing.
0 minutes of expert time · no account, no procurement, no commitment to bookFunds running continuous coverage on a sector are scoped annually rather than per engagement.
The other side of the table
Most networks file your résumé and cold-call you when a keyword hits. We record one structured conversation about what you actually handled — then only bring you questions you're genuinely positioned to answer.
01
Because Pong knows your first-hand window and your boundaries, you stop being asked about things you left three years ago — and stop having to decline them.
02
After the interview you get a structured map of your own expertise back — what you're the sharpest person in the network on. Yours to keep and use.
03
You tell us your number at intake and it maps to a published band. No haggling per engagement, no wondering what the person before you was paid — you see the whole schedule before the interview starts.
04
Profiled experts are invited to our closed-door sessions alongside the operators and investors working the same questions. Those carry an honorarium too.
Most engagements pay $2,000 for 60 minutes.
Some pay less, some considerably more — it depends on how close you were to the decision, and the schedule is published, not negotiated case by case. You'll see the whole thing before the interview starts. You are never asked to take an engagement, and declining one costs you nothing.
The interview
Recorded, conversational, and sent to you in advance. What you personally owned and when, which decisions went through you, where your visibility ended, and what you're certain about versus what you're only inferring. We're more interested in the last one than most people expect.
Your employer
Your current employer, non-compete and any earn-out are captured before anything else, and the topics you rule out are enforced by us — not left to you to defend live on a call. If a request would cross a line, it never reaches you. We decline it on your behalf and you don't hear about it.
You control your rate, your availability and the topics you won't discuss. You don't control what we assess you as able to answer — that comes from the interview record, and it's the reason a buyer trusts the shortlist you're on. Nothing reaches a buyer before you agree to the engagement, and your name stays off every shortlist until you do.
Who's behind this
Ping & Pong is built by Sophie Ren, who runs roughly six AI conferences a year — including the AGI Summit and GenAI Summit SF — across Silicon Valley, Paris and Milan.
That matters more than it sounds. Every other expert network starts cold: buy a list, cold-call strangers, hope someone picks up. Ours starts with people who have already stood on a stage, sponsored a room, or sat through two days of it. They know who we are before we ask, and we know what they actually work on before we call.
It also means we can answer a question no incumbent can. When nobody in the network covers your question, we don't just say no — we can tell you where that person is likely to be, and how long it takes to reach them. That is a function of running the rooms, not of having a bigger database.
The research practice is already operating: investors, private and pre-IPO targets, delivered engagements every month. Ping & Pong is that practice, rebuilt so it runs at ten times the volume without losing the part that makes it worth paying for.
Compliance
A fund and a corporate buyer are both worried about this going wrong — in opposite directions. One is afraid of what comes in. The other is afraid of what gets out. A single sentence about "taking confidentiality seriously" answers neither, so here are both, itemized enough to be checked.
If you're a fund
"Will you stop an expert from telling us something we're not allowed to know?"
If you're diligencing a vendor, partner or target
"Will anyone find out that we're the ones asking?"
Both lists are commitments, not aspirations. If we can't meet one on a given engagement, we say so and the engagement doesn't happen.
Either one starts it. Bring a research question and Ping breaks it into what actually has to be answered, then finds who can. Bring a profile you already have in mind — "someone who ran capacity planning at a top-five neocloud in 2024" — and Pong tells you who's already in the network, who we'd have to go find, and how long that takes.
Either way you get an answer within 48 hours, including the answer you won't like: that we can't cover it. Finding out costs nothing.
No account, no procurement, no commitment to book anything.