This effort to close the remaining 30% will make the primacy of social proof and popularity over team/product/traction/revenue/earnings even more powerful on AngelList.
It sounds like there is a fantastic opening here for other people in the angel/vc community to take on the task of being a gatekeeper or "talent scout" of sorts for excellent businesses who don't already have the requisite social proof.
I understand the direction you're going in, and in order to scale, it's inevitable. I don't begrudge you that.
But my understanding is that in the past, you guys made something of an implicit guarantee that you would look at all submissions and be the point of introduction for great companies who don't yet already have an introduction. The necessary shift you are now making will eliminate this opening.
You mention that there is a community of gatekeepers and scouts, but I really don't see it this way. One cannot, by policy, contact anyone on the site without already having a "follower" relationship with them.
It would be nice to see a handful of angels/vcs take upon this mantle of being the go-to talent scout for great but unconnected businesses. There's no reason these people couldn't use AngelList as the platform on which to do it, of course.
It sounds like there is a fantastic opening here for other people in the angel/vc community to take on the task of being a gatekeeper or "talent scout" of sorts for excellent businesses who don't already have the requisite social proof.