The company boundary is only the beginning.
A published research collaboration can reveal connections that an organisation chart leaves out. The meaning of those connections needs careful handling.
Cato & Veil · Research desk · 15 September 2026
Start with a record you can check.
The eight-author paper Attention Is All You Need is the starting point for our interactive study. We connect its author list to selected, separately sourced company-founding histories. The result is a small, inspectable network rather than a claim to map the whole AI industry.
Distinguish the relationship.
Co-authorship, employment and company ownership answer different questions. A research connection says that people contributed to a paper; it does not establish continuing contact or shared commercial interests. Each edge in the map has a stated meaning.
Follow the change, then test its significance.
Cohere’s history identifies Aidan Gomez as a co-founder. Sakana AI identifies Llion Jones among its founders. Essential AI’s announcement names Ashish Vaswani and Niki Parmar. These facts establish founding links. They do not, on their own, measure how much technical capability moved between organisations.
Turn the map into an enquiry.
For an investor or prospective partner, the next questions concern responsibility, continuity and dependence. Who maintains the relevant systems? How distributed is the expertise? Which public claims need corroboration? A useful intelligence brief explains both the evidence and what remains to be established.