On this episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad sit down with Brendan Foody, CEO and cofounder of Mercor, to discuss the company’s rapid growth and their vision for the future of the labor market. They dive into how AI is reshaping the workforce in real, tangible ways and what skills are worth investing in today. Brendan shares insights on evaluating talent in an AI-driven world, including how models might identify outlier or 10x candidates and even assess “taste.” The conversation also touches on the evolving role of human data, the future of hiring in fast-scaling startups, and whether AI will act as an individual contributor or a data-centric manager.

Show Notes:

0:00 Introduction

0:16 Building Mercor

3:00 Identifying outlier talent with AI

9:07 How AI is reshaping the workforce: job displacement & evolution

11:18 What skills should we invest in now?

12:18 Verifiability

13:36 Evaluating models

16:07 What should kids learn today?

17:05 Evaluating taste in talent assessments

18:45 Future of data collection

26:07 Humans’ role in the AI economy

28:53 AI as a contributor vs. a manager

33:03 Mercor’s goals 

34:50 Evolution of labor markets 

36:00 Hiring advice