20VC: Mercor: From $1M to $500M in 17 Months: The Fastest Growing Company in the World | How to Think About Margins and Revenue Sustainability in AI | Why Evaluation Benchmarks in AI are BS Today with Brendan Foody

20VC: Mercor: From $1M to $500M in 17 Months: The Fastest Growing Company in the World | How to Think About Margins and Revenue Sustainability in AI | Why Evaluation Benchmarks in AI are BS Today with Brendan Foody

Brendan Foody is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Mercor, the fastest growing company in history. The company solves talent allocation in the AI economy and they have scaled from $1M to $500M in revenue in just 17 months. With a rumoured new funding round pricing the company at a whopping $10BN, the company has the likes of Benchmark, Felicis, Emergence, and of course, 20VC, all on their cap table.

AGENDA:

04:34 Why My Mother Thought I Was Selling Drugs as a Kid

07:48 In The Time My Peers Graduated, I Created a $10BN Business; Is College Worth it?

10:27 Scale, Surge, Mercor, Turing: How Do Data Providers Differentiate

20:57 Scaling from $1M to $500M: We Quadrupled Since Scale was Acquired

33:43 Is There Too Much Cash in Private Markets?

34:55 Why Evaluation Benchmarks in AI are Total BS

35:44 Revenue Sustainability in AI Companies

36:48 Should Investors Give a S*** About Margins When Analysing AI Companies

40:46 The Future of AI Model Providers: Who Wins

45:58 You Cannot Create a $10BN Company without 9-9-6 Work Culture

48:56 We Literally Have Too Much Money, We Cannot Spend It…

52:36 Quick Fire Round: OpenAI vs Anthropic, Lessons from Peter Fenton and Jack Dorsey

Episoder(1432)

20VC: a16z's Martin Casado on Anthropic vs OpenAI: Where Value Accrues | Cursor vs Replit vs Lovable: Who Wins and Who Loses | The One Sin in AI Investing | Why Open Source is a National Security Risk with China

20VC: a16z's Martin Casado on Anthropic vs OpenAI: Where Value Accrues | Cursor vs Replit vs Lovable: Who Wins and Who Loses | The One Sin in AI Investing | Why Open Source is a National Security Risk with China

Martin Casado is a General Partner @ a16z where he leads the firms $1.25BN infrastructure fund. At a16z, Martin has led investments in companies like Cursor, dbt Labs, and Fivetran to name a few. Befo...

28 Jul 20251h 10min

20Product: Should We Kill the PM Role Entirely | How Does Product Design Change Most in a World of AI | How Do Monzo Build Product Today: What Works, What Does Not | Why Most Product Sucks and What Makes Truly Great Product

20Product: Should We Kill the PM Role Entirely | How Does Product Design Change Most in a World of AI | How Do Monzo Build Product Today: What Works, What Does Not | Why Most Product Sucks and What Makes Truly Great Product

Fernando Fanton is one of the most respected product leaders in Europe, having held Chief Product Officer roles at Monzo and Just Eat. He previously led product and tech at Rappi, one of Latin America...

27 Jul 20251h 7min

20VC: Lovable Raises at $2BN & Hits $100M ARR | Is Cursor Worth $28BN at $1BN in ARR | How Do All Providers Deal with Anthropic Dependency Risk | Are Seed Funds F******: Have Mega Funds Won | Figma IPO Breakdown: Where Does it Price?

20VC: Lovable Raises at $2BN & Hits $100M ARR | Is Cursor Worth $28BN at $1BN in ARR | How Do All Providers Deal with Anthropic Dependency Risk | Are Seed Funds F******: Have Mega Funds Won | Figma IPO Breakdown: Where Does it Price?

Agenda: 00:00 – Did Jason Just Kill Replit? 03:45 – Why Claude Lies To You and Cannot Be Trusted 06:50 – You Cannot Trust Agents. Period. 10:20 – Why Windsurf Was Dead Without Claude 12:30 – Cursor v...

24 Jul 20251h 21min

20VC: Scaling to $1BN+ in Revenue with No Funding: Surge AI | The Most Insane Scaling Story in Tech |

20VC: Scaling to $1BN+ in Revenue with No Funding: Surge AI | The Most Insane Scaling Story in Tech |

Edwin Chen is the Founder and CEO of Surge. Founded in 2020, Surge has scaled to $1BN+ in revenue with zero external funding. At the same time, their competitor, Scale.ai raised over $1.3BN to reach $...

21 Jul 20251h 6min

20VC: Cognition CEO Scott Wu on Acquiring Windsurf: The Process, The Deal, The Rationale | Did Google Overlook a Goldmine in the Core Asset and Did Founders Leave a Sinking Ship | How Cursor and Cognition Deal with Ever Increasing Reliance on Anthropic

20VC: Cognition CEO Scott Wu on Acquiring Windsurf: The Process, The Deal, The Rationale | Did Google Overlook a Goldmine in the Core Asset and Did Founders Leave a Sinking Ship | How Cursor and Cognition Deal with Ever Increasing Reliance on Anthropic

Scott Wu is the co-founder and CEO of Cognition, the company behind Devin, the world's first AI software engineer. On Friday last week they pulled off the acquisition of the year, acquiring Windsurf, ...

18 Jul 202548min

20VC: Windsurf x Google x Cognition: Full Breakdown: Who Made Money, Who Did Not | Lovable vs Replit: Will These Be $100BN Businesses | Why Elon Could Beat Sam Altman with the New Grok | Why Every S&P 500 Company Will Buy Bitcoin?

20VC: Windsurf x Google x Cognition: Full Breakdown: Who Made Money, Who Did Not | Lovable vs Replit: Will These Be $100BN Businesses | Why Elon Could Beat Sam Altman with the New Grok | Why Every S&P 500 Company Will Buy Bitcoin?

Agenda: 00:00 Windsurf was dead—then this deal changed everything 05:00 The Windsurf x Google x Cognition saga explained 09:00 The OpenAI deal collapsed—what really happened 15:00 FTC rules forced a b...

17 Jul 20251h 21min

20VC: Vlad Tenev on Robinhood's $85BN Resurgence | Tokenizing SpaceX & OpenAI | Building Nine Revenue Lines Over $100M | Why Crypto Will Be Robinhood's Biggest Revenue Line | Why Stablecoins Will Replace Banking Rails

20VC: Vlad Tenev on Robinhood's $85BN Resurgence | Tokenizing SpaceX & OpenAI | Building Nine Revenue Lines Over $100M | Why Crypto Will Be Robinhood's Biggest Revenue Line | Why Stablecoins Will Replace Banking Rails

Vlad Tenev is the Founder and CEO of Robinhood, the greatest story on Wall St of the last decade. In the previous 18 months, Robinhood has increased its net revenue by 58% to nearly $3B; a $500M loss ...

14 Jul 202557min

20Growth: The Death of Growth Teams? | How Hubspot Use AI to Triple Email Conversion | The Future of AI SEO | Why Prompt Engineering is the New Coding | What Every CMO Needs to Know About AI in 2025

20Growth: The Death of Growth Teams? | How Hubspot Use AI to Triple Email Conversion | The Future of AI SEO | Why Prompt Engineering is the New Coding | What Every CMO Needs to Know About AI in 2025

Kieran Flanagan is the CMO at HubSpot, where he's led the transformation of their growth strategy from SEO-led to multi-channel and AI-powered. Formerly SVP of Marketing, he helped scale HubSpot's use...

11 Jul 20251h 15min

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