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 Introduction0:16 Building Mercor3:00 Identifying outlier talent with AI9:07 How AI is reshaping the workforce: job displacement & evolution11:18 What skills should we invest in now?12:18 Verifiability13:36 Evaluating models16:07 What should kids learn today?17:05 Evaluating taste in talent assessments18:45 Future of data collection26:07 Humans’ role in the AI economy28:53 AI as a contributor vs. a manager33:03 Mercor’s goals 34:50 Evolution of labor markets 36:00 Hiring advice