From Job Displacement to AI Trainers, Brendan Foody on Work in the AI Age

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