This Week in Startups
01:18:10 · Alex Wilhelm, Brendan Foody
[01:18:10] S1: Okay. So people love to talk about the the usefulness of data and how the more you have, the smarter you can be. So how much better have your systems become, after ingesting increasing amounts of performance reviews, bonus information, contract retention, and so forth. All the stuff we've talked about. How quickly does that filter back in and actually generate a material and measurable improvement in your ability to place candidates? [01:18:32] S5: Yeah, pretty much on a weekly cadence. I mean, went from where it's been most impactful and our focus has been is predicting people at the high end. And the reason is there's this dynamic on a project where if we're providing 100 people to work with a given customer, the top 10% of people are gonna drive majority of the value. It's similar to, like, if you have a team of a 100 software engineers, probably the 10 core people are these, like, 10... This notion of 10x software engineers that are driving [01:19:01] S1: Are you telling me that power laws exist? [01:19:03] S5: Power laws exist, right, in in many in many knowledge work verticals. Yeah. But what the implications of that from our standpoint are profound. Because if we're able to build interviews and assessments and and all this technology that can predict these power law outcomes, the amount of value that we drive for our customers and performance of those people and the quality is extraordinary.
01:19:03 · Brendan Foody, Alex Wilhelm
[01:19:03] S5: Power laws exist, right, in in many in many knowledge work verticals. Yeah. But what the implications of that from our standpoint are profound. Because if we're able to build interviews and assessments and and all this technology that can predict these power law outcomes, the amount of value that we drive for our customers and performance of those people and the quality is extraordinary. [01:19:25] S1: Okay. So let's play devil's advocate here because I'm always on one hand a capitalist technologist, and on the other hand, I'm a person who has friends who, you know, have to make rent. So if you can help people find the 10x engineers and the 10x engineers only... Like, let's say you can just say, look. Here are the top five people, and here's 45 others you can hire if you want. Are we gonna end up with a a labor market in which companies are able to hire the best and get more out of them, and then they're gonna need fewer total people? I'm just worried about folks who are, like, big students. [01:19:57] S5: Yeah. Well, so I sympathize with a concern. But one thing I've come to appreciate is that people sometimes over index on the dimension of how exceptional someone is and under index on how relevant their experience is. And that if you match people with the right thing that they're extraordinary at, you can unlock these phenomenal outcomes.
01:19:57 · Brendan Foody, Alex Wilhelm
[01:19:57] S5: Yeah. Well, so I sympathize with a concern. But one thing I've come to appreciate is that people sometimes over index on the dimension of how exceptional someone is and under index on how relevant their experience is. And that if you match people with the right thing that they're extraordinary at, you can unlock these phenomenal outcomes. [01:20:16] S1: All right. Now I want to talk about results because you guys raised, I think it was a series b earlier this year, quite a large round, quite a large valuation. And I think Techron said your revenue was somewhere in the realm of 75,000,000 ARR. You guys have also talked about, hey. We're growing, you know, 50% a month at one point in time. So one, since your last funding round, has growth stayed as hot as it had before? And then when do you think will be the right time to use the wedge to expand your remit and try to take on a wider range of jobs and also longer tenure jobs? [01:20:48] S5: Yeah. So I'll answer the first part. The business has grown by an order of magnitude since we received our term sheet for the Series B. So the growth has been incredible. [01:20:58] S1: Happy investors. Very happy investors.
01:20:58 · Alex Wilhelm, Brendan Foody
[01:20:58] S1: Happy investors. Very happy investors. [01:21:01] S5: Well profitable the entire time. So we have more cash in the bank than we've ever raised, which is unique for an AI company. Then to your second point of timing the expansion to new markets, the context for why we focus on the AI labs is we realize that there's more of a comparative advantage when we focus on hiring someone for five weeks versus five years. When we're hiring someone for five years, you want to get dinner with them, build trust and a relationship. Five weeks, you want this fast, efficient AI interviews, automated process. And so we're leaning into that a lot now. In the wake of the scaled news with them no longer in the market, there's so much market pull that we're focused on capturing that. But what a lot of people don't realize is that throughout the duration of the business, we've still been doing lots of contract hiring outside of the market for AI Labs and lots of full time hiring for ourselves and and our friends. We still have the customers from 2023 before we even started working with AI Labs that are continuing to grow with us. And so are starting to also ramp up investments in a lot of those other kinds of hiring work.
01:22:11 · Alex Wilhelm, Brendan Foody
[01:22:11] S1: So it sounds a little bit like I asked a question that was more relevant maybe a year ago. But instead, you guys are expanding your work with the ALS and doing other things. So it sounds like the wedge is wedging, and you guys are already growing your remnant. Okay. Now, before you go, two things. One, where can people find the company on the Internet? And then two, is there a particular role that you're looking to hire for and wanna shout it out into the broader world to see if the right candidate's waiting for you, which is ironic, I know, given the conversation. [01:22:36] S5: Absolutely. People can go find us at mercor.com, mercor.com. And we're hiring for a huge volume of roles, particularly lots of software engineers. So for any software engineers that are looking to join our team full time, we're super eager to talk to you for anyone looking to join our marketplace, whether it's part time or full time as a contractor. We pay exceptionally well. We have phenomenal satisfaction in the marketplace and retention as we talked about, and so would love the opportunity to work with you. [01:23:09] S1: Do you use your own software as the place you source some of your own internal candidates? [01:23:14] S5: Of course. Absolutely. [01:23:15] S1: So you do like the taste of dog food. Alright. Well, Brendan, thank you so much. We'll have you back on in, I don't know, probably six more months when you do eventually raise more money, then I can ask you about that. But in the meantime, thank you, and we'll see you soon. [01:23:25] S5: Yeah. For sure. See you.