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cover of episode Ep 68: CEO of Mercor Brendan Foody on Evals Replacing Knowledge Work, AI x Hiring Today & the Future of Data Labeling

Ep 68: CEO of Mercor Brendan Foody on Evals Replacing Knowledge Work, AI x Hiring Today & the Future of Data Labeling

2025/6/4
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Unsupervised Learning

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Brendan Foody: 我认为目前人工智能在评估文本信息方面已经非常出色,几乎达到了超人的水平。无论是面试记录、书面评估还是简历信息,AI都能进行高效的分析和评估。然而,这种能力在经济中的应用还远未普及,存在巨大的发展空间。我们公司致力于利用AI技术解决劳动力市场的信息不对称问题,将全球的人才与机会连接起来。我相信未来AI将能够自动化许多评估流程,使招聘更加高效和客观。我设想的未来是,AI能够提供对候选人工作表现的置信区间预测,减少人类在招聘过程中的干预。当然,人类的判断在某些方面仍然很重要,例如评估候选人是否具有激情和是否容易相处。因此,我认为AI和人类招聘人员应该协同工作,让人类招聘人员能够专注于与最有潜力的候选人互动,而不是浪费时间在不太可能被录用的人身上。 Brendan Foody: 我也关注到数据标注领域的快速变化。过去,模型不够完善时,可以通过众包方式进行数据标注和评估。但随着模型变得越来越好,需要更高质量的人才直接与研究人员合作,以发现模型的不足并改进其性能。因此,我认为数据标注市场将向高质量人才倾斜。总的来说,我认为AI在人才评估领域的应用前景广阔,但也需要不断关注技术发展和社会影响,以确保其能够为人类带来真正的价值。

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This chapter explores the current state of AI in talent evaluation. AI excels at text-based assessments but still faces challenges in areas like evaluating 'vibe' and passion. The rapid improvement of reasoning models has significantly enhanced AI's capabilities.
  • AI is close to superhuman at evaluating text-based information like interview transcripts and resumes.
  • Reasoning models have greatly improved AI's ability to handle context and focus on relevant information.
  • AI still struggles with multimodal assessments, such as evaluating a candidate's 'vibe' or passion.

Shownotes Transcript

Brendan Foody is the co-founder and CEO of Mercor, a company building the infrastructure for AI-native labor markets. Mercor’s platform is already used by top AI labs to label data, evaluate human and AI candidates, and make performance-driven hiring decisions. 

 

They’re operating at the intersection of recruiting, evals, and foundation model development—helping companies shift from intuition to measurable prediction. Brendan and his team recently raised $100M and are working with some of the most advanced players in the AI ecosystem today.

 

(0:00) Intro

(1:17) State of AI in Talent Evaluation

(1:54) Improvements in AI Models

(4:07) Mercor Background and Mission

(5:09) AI Use Cases in Hiring

(13:43) Data Labeling Landscape

(16:48) Expanding Beyond Coding

(18:39) Company Vision and Market Strategy

(21:11) Meeting with xAI

(23:47) Does Mercor Use Their Own Product?

(25:41) Exploring Multimodal Capabilities

(28:03) Skills for the Future: Embracing AI

(29:29) The Demand for Software Engineers

(34:55) Foundation Model Landscape

(38:42) AI Regulations

(39:57) Quickfire

 

With your co-hosts: 

@jacobeffron  

  • Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health

  

@patrickachase  

  • Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn

  

@ericabrescia  

  • Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)

  

@jordan_segall  

  • Partner at Redpoint