# Brendan Foody

Co-founder and CEO, Mercor. TIME100 AI 2026, Innovators. His startup Mercor pays over 30,000 contractors more than $1.5 million a day, combined, to help train AI. ([cnbc.com](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/27/ai-hiring-startup-mercor-funding.html))

- Education: attended, no degree, Economics, Georgetown University ([forbes.com](https://www.forbes.com/profile/brendan-foody/), [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-foody-2995ab10b))
- Career: Mercor (Co-founder and CEO, 2023 to now); Seros (Founder and CEO, 2022) ([forbes.com](https://www.forbes.com/profile/brendan-foody/), [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-foody-2995ab10b))
- TIME profile: https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/brendan-foody/
- Profile: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/most-influential-people-in-ai/brendan-foody

- Started Mercor with Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha, high school friends from the Bellarmine College Preparatory speech and debate team. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercor))
- Mercor began by using AI to interview freelance programmers in India and match them with US companies, before pivoting to supplying experts to train AI. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercor))
- Mercor manages over 30,000 contractors who are paid more than $1.5 million a day combined. ([cnbc.com](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/27/ai-hiring-startup-mercor-funding.html))
- Mercor has hired Larry Summers for economics, Cass Sunstein for law and Eric Topol for medicine as expert contributors. ([conversationswithtyler.com](https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/brendan-foody/))
- At 22 he was the youngest guest ever on the Conversations with Tyler podcast. ([conversationswithtyler.com](https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/brendan-foody/))
- Mercor reportedly took in $614 million in gross revenue in the first half of 2026, 70% more than in all of 2025. ([time.com](https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/brendan-foody/))