Venture’s AI Fever Goes Nuclear

Before we get to today’s column, check out our story from earlier today about Mercor. My colleague Cory and I reported that Mercor generated $614 million in gross revenue in the first half of this year, overwhelmingly from AI foundation model customers. That concentration highlights the risk to Mercor’s business if any of the big AI firms, which include OpenAI and Anthropic, switch to a rival.

Of course, Mercor’s co-founders are confident they’ll be able to keep building on the growth that started with just $10 million in gross revenue two years ago. Confidence is something CEO Brendan Foody has never seemed to lack. As the company’s fundraising materials noted, he and two of his high-school classmates co-founded the company after competing together on the speech and debate team: “Not surprisingly, they were national champions,” the memo said.