Mercor CEO: Ignoring VC Advice to Avoid the Data Market Was Worth Tens of Billions
Scobleizer · x · 2026-10-19
Scoble amplifies Mercor founder Brendan Foody's contrarian thesis: in 2024 an early investor visited Mercor's office and warned the entire team to stay away from the data market. Foody says the thesis was deeply contrarian at the time, and that VC advice is almost always market consensus, which erodes any alpha from contrarianism — had they listened, they would have foregone tens of billions in value. Scoble frames it with historical contrarian wins: Airbnb, digital cameras vs Kodak, Waymo, voice/BCI replacing GUIs, and AI-enhanced films at the Las Vegas Sphere.
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