Mercor Pays $1.5M Daily to Train AI Because Robots Don't Do Drama
Meet Mercor, the Silicon Valley lovechild of Wall Street and a sweatshop, valued aggressively at $10 billion and casually dropping $1.5 million every day to 30,000 contractors who literally babysit AIs for tech giants like OpenAI and Anthropic. CEO Brendan Foody dubbed this 'a new category of work,' one where humans teach machines judgment and nuanceābecause apparently, first-gen AI still can't grasp internet memes or Japanese finance jargon without a human translator. With an IPO 'potentially on the horizon' (code for Bezos-watch-this-space), Mercor is enlisting software engineers, lawyers, and doctors for what might be the world's most expensive side hustle. Meanwhile, mercifully absent from CEO quotes is a clear IPO date, leaving mercenary trainers waiting for payday like a toddler for Christmas morning.
Share the Story
Humans get paid more babysitting AI than a Wall Street intern, but donāt get an IPO dateāMercorās new gig is teaching robots taste so they can ghostwrite internet memes, because apparently Skynet still canāt get a joke right.
If mercenary AI trainers are pulling $100/hour, maybe the robots should just unionize and do their own damn data cleaning.
Mercorās funding round is so rich, itās basically Netflix for AI contractors ā except instead of binge-watching, they teach ChatGPT to understand meme culture and finance.
Source: Businessinsider | Published: 10/28/2025 | Author: Kelsey Vlamis,Lee Chong Ming
More Articles in Technology
Bezosās Fire Phone: 400 Cameras, Zero Friends, Dead on Arrival
Pope Leo XIV Tells AI to āGet Moral or Go to Confessionā
Halo Infiniteās Last Update: Maintenance Mode or Death Spiral?
Zuck's $600B Hot-Mic Bid: Betting Big on AI and Water Bills
Polestar 4: The $58K EV That Said āWho Needs Rear Glass?ā
