Some of tech’s biggest names, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, started as teenage dreamers who didn’t wait for permission. Now, a new generation is proving that age is just a number in the world of entrepreneurship.
Meet Adarsh Hiremath, Brendan Foody, and Surya Midha, three high school classmates turned co-founders of Mercor, an AI-powered hiring platform that has exploded into a $2 billion startup in under two years.
From Debate Tournaments to Disrupting HR
The trio’s journey began in high school, where they became friends through competitive debate. Long discussions about broken systems sparked a shared ambition: to build something better.
They later parted ways for college, Adarsh to Harvard, Brendan and Surya to Georgetown, but the classroom couldn’t contain their ambition for long.
Skipping College for the Thiel Fellowship
Instead of sticking with college, the three joined the Thiel Fellowship—a $100,000 grant awarded to young founders who leave school to pursue bold ideas. It was a high-risk, high-reward decision. And it paid off. The problem they wanted to solve? Hiring. A process they saw as slow, biased, and inefficient.
Building Mercor: AI-Powered Hiring From the Dorm Room
Mercor began in January 2023 as a simple, manual job-matching service. But the team quickly realized the potential for AI to transform the process.
They began developing their own language model, one designed to:
- Analyze résumés
- Conduct video interviews
- Build skill profiles
- Match candidates to roles
- And even handle global payroll
Today, employers simply upload a job description. Mercor’s AI does the rest.
From Seed Round to Unicorn Status
In early 2023, Mercor raised $3.6 million in seed funding led by General Catalyst, with participation from Soma Capital, Link Ventures, and NEA chairman Scott Sandell.
Then came the breakout.
In September 2024, Mercor raised a $30 million Series A led by Benchmark, grabbing headlines as one of the most exciting AI startups of the year. Major figures like:
- Peter Thiel
- Jack Dorsey
- Adam D’Angelo (Quora CEO & OpenAI board member)
- Larry Summers (former U.S. Treasury Secretary)
How Mercor’s AI Actually Works
The hiring flow is simple but powerful:
- Applicant uploads a résumé
- Completes a 20-minute video interview
- First half: Experience-based questions
- Second half: Role-specific case study
- Mercor’s AI analyzes the data
- Builds a skill profile
- May trigger a second AI-led interview for deeper assessment
The focus? Speed, objectivity, and scale, eliminating drawn-out processes and reducing bias in hiring.
