‘Workers are treated like cattle’: 20-something Peter Thiel proteges run a $10 billion startup that hires professionals to train their AI replacements

Amanda SmithSat, April 18, 2026 at 11:30 PM UTC

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Brendan Foody, Mercor, attends The Grove by Village Global 2025

Doctors, lawyers, investment bankers and journalists are moonlighting as AI trainers. Are they securing their spot in the AI-fueled future or signing their death sentence? That depends on who you ask.

Mercor, a gig-work platform that provides top white-collar talent to AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, has tens of thousands of such experts. According to a Bloomberg report, Mercor pays out more than $2 million per day to contractors, but some have called out an intrusive level of surveillance and being "treated like cattle." (1)

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Some are hailing AI training as the hot new version of gig work, yet others have called it a "scheme to misclassify workers. (2)" The very nature of contractor work is independent, meaning employers cannot tell individuals when to work and how that work gets done. Yet there are open cases regarding Mercor exercising the kind of control associated with an employer.

Ironically, the founders, who are in their early 20s, have never had traditional corporate jobs.

The 22-year-old founders who hail from the Bay Area are Thiel Fellows — members of the billionaire investor Peter Thiel's program that provides $200,000 grants to young people who are skipping or quitting college (3). And they have become the youngest self-made billionaires. CEO Brendan Foody, CTO Adarsh Hiremath and board chairman Surya Midha each have a roughly 22% stake in the company, Forbes estimates (4).

"It's definitely crazy," Foody told Forbes. "It feels very surreal. Obviously beyond our wildest imaginations, insofar as anything that we could have anticipated two years ago."

Mercor did not immediately respond to Moneywise's request for comment.

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Who really benefits from training AI?

Sundeep Peechu, managing partner at the VC firm Felicis Ventures, which led Mercor's most recent funding rounds, commented on the category in the Bloomberg article.

He said the first era of data was from the internet, but for AI to become truly economically useful, humans must train the model on how they actually do the work.

This leaves everyday Americans at odds.

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On the one hand, experts are anticipating the collapse of the professional class. A quick look at Mercor's website reveals a writing expert role going for $75 to $150 per hour (5) — which is more lucrative than many corporate or editorial projects out there right now. No one can be blamed for jumping ship.

Yet on the other, there's a growing dialogue around AI malaise (6), particularly surrounding environmental and economic displacement concerns. It's dehumanizing to mentor AI models on a 10-, 20-, 30- or 40-year body of work, knowing you're feeding the very thing that will bite you later.

Dip your toes or draw a line in the sand?

This requires a little bit of soul searching. It's just as much a personal ethical dilemma as it is a financial question. While deciding whether or not to train AI models, it's important to deeply research the company, their vision, and their data policies.

There are sectors where AI makes more sense — in medical and environmental breakthroughs, for example.

But be wary. Companies like Mercor are going after it all. Its head of operations said chefs, private investigators and so-called AI-proof trades like plumbing are already in the works.

If you are excited about side hustling as an AI trainer, you could view it not just as a way to make extra money, but also as a vehicle to upskill and get comfortable with AI. The momentum will likely taper off as models get better, making this a unique point in time.

AI is moving at breakneck speed, and it's bigger than whether you should or shouldn't get involved. The lesson to stress here is the need to be nimble, flexible and open-minded, as the future of work is being defined in real-time.

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Article Sources

We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.

Bloomberg (1); Business Insider (2); Thiel Fellowship (3); Forbes (4); Mercor (5); Pew Research Center (6)

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.

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