Mark Zuckerberg has been for years the benchmark of success precocious in Silicon Valley for having become the youngest self-made billionaire at just over 23 years old. Now the baton is being taken by new startup founders of artificial intelligence.
In this new scenario there is Mercor, an AI recruiting platform founded by three 22-year-old friends who met on the high school debate team and are today listed as the world’s youngest self-made billionaires. Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha have made it to the Forbes list with an estimated fortune of 2.2 billion dollars. However, all that money has not been enough for them to take a single day of vacation in the last three years.
The startup that breaks records. As and as highlighted Fortunein less than nine months the founders of Mercor turned an initial idea into a company with a revenue rate of one million dollars, that meteoric growth places the Foody employment platform among the startups that have climbed the fastest in the current wave of AI.
The definitive leap that has put Foody and its partners on the Forbes list came with a financing round of $350 million led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst and Robinhood Ventures, which it granted to Mercor an assessment of 10 billion dollars. Forbes estimates that each of the three partners control around 22% of the company, which places their fortunes in billions at just 22 years old, surpassing Mark Zuckerberg himself, who reached that figure at 23 years old.
Generation Z and the 996 days. Paradoxically, this success comes from partners belonging to generation Z, which is usually associated with a greater concern for conciliation and balance between personal and work life.
However, according to what was published by Fortune, Foody’s work style is more similar to the famous culture “996” (day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and six days a week) that is is imposing among the new Silicon Valley startups, which in the image of relaxed schedules and teleworking which is often attributed to the youngest.
Three years without a single day off. Foody acknowledges that he has opted to follow an extreme work discipline since he dropped out of Georgetown University to focus entirely on Mercor. In his own words: “We work a lot, I have worked every day for the last three years,” he told Fortunebefore clarifying that, in his opinion, “people generally become exhausted, not only by working hard, but by working hard on something that is not as satisfying or enriching for them.”
With this idea, Foody is located near the logic of culture 996but reinterpreted from the passion for his own project, where the long days they are experienced as an investment in a personal vision rather than an external imposition.
It stops being an obligation and becomes a passion. Foody did not always experience work in this intense and voluntary way. Before creating his own company, he describes his relationship with work as something closer to disciplinary obligation than to deep motivation. “Often they were things I didn’t enjoy doing,” he recalled when talking about his previous stage.
The turn came with the creation of Mercor, when the daily task began to be perceived almost as a creative obsession linked to one’s own project and a clear vision of the impact one wanted to achieve. “Compared to when we started Mercor, it became an obsession where I can’t stop thinking about, even if I’m having dinner with my parents or whatever, it’s spinning in my head,” Foody explained, stressing that this constant mental involvement means that he doesn’t even feel the need to take a vacation. Curiously, this feeling is not new. Bill Gates described a similar feeling in the early years of Microsoft. Then he understood that rest is necessary and even productive.
Seeing results motivates you to continue. One of the keys to sustaining this pace that the young founder of Mercor highlights is to verify that the hours invested generate a clear return on the project. “I think the most important thing is to always make sure I see the impact of what I do, the return on investment (ROI) of the huge amount of time I put into it,” Foody added. In short, it confirms the old saying “find a job you like and you will never work again.”
However, the origin of this motivation has a scientific explanationthe short-term rewards produced by the so-called “lens gradient effect“. Obtaining quantifiable results in the short term motivates you to continue working on the project. Especially if that impact is accompanied by a fortune of 2.2 billion dollars.
‘Genzers’ demolishing clichés. Foody’s story questions the clichés about Generation Z that portray them as reluctant to do the slightest sacrifice and rejects the excessive hours at work. However, it shows that when there is a strong connection between personal purposeperceived impact and financial rewards, some young people are willing to embrace extreme models of dedication.
Faced with this narrative, the implicit question remains open for the new founders who They openly embrace the culture of “996”: if they demand the same from their teams level of delivery and commitment They, perhaps, should also ask themselves why these employees are not entering the Forbes list along with the creators of the company.
In Xataka | “They are much more daring”: Gen Z is overturning all labor consensus in its massive entry into work
Image | Pexels, Brendan Foody
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