$10B Startup Mercor Asks Pros to Sell Work for AI Training
Mercor reportedly solicited professionals to hand over prior work materials for AI training, even when IP rights were murky.
Mercor, a startup valued at $10 billion, has been asking professionals across industries including entertainment to sell their previous work materials for use as AI training data. The catch? That intellectual property may actually belong to their former employers.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Mercor's outreach targeted workers who had access to specialized content — exactly the kind of fresh, domain-specific data that big tech's AI models are desperate for. The hunger for new training data has become a defining constraint of the current AI arms race, and startups like Mercor are positioning themselves as middlemen to feed the machine.
The approach raises serious legal questions about IP ownership and whether workers can legitimately sell materials created under previous employment agreements. It's a gray area that could invite scrutiny from both employers and regulators.