Three Tenets: Can-Do, High Standards, Intensity
The three cultural tenets Foody credits for the fastest revenue ascent in history
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
Foody names three tenets he deliberately instilled at Mercor. Can-do attitude: set absurdly ambitious goals so the company's trajectory forms around them. High standards: an extreme hiring bar, because early talent density shapes the entire org. Intensity: an output-oriented, do-whatever-it-takes early-stage culture modeled on the legendary early cultures of Meta and Google.
Origin
Brendan Foody, CEO of Mercor — the three explicit values he says most contributed to Mercor going 1→500M run rate in 17 months.
Core principles
- 01Set ridiculously ambitious goals and the company's trajectory forms around them
- 02Hire for an extreme bar — former founders and exceptional operators — because early talent density shapes the whole org
- 03Be output-oriented (what people achieve), not input-oriented (hours worked)
- 04Legendary businesses are built with intense early-stage cultures; optimize for that, not comfort
- 05Never mandate hours — intensity is a byproduct of people who care and have ownership
How to run it
- 1
Set can-do goals that sound insane
Publicly commit to targets that outside observers call impossible; the org organizes itself around hitting them.
Pro tip Foody told Benchmark he'd go from 1.5M to 50M run rate by year-end; they called it insane and he hit it within plus-or-minus two weeks.
- 2
Enforce a high hiring bar
Hire former founders and people with exceptional backgrounds; protect early talent density because it defines what the scaled org looks like.
Pro tip Mercor brought in Uber's former CPO/CTO as president to scale processes — bar stays high even at seniority.
Watch out There's always a speed-quality trade-off; for the first ~10 hires bias hard toward quality.
- 3
Cultivate intensity through ownership, not mandates
Select for people who are deeply bought in and measure output, not hours. Let people leave for family or travel; the most bought-in tend to burn the midnight oil anyway.
Pro tip Never mandate hours — mandated hours attract compliance, not ownership.
Watch out Copying '996' hour-mandates misses the point; the driver is ownership, and intensity follows from it.
In the wild
At 1.5M run rate before their Series A, Foody told Benchmark they'd hit 50M by year-end. They said it was absolutely insane. Mercor hit it within two weeks of target.
→ Demonstrated that a can-do goal pulls the company's trajectory toward it.
Common mistakes
Mandating hours to manufacture intensity
Intensity is a byproduct of ownership and care. Mandated 996-style hours select for compliance and burn out people who aren't bought in.
Measuring input over output
Tracking hours instead of what people achieve rewards presence rather than impact.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders setting the early culture of a fast-moving, high-ambition startup
Not ideal for
Mature organizations or teams where sustainable pace and process stability matter more than raw velocity
From the transcript
“the first one is having a can do attitude”
“the second thing is really high standards which is who we hire and what we expect of them”
“the third one that we really lean on significantly is intensity”
“still very much output oriented of what do people achieve rather than input oriented of the specific hours they work”
From the episode
Why experts writing AI evals is creating the fastest-growing companies in history
Brendan Foody (CEO of Mercor)