290亿美元巨头，正被对手“围剿”

Core Viewpoint - Scale AI has filed a lawsuit against former employee Eugene Ling and his new employer Mercor, alleging theft of confidential documents and attempts to poach key clients, amidst a backdrop of client loss and trust issues following a significant investment from Meta [1][2][20]. Group 1: Lawsuit Details - Scale AI accuses Ling of illegally downloading over 100 confidential documents, including sensitive client information and operational strategies, to his personal cloud storage [9]. - The lawsuit claims that Ling began promoting Mercor to Scale AI's important clients while still employed at Scale AI, indicating premeditated actions to undermine the company [7][8]. - Mercor allegedly offered Ling a commission of 20% on gross profits from client projects he brought in, contingent on generating over $5 million in gross profits [6]. Group 2: Client Loss and Market Position - Following Meta's $14.3 billion investment for a 49% stake, Scale AI's valuation soared to $29 billion, but this raised concerns among clients like Google and OpenAI about sharing sensitive data with a Meta-affiliated company [18][19]. - Reports indicate that major clients, including Google, are reducing or terminating contracts with Scale AI, with Google planning to end a $200 million contract [20]. - Even within Meta, there are indications that internal teams are not fully relying on Scale AI, opting to work with competitors like Mercor and Surge [21][22]. Group 3: Mercor's Competitive Strategy - Mercor has rapidly gained traction in the market, achieving a valuation of $2 billion by employing a differentiated strategy that focuses on hiring experts from specialized fields for data training and annotation [24][25]. - This approach allows Mercor to provide higher quality data services compared to traditional data labeling models, enhancing client retention due to the specialized knowledge offered [26][27]. - Despite being smaller than Scale AI, Mercor has successfully attracted several high-profile clients, including OpenAI, by leveraging its unique business model [23][24].