Surge AI stayed under the radar until this summer, when news broke that the company crossed $1 billion in annual revenue without raising any outside capital. The company offers data labeling services used by companies, including Google and OpenAI, helping them train large-scale machine learning models, Inc. reports.
Surge AI CEO Edwin Chen, a former Google and Meta (NASDAQ:META) engineer, said he's intentionally avoided venture capital. "You move slow," Chen told Inc. "You have a lot of politics. You have a lot of bureaucracy." His view is that VC money creates unnecessary bloat and misaligned incentives inside startups. He believes many founders raise large sums simply because it's expected, then spend it inefficiently.
