Handshake is leveraging its massive network of 18 million students and graduates, including 500,000 PhDs, to create a new, high-growth business providing expert-generated data for training frontier AI models.
This new AI division is experiencing explosive demand, working with six major AI labs, adding $1 million in weekly revenue from its SMB self-service product, and recently turning down a $20 million project due to capacity constraints.
The company's strategy capitalizes on the market shift where LLMs, having ingested all public internet data, now require specialized human expert data to improve in professional domains like law, medicine, and STEM.
The broader discussion highlights AI's transformative impact on productivity, with speakers noting that what once took 80 engineers can now be done by 20, making revenue per employee a critical metric for modern companies.
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Concerns Raised
Potential for AI to automate away entry-level jobs for new graduates.
The AI data services division is at capacity, forcing them to turn down significant revenue opportunities.
Opportunities Identified
Capitalizing on the massive, growing demand from AI labs for expert-generated training data.
Scaling the self-service business for SMBs, which has the potential to become a $400-500M business line.
Embedding AI tools into the core recruiting marketplace to increase efficiency and value for employers.