Early Life
Surya Midha was born in Mountain View and raised in San Jose, California. His parents immigrated to the United States from New Delhi, India. He attended Bellarmine College Preparatory, where he excelled in policy debate, becoming the first duo in history to win all three national policy debate tournaments. This early success laid the foundation for his future partnership as an entrepreneur. Midha was also individually ranked as the best speaker at both the Tournament of Champions (TOC) and the National Debate Coaches Association Tournament (NDCA). After graduating as salutatorian from Bellarmine in 2021, Midha matriculated to the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Rise to Success
During his time in college, Midha was an Assistant Debate Coach at Bellarmine, Intern to Eswar Prasad in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution, and Research Assistant to Caitlin Talmadge in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown. In 2023, he took academic leave to co-found Mercor, an AI recruiting startup, with his high school friends Adarsh Hiremath and Brendan Foody. Mercor was initially formed to connect freelance programmers in India with companies in the United States, and they developed an AI platform to interview programmers and match them with hiring companies. Mercor's valuation has since increased dramatically after raising $350 million in new funding. Midha transitioned from his role as chief operating officer to become the company's chairman in October 2025.
Key Business Strategies
The AI platform developed by Mercor is designed to streamline recruitment processes. Their AI interview has screened around half a million candidates. Mercor's focus on the AI sector, with services that train AI models and connect experts with major tech firms like OpenAI and Meta, has fueled its rapid growth. Mercor now works predominantly with some of the largest AI labs and tech companies in the world. The company's success is also attributed to its ability to adapt and offer services that are in high demand in the AI market.
Philanthropy
Information regarding Surya Midha's philanthropy could not be found in the search results.