Grepped dangles $9M VP role as AI data-licensing boom heats up
What's the deal? GreppedDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a data-brokerage startup, is hiring a vice president of semiconductors at $4 million to $9 million a year plus equity, founder Erik Newsham posted on X on 13 October. The job is based in San Francisco with hours listed as 9am to 9pm, seven days a week.
What does Grepped do? The startup lets companies list proprietary internal records — chat logs, codebases, documents, and accounting exports from tools like Salesforce and QuickBooksDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — for sale. It de-identifies and packages the data for AI labs to buy, paying sellers within seven days of a sale.
Who else is hiring? The same post listed a neural data lead for brain-computer interfaces and a chip design data lead, each at $1.5 million a year, plus roles for technical staff and a founding scientist. Applicants must answer one question: "what does humanity know that it doesn't know it knows?"
Why now? Newsham says he entered the AI-data-brokerage business two weeks earlier and already hit a $4 million monthly run rate — roughly $48 million annualised. He called it "the most lucrative space I think has ever existed," naming accounting, legal, chemistry, and semiconductors as hot verticals.
What could go wrong? The revenue figures are self-reported, and some commentators on X have voiced skepticism given the business is only weeks old. Newsham has also published a public five-step playbook for cloning the brokerage model, inviting competition.
The signal: Demand for AI training data has turned proprietary business records into a tradeable asset. In August 2026, Google won a bankruptcy auction for Spirit AirlinesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →' internal data — roughly 100 million emails and 500 million Teams messages — agreeing to pay $10 million and beating a $7.5 million bid from AI data firm Mercor. Grepped's eye-watering pay bands suggest the race for that data, and the people who can source it, is only accelerating.
Read more: Erik Newsham on X · Axios
Image credit: Jemimus
