Sara Hooker argues that frontier AI labs lack access to product surface, which she calls the most important input for the next era of intelligence. She says this explains why data companies are earning large revenues. The post is a short reply to a question about data-company profits.
Someone asked me this week: "Why are data companies making so much money right now?"
The answer is actually quite interesting, and speaks to how frontier labs don't have access to what is most important for the next era of intelligence: product surface.
Fastest company ever to $1b annualized revenue Nope it’s not Higgsfield or Cursor or Cognition. Met a data company yesterday that did 0 revenue in November 2025 and 80m “in month revenue” in September 2026. They will hit $1b annualized from 11 months of being started. They are still under the radar so I can’t share who they are. Hopefully soon, with their permission. I don’t make the rules.View quoted post on X
Source: Sara Hooker · x.comPublished · added here
