Mercor’s Brendan Foody calls out Sequoia over ‘dual-pricing’ valuation tricks

The more pointed detail here is that Foody named Sequoia specifically, not a generic VC practice, which converts a structural critique into a reputational challenge against the firm most associated with setting norms in AI dealmaking. That specificity raises the stakes considerably beyond a blog post about cap table hygiene.

Modelwire has no prior coverage to anchor this to directly, so this sits largely disconnected from recent activity in our archive. It belongs to a broader conversation about how the concentration of AI funding among a small number of top-tier firms creates information asymmetries that disadvantage founders and employees who lack the legal resources to parse complex term sheets. The dual-pricing critique is essentially an argument that headline valuations have become a marketing instrument as much as a financial signal, which has real downstream consequences for how talent evaluates equity compensation at AI startups.

Watch whether Sequoia responds publicly or whether other founders corroborate Foody's account with specific deal examples in the next few weeks. If named portfolio companies confirm the mechanics he describes, the pressure on firms to standardize pricing disclosures will be difficult to ignore.