Date: 2026-10-02 3:14 PM EDT Source: https://notes.granola.ai/d/20bf3304-4b9c-45f9-b19c-4e0b5376a64b
Attendees
- Michael Houck (Rye Valley)
- Emil Barr (Candid Network / Flashpass)
Summary
Immediate debrief between Michael and Emil following the Gov Data chat with Hunter from micro1. Covered impressions of Hunter, open questions about micro1’s business model and data format preferences, and agreed on next steps for the gov data brokering opportunity.
Key Observations
- Hunter (micro1) came across as high-energy and neurotic - classic young San Francisco tech bro who worked in DC
- micro1’s team focuses on government data, not corporate training, which was unexpected
- Unclear whether Hunter is selling to the federal government directly, to federal contractors (Palantir, SpaceX), or both; he mentioned compute, adding to the confusion
- Seems like a different business model within micro1 than the Mark Moore / Tompkins team selling directly to the federal government
- Emil noted Hunter’s team does not have an active open project for state-level data right now
Strategic Questions
- Do they need micro1 as a middleman, or can they go direct to Palantir with state-level data?
- Emil noted that if micro1 is not prioritizing state-level data structuring, that could be a disruptive opportunity to build that capability themselves and cut out the middleman long-term
- Data format question open: Emil pushed toward raw/email-style data, but everything researched so far pointed to descriptive workflow/process data being preferred; may have shifted to raw data with internal reconstruction pipelines
- Data is non-exclusive, so multiple buyers are possible
Decisions
No formal decisions made. Agreed on parallel outreach strategy.
Action Items
- Michael/Emil: Set up a meeting with Mercor for a pilot
- Michael/Emil: Put out feelers at Scale AI and other data brokers (Scale AI still independent; only founder Alexander Wang joined Meta)
- Emil: Ask OpenAI contact about preferred data format - validate whether labs now prefer raw data over structured workflow/process data
- Both: Talk to both sellers and buyers in parallel - understand how brokers position state-level data and what buyers’ wish lists look like
Notable Transcript Excerpts
“If they’re not prioritizing this state-level stuff and they don’t have systems in place to structure and format the data in a way that’s going to make it easy for the frontier labs to consume…maybe that’s a disruptive opportunity for us to get in there.”
“Let’s approach it from both sides. Let’s talk to the sales folks and see what they’re positioning, and then let’s talk to the buyers and see what’s on their wish list.”
“It seems like a different business model that his team sat on than the rest.”