Alfredo Mercedes is the co-founder at VU Talent Partners, a modular, talent enablement platform deeply embedded within a VC firm, combining signal, workflows, and search as a service. He started his career in the Marine Corps as a CoS, before moving into executive search, where he helped high growth tech companies and venture funds build teams to scale. Today he works at the intersection of hiring, investing, automation, and network, partnering with founders to scale their businesses and advising on how to leverage talent as a core driver of returns.

During this episode, we discuss:

• How he started his career in the Marine Corps
• What led him to get into recruiting
• Advice for which positions founders should prioritize hiring
• What it was like to cofound VU Talent Partners
• The downside of traditional, third-party recruiters
• How we’re going to have our first single-person, billion dollar unicorn company & we can grow and scale companies with less and less people
• Why hiring and recruiting processes will look different with AI
• What founders should know before they get ready to hire an executive
• Creative tactics to get executives to sign on if the salary isn’t high enough
• His advice for candidates who are interviewing for executive roles

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things talent!