Aileen Allen spent over 15 years as a go-to-market operator before making the jump to venture capital, most recently as a Partner at Mercury Fund. In this conversation, she shares what that transition taught her about evaluating founders, why the go-to-market playbook is being rewritten right now, and what she's watching in agentic commerce and developer tooling.
✓ How Mercury Fund's founder evaluation framework has changed in the AI era
✓ Why community-led growth is having a moment (and how to actually build one)
✓ The go-to-market skills that matter now versus two years ago
✓ What Aileen looks for as a partner, beyond the firm's brand
✓ Whether founders should take venture capital at all
