Whose job will be next for the AI chop? Some kinds of work are already squarely in the crosshairs as artificial intelligence flexes its muscle, from software coders to call centre workers and junior lawyers. But a recent study raises the possibility that AI could also bite the hand that feeds it: that of the venture capitalist.
Researchers at Oxford university and venture firm Vela Partners asked a range of large language models, including those from OpenAI and Google, to spot technology founders with big-money potential. The LLMs were shown anonymised data on 9,000 would-be Mark Zuckerbergs from LinkedIn and Crunchbase; a successful founder was defined as one who would later raise at least $500mn, or sell a company for that amount.
Pitted against the VCs, the AI models came out on top. For context, top firms broadly get it right one time in 20. But some LLMs did much better. OpenAI’s GPT-5 correctly picked a winner half the time. China’s DeepSeek-V3 beat the lot, able to single out a future success story six times out of 10. It was also able to do so more cheaply than most other models.