The Human Element in Venture Capital
This week, the venture capital world was buzzing about a conversation between Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen. In a joint interview in their podcast, Marc made a striking prediction:
“Early-stage venture capital will be one of the last jobs not done by AI agents.”
“There’s an intangibility to it. There’s a taste aspect, the human relationship aspect, the psychology […] and when the AIs are doing everything else, that may be one of the last remaining fields that people are still doing.”
And you know what? I think he’s absolutely right.
At DILA, we often say that money is a commodity. There are thousands of funds out there, many with more capital than we have, and founders can always find a check. So why should they take our money? Because it’s not just money they should be looking for. It’s everything that comes with it.
If you’re just looking for a passive investor, then sure, maybe one day an AI agent will be the perfect choice. Cold, calculating, analytical, fast. But if that’s all you want from your investors, then you’re aiming too low. The kind of capital you want in your cap table is the kind that brings a brain, a heart, and a pair of shoes that have walked through dozens of founder journeys. That’s what venture capital should be. And it’s a very human business.
People outside the industry often think our job is just about picking companies. You run some numbers, analyze a few business models, estimate the market size, and write a check. However, that’s the easy part. And yes, AI can already help us there. We use AI tools at DILA to model scenarios, do competitor analysis, and dig through data faster than ever. We even use AI to help us write our investment memorandums.
Analyzing investment opportunities is only the tip of the iceberg.
Before we invest, we have to find the company and the best companies usually aren’t looking for capital. They’re too busy building. They don’t have decks, and they’re not pitching in Demo Days. We have to be out there scouting talent, chasing stories, showing up where others don’t. Sourcing is inherently human. It’s about intuition. It’s about hearing a pitch that makes no sense on paper but makes perfect sense in your gut. And sometimes it’s about being persistent and convincing a founder that now is the right time to raise… and most importantly that we are the right partner.
Maybe someday an AI will be good at marketing a VC firm or sending the first email. But building trust? That’s still a human job.
Then comes the negotiation. In venture capital, no two term sheets are ever the same. Each deal depends on the founder’s vision, their runway, their past traumas with investors, their ambitions, and their fears. You need to understand what’s driving the team, what keeps them up at night and what they’re really optimizing for. Some founders want control. Others want mentorship. Some are raising because they need to survive, others because they want to scale fast. There’s no formula for that. It’s a conversation. It’s personal. And you can’t automate personal.
The Real Work Starts After the Money Moves
This is the part that people rarely talk about and the part that makes this job difficulty replaceable by machines. The day we wire the money is the day the real work begins. Now you’re on the board. Now you’re responsible and accountable. You’ve committed to a relationship. And relationships are messy, emotional, and deeply human.
This is where we earn our carry. It’s not about money; it’s about support. It’s when we pick up the phone at 2AM because a founder is freaking out over a churn spike. It’s when we mediate a conflict between co-founders before it blows up the company. It’s when we pull in another founder from our portfolio who went through something similar, so they can talk peer-to-peer, founder-to-founder. It’s when we open our Rolodex, our WhatsApp threads, and our personal connections to help them recruit, find customers, sign suppliers, or close their next round. This is when we become friends, accomplices, and sometimes even act as psychologists.
These are not things you outsource to a chatbot. They are calls that require empathy. They are board meetings where reading body language tells you more than the KPI dashboard. They are crisis moments where it’s not just about what you say, but how you say it. Our job is to bring perspective. Founders are in the arena. We’re in the stands. And from our vantage point, we see more than just the score; we see the patterns, the players, and sometimes the storm clouds before they arrive.
Most importantly, we bring experience. We’ve seen dozens of companies go through similar challenges. We’ve seen teams break up, rounds fall through, products flop, markets turn, and competitors outflank. And we’ve seen founders push through it. Win anyway. Exit stronger. That pattern recognition, the ability to say, “I’ve seen this movie before”, is not something an AI can fake. It comes from scars. From sitting through board meetings where everyone was silent because they didn’t know what to say. From seeing dreams crash. And from helping rebuild them.
Business Is Still About People
The true element of all forms of private equity, and especially early-stage venture capital, is not data. It’s not financial modeling. It’s people. People make companies. People grow companies. And people destroy companies.
You can’t separate business from emotion, from ambition, from ego, from hope. Every term sheet is a reflection of a relationship. Every board vote is a signal of trust. Every exit is a moment of deep introspection, celebration, and sometimes regret. This job is emotional, whether you like it or not.
So no, I don’t believe this job is going away. Not now. Not soon. Maybe not ever. Because at its core, venture capital is not about money. It’s not about valuations. It’s about alignment, between people, between values and between dreams. You can’t train an algorithm to care. You can’t prompt compassion. You can’t automate trust.
And in an era where everything is becoming automated, where everyone is looking for the shortcut, maybe the most valuable asset will be the one thing you can’t replicate with code: the human touch.
