All that matters is winning

The job of an investor is to:

1. Source promising startups
2. Pick the right ones
3. Win an allocation
4. Help founders

Investors like to think they’re excellent at sourcing and picking. They’ve built a career of coffee meetings to build relationships that provide leads. They’ve spent years refining their pattern-matching skills to select the best founders.

Of course, many are exceptional at this. But that edge is deteriorating and will increasingly lead to false confidence.

Here’s why:

1. Everyone will see every deal

Word travels fast in venture through investor catchups and deal flow-sharing networks. That’s not new. What is new: A growing shift toward public signaling and tools to find founders.

It’s obvious when a founder is preparing to raise. They launch on Product Hunt. They get loud on X (a growing trend, often paired with an image of a hockey stick chart). They start to follow VCs on social.

We’re seeing more tools like Signa, Harmonic, Landscape, Tracxn, and others (including internal systems many VCs have built) use public data to surface newly minted founders and potential investment opportunities. These will only get better.

2. AI will pick better than humans

It will comb through data rooms more thoroughly than any human could, instantly evaluating comps, the market, and the team’s background. En Verite is productizing this and many firms like ADIN have their own internal systems to help pick.

But it won’t be limited to objective metrics—it will also evaluate founders. AI will automate reference checks and analyze nuanced signals expressed in a pitch and captured via Zoom + Granola.

In other words, there’s no edge in sourcing and picking in the near future. All that matters is winning.[2]

This is a good thing

There’s beauty in this future. Investors can spend less time deal-hunting and arduously analyzing opportunities. They can spend more time helping founders[1], the core input into their ability to win the next deal.

And that’s great for founders.

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[1] Granted, brand-building and thread boi maxxing will still serve a purpose. Reputation is what you earn by helping founders, but brand is informed by perception, for better or worse.

[2] I’m being slightly provocative but stand by my point that earning access and winning allocations will be the most important part of the game in the future. Investors that have truly proprietary, non-public data may still have alpha in sourcing and picking.

[3] For the observant: Exiting a position is the 5th job of an investor. I left this out as it’s less relevant here. We wrote a piece on this topic on Signature Block if you’re interested though.