[ballpoint]

I'm not sure having better predictors of what businesses are good is necessarily a good idea. Part of the attraction of silicon valley is that it takes some of the risk out of trying new things, even if they might be bad ideas. This culture of trying things leads us to find the occasional really good idea. If we sit around all day plugging our ideas into models to see if, statistically speaking, the will succeed, we won't find the really novel ideas that look bad but are actually good.