That being said, it seems that what YouNoodle is trying to do is to have some sort of predictor of future success based on team factors. (If you check out the VentureBeat article you will find a more balanced explanation of what they are actually trying to do).

For my sense of it, it’s not the computer that makes me skeptical, it’s the rules-based human inputs it needs to process. So many subtleties, so hard to put into systems.

And the other problem is just the grinding power of it, if and when it works, what that would do to creativity, not to mention availability of capital, and entrepreneurship. Can you see the pitch presentation ending up with data inputs, number crunching, and the calculated conclusion? Chilling, no?

Epagogix has done this successfully with scripts in the film industry. If you are looking for more examples you should check out the book Super Crunchers. People in general seem to be resistant to the idea that a computer can rank something better than they can, but with large enough data sets it seems obvious that a computer will be able to do much better quantitative analysis than any human.