I'll defend pseudo-systematic, for the sake of it if nothing else :) Investment types with many rows of data, enabling truly systemic decision making are secur

I'll defend pseudo-systematic, for the sake of it if nothing else :) Investment types with many rows of data, enabling truly systemic decision making are securities markets. Whether you are using ML, or a human analyst with a theory, the economic conclusion is the same. A securities market has lots of data. This lets traders price systemically. Pricing, investing & trading are the same thing, in a securities market. Startup investing is not like that, generally. A person using their subjective faculties is heavily involved, biases and all. This exists because human's subjective cognitive abilities are not just delusion, they are a real cognitive ability even if flawed^. Systemic & non-systemic systems have their strengths and weaknesses. Human biases are a big weakness for the systemic side. "Searching where the lights (data) are" is the big systemic one. A pseudo-systemic system is basically just a compromise. If the weaknesses of a non-systemic system are a major problem (the whole premise here is that it is), then it is not a stupid idea necessarily. It doesn't even have to be all that sophisticated. Manual overides are not necessarily a bad system. They make it clear where subjective judgement was used, how often. At least you are aware that it has taken place. I think the blind orchestra is a good metaphor. It identifies the kind of human bias you are trying to minimize. If one orchestra looks like a Viennese orchestra and the other looks like a hillbilly high school, you want to hide this from human judges. You want human judges to focus their subjective brains elsewhere. You don't want to create an objective test of "good music" and "bad music," because the definition you would be forced to use would suck. At least, the definition would be different, like a sport with rules. So, compromise. I don't think it's impossible to think of pseudo-systemic investment strategies, based on a similar compromise. ^ For best results, use skin in the game.