What stops non-blockchain code from making purchases, hiring people, etc? Just because it uses a third party (A bank account) to store value doesn't make my WidgetFactoryFactory AI any less of an autonomous corporation.
A DAO focused on gaining revenue doesn't need to hire people to achieve that.
There a decentralized asset exchanges where other companies have raised capital. A DAO could access those to buy shares completely programmatically, for example. It could trade oil futures till eternity if it wanted. It could create a contract for an agent at a particular address that promises payment for the construction of a robot factory in Shenzen, in that example a human would be the agent on the other side of that address, but the DAO doesn't need to know that.
What if they don't build the robots but instead execute whatever payload the contract anticipates using a laptop?
It could provide the ability to hire marketing services, rent servers, perform accounting and auditing, hire employees, perform security audits, provide legal services, and interface with "real world" legacy companies like manufacturers and shipping services.