Anyway, it was probably just a joke... so not sure we need to unravel it all.
But VCs own their business, they are not employees. If you own a bakery, and buy a machine to make the dough instead of doing it by hand, and an automatic oven to relieve you form tracking the temperature manually, you of course keep the proceeds from the improved efficiency (after you pay the credit you took to purchase the machines).
Once they ceased to exercise their military might, some time around 17th-18th century, and chose to live off the rent on their estates, their power became more and more nominal. It either slipped (or was yanked) from their hands, or they turned capitalists themselves.
"Living off of the rent of their estates" was enough to remain in control of the state for centuries. Only the birth of capitalism and thereafter the industrial revolution allowed for other actors -- the bourgeoisie -- to overtake the aristocrats economically.
"Every great venture capitalist in the last 70 years has missed most of the great companies of his generation... if it was a science, you could eventually dial it in and have somebody who gets 8 out of 10 [right]," the investor reasoned. "There's an intangibility to it, there's a taste aspect, the human relationship aspect, the psychology — by the way a lot of it is psychological analysis," he added.
"So like, it's possible that that is quite literally timeless," Andreessen posited. "And when the AIs are doing everything else, like, that may be one of the last remaining fields that people are still doing."
I would bet that AIs will master taste and human psychology before they'll cure cancer. (Insert Rick RubAIn meme here.)
In a rational market, LPs would index, but VCs justify their 2 & 20 by controlling access…