Want to break into VC in 2025? MBAs and consulting backgrounds are out. Technical skills, especially AI, are in.

Deedy Das (left), a principal at Menlo Ventures, held senior engineering roles at Glean, Facebook, and Google. Jon Chu, a partner at Khosla Ventures, previously worked as an engineer at Palantir and built machine learning at Facebook.

Menlo Ventures; Khosla Ventures

• VCs are increasingly looking for candidates with deep technical expertise, especially in AI.
• Increasingly, VCs square off with the hottest AI companies to secure top talent.
• VC firms can't compete with companies like OpenAI on compensation.