About

Elham Nourzai is the founder of Cassandra Foundation, an independent UK non-profit (NGO) focused on the macroeconomic and labour-market consequences of artificial general intelligence. His career spans hedge fund management, biotech, angel investing, and public-interest research, an unusual figure who bridges financial markets, the life sciences, and the economics of AI.

Early career in finance

Nourzai entered the financial industry early, becoming a hedge fund manager at 21. He managed TNS Capital, a fund with approximately $700 million in assets under management. This grounding in institutional finance (macroeconomics, risk, and capital allocation) would later inform his analytical approach to AI's economic consequences.

Biotech and life sciences

Alongside his financial career, Nourzai founded Zentara, a biotech company based in New York and Tel Aviv, focused on neurodegenerative diseases with a particular emphasis on Alzheimer's. Zentara has produced academic research exploring a comprehensive, preventative approach to neurodegenerative disease, aiming to harmonise scientific innovation with healthcare economics, reflecting Nourzai's broader interest in structural, systems-level thinking rather than narrow technical solutions.

Angel investing

Nourzai has been an early-stage angel investor in several companies that have gone on to become significant players in technology and fintech, including Anthropic (AI safety), Figma (collaborative design), Robinhood (retail investing), Circle Internet Financial (issuer of the USDC stablecoin), and Wiz (cloud security).

European Council on Foreign Relations

Nourzai is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), the pan-European policy network. The membership reflects his engagement with geopolitics, technology governance, and European and transatlantic policy, all of which intersect with his work on the political economy of AI.

FTX bankruptcy: technical advisor

During the FTX crisis and subsequent bankruptcy proceedings, Nourzai served as a technical advisor to the unsecured creditors' committee, a complex, high-profile legal and financial process that drew on his background in financial markets, structured risk, and the mechanics of digital-asset markets. His contribution was technical rather than legal or fiduciary, advising on matters relevant to the creditors' position during the restructuring.

UK parliamentary submissions

Nourzai has submitted written evidence to four UK parliamentary committees in March 2026, establishing Cassandra Foundation as a recognised contributor to domestic policy debate:

• Science & Technology Committee: inquiry into AI and the workforce (CFE3867)
• Science & Technology Committee: inquiry into the sustainability of the UK data centre sector (CFE3859)
• Education Committee: inquiry into the use of AI and EdTech in education (CFE3858)
• Health & Social Care Committee: inquiry into innovation in the NHS, personalised medicine and AI (CFE3865)

These submissions draw directly on his research paper and set out a consistent analytical framework: that AI-driven deflation poses a structural transition risk to household incomes and public services that existing UK policy frameworks are not equipped to manage.

Cassandra Foundation and “The Great Deflation”

In March 2026, Nourzai founded Cassandra Foundation, registered in the United Kingdom as a Community Interest Company (CIC). It is structured as an independent non-profit (NGO), a deliberate choice to preserve analytical independence at a moment when AI companies have strong incentives to shape the policy narrative.

The Foundation's central output is Nourzai's research paper, “The Great Deflation: Artificial General Intelligence, Autonomous Robotics, and the Political Economy of the Post-Scarcity Transition.” Its core argument is that AGI and autonomous robotics will trigger a supply-side deflationary shock of historic proportions, distinct from the demand-side deflation associated with recessions. As the marginal cost of production approaches zero across manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, professional services, agriculture, and energy, scarcity itself is structurally abolished. The long-run outcome, in Nourzai's thesis, is substantially higher real living standards and a world in which work becomes optional rather than economically compelled.

The paper's critical contribution is not the abundance thesis itself, but the identification of what Nourzai calls the Transition Window: an estimated 12–36 month period (median ~18 months) during which labour displacement precedes consumer-price benefits. In that window, real household incomes fall even as aggregate productive capacity rises, a severe mismatch that, without policy intervention, risks political catastrophe. His proposed responses include an AI Productivity Levy on firms benefiting from AI-driven displacement, a Universal Basic Income bridge funded by that levy, and proactive regulatory frameworks covering data-centre governance, NHS AI integration, and EdTech standardisation.

Recognition and outreach

Since founding Cassandra Foundation, Nourzai has engaged with leading UK policy figures, including members of the House of Lords with technology portfolios, national journalists covering AI and economics, and senior researchers at established institutions. He has submitted work to DSIT, the APPG on AI, and the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, and is building an advisory board drawn from UK and European policy, academic, and business communities.