The degree of success couldn’t be predicted, sure. But larian is not a new studio, BG is a big ip, DOS2 was a big success, the witcher 3 was a tremendous success, and the game was in early access for 3 years so you could very easily gauge how it was going.
If a decider can’t see that coming at least as a significant possibility, they’re all clowns who don’t deserve more than the lowest wages.