E109: 2022 Bestie Awards Live from Twitter HQ

If Ron DeSantis continues to poll as strongly as he was at the end of 2022 within the Republican Party, Donald Trump will choose not to run in the 2024 Republican presidential primary to avoid the risk of losing.

“And if if it can just be DeSantis versus Trump in the primary, he has a much better shot than if it's Trump versus a bunch of other challengers. And I think that if he continues to pull this well within the Republican Party, I think Trump might not run again, because Trump definitely does not want to risk being a loser in the Republican primary.” View on YouTube

Donald Trump will participate in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, will debate Ron DeSantis, and may win those primaries (speaker expresses belief that Trump has a real chance to win the nomination over DeSantis).

“despite all this, Trump is still viable. I can't believe he's still viable and that he is going to be out there in the primaries and he's going to have to debate DeSantis. And I don't know that DeSantis can beat him in a debate. I think he might win.” View on YouTube

US defense contractors mentioned (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics) will continue to perform well in the stock market for at least the next year following December 2022, relative to the broader market.

“So these companies are going to keep doing well for the next year at least.” View on YouTube

Microsoft will release a search engine product integrating OpenAI technology (e.g., ChatGPT‑like capabilities) that will materially erode or threaten Google’s core search business within the subsequent few years after December 2022.

“Microsoft, I think, is going to release a and this is a prediction as well, a search engine with OpenAI that has a significant impact on Google's franchise.” View on YouTube

The speaker expects Disney’s stock to appreciate enough in the future to justify increasing their position by buying more Disney shares during 2023.

“I own the stock... Yes, I'm buying more Disney stock this year.” View on YouTube

After the FTX/FTT case, the SEC under Gary Gensler will initiate additional enforcement actions and prosecutions against other crypto tokens and projects it deems to be fraudulent or unregistered securities over the next few years.

“I think there will be a subsequent domino to fall, which is now that Gary Gee, head of the SEC, has FTX and the FTT tokens as the grift. He's going to go down the list of other tokens, and he is going to start doing more prosecutions of grifts in crypto.” View on YouTube

Within 6 to 18 weeks after late December 2022 (i.e., by roughly March–May 2023), Twitter will ship enough new product features that public discussion will focus primarily on these new features rather than on transitional/operational problems from Elon Musk’s takeover.

“We are going to see a parade of features I predict in another 6 to 18 weeks we will see people talking about all the great features in Twitter, not any of the transitional issues and people will be shocked.” View on YouTube

Twitter will soon (within months of December 2022) roll out a custom affiliation badge for the All-In podcast accounts and hosts.

“We are going to have all in badges really soon.” View on YouTube

The rate of notable mistakes or "gaffes" in Elon's management of Twitter will decrease over time relative to the initial weeks after his acquisition in late 2022.

“I think generally like my error rate in sort of being the chief twit, uh, will be less over time. ... I think we'll have fewer, um, fewer gaffes in the future.” View on YouTube

Measured hate-speech impressions on Twitter, which Elon claims are already down by about one-third as of December 2022, will decline further (i.e., fall below that level) over time following his acquisition.

“You're doing a lot more to take down hate speech than the company previously was doing. Yeah, absolutely. Hate speech impressions are down by a third and will get even lower.” View on YouTube

By mid to late January 2023, Twitter will roll out a new feature set that includes in-product information explaining why an account is suspended or subject to visibility filtering (shadow banning).

“something I've committed to and we'll, uh, I think probably be able to roll that out in January. ... the next sort of feature set will probably roll out mid to late January. Um, and hopefully in that we'll, we can include, um, information about why an account is suspended or has, uh, what is called within Tesla Twitter, uh, visibility filtering uh aka shadow banning.” View on YouTube

The global (or at least U.S.) economy will enter a recession in 2023, with severity at least light-to-moderate and roughly comparable in magnitude to the 2009 recession.

“Well, I think it's more like it does seem like we're headed into a recession here, um, in 2023. The magnitude of that recession is debatable, but I think it's at least a light to moderate recession potentially. It's on the order of 2009.” View on YouTube

Economic weakness or recessionary conditions will persist for roughly 1–2 years from late 2022, with clear recovery beginning around Q2 2024.

“my best guess is that, you know, we have sort of stormy times for a year or two, a year and a half. And then things start to dawn breaks roughly in Q2 24.” View on YouTube

Chamath expects the current recession to end around mid-2024, and therefore advises companies either to reach cash-flow breakeven immediately or to have sufficient runway to last at least until the end of Q1 2025.

“I have been guiding our portfolio company CEOs to be at cash flow break even now, or extend runway to Q1 2025... I mean, I think 24 well, Ellen and I are kind of roughly in the same place we have been for a while, which is like, you know, mid 24 is when the recession ends” View on YouTube

The ongoing recessionary period will end around mid-2024, with economic conditions improving thereafter; startups should plan to have enough cash runway to last at least until the end of Q1 2025 to safely raise their next funding round after recovery begins.

“I mean, I think 24 well, Ellen and I are kind of roughly in the same place we have been for a while, which is like, you know, mid 24 is when the recession ends and you need to give yourself 2 to 3 quarters of buffer so that you can go and raise around, which takes a 1:45 quarters. And once you start to get kind of get escape velocity out of a recession, having money through end of Q1 2025, I think is a is a minimum requirement.” View on YouTube

Chamath predicts that there may be no significant, clear turnaround cases (in whatever sense they define for this award segment) until sometime in 2025.

“There may be no turnaround award until 2025.” View on YouTube

Jason predicts that Sam Bankman-Fried’s prison sentence will be approximately 35 years (he is using 35 years as the over-under line for sentencing length).

“I'll set it at 35 years.” View on YouTube

Chamath predicts that Sam Bankman-Fried will receive a prison sentence longer than 35 years, on the order of Bernie Madoff–level sentencing (effectively a de facto life sentence).

“I'll take the over... I think this is made off level.” View on YouTube

Friedberg predicts that Sam Bankman-Fried will receive a sentence in the hundreds of years (a very long nominal sentence) and will effectively spend the rest of his life in prison.

“I agree over on 30. Yeah, I think, I think I said 35. I think it's going to be a hundred multiple, hundreds of years sentence. And he'll be gone for life.” View on YouTube

Jason predicts that Sam Bankman-Fried will receive a life sentence or a sentence functionally equivalent to life in prison.

“I agree... And he'll be gone for life. Yeah, I think it's going to be life.” View on YouTube

Over the next 10–20 years, continuing declines in the marginal cost of energy generation and storage to low single-digit cents per kWh will make energy effectively free and abundant, producing a "massive peace dividend" that will significantly reshape U.S. foreign policy and national security priorities.

“Marginal cost of energy generation and storage is now in the low single digit pennies per kilowatt hour, which basically means that not only will energy be free and abundant, but it will, I think over the next decade or two, create a massive peace dividend. It will rewrite our foreign policy. It will rewrite national security.” View on YouTube

Friedberg predicts that a "narrator economy" built on generative AI tools like ChatGPT and DALL·E will emerge and grow, leading over the coming years to significant changes in how people entertain themselves, how they behave as users, and how businesses operate and create products (via users narrating what they want and having it generated on demand).

“I think the idea that people are... using ChatGPT and Dall-E and other generative AI tools is how much you can kind of narrate the product you want to see created and have it created for you on the fly... I think it really starts to change a lot of the way that people behave and entertain themselves. Businesses operate and so on. So I'd call it the narrator economy. And I think it's really kind of starting to emerge.” View on YouTube

Sacks predicts that the trend of audiences recognizing corporate media as biased and agenda-driven will continue, with an increasing share of people opting out of corporate media and turning to independent media over the coming years.

“best trend is the growing realization that the corporate media is failing does not tell the truth. It has an agenda. More and more people are opting out of it and going with independent media... I think more and more people are waking up from the matrix and realizing that we're living in this media controlled simulation.” View on YouTube

Sacks predicts that the movie "Dalíland" (which he references as "Dolly land") will be released to the public in the summer of 2023.

“I'll give a shout out to my movie Dolly land, which will be coming out next summer.” View on YouTube