Brad Gerstner

10 million children will have claimed their Invest America (Trump) accounts by July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the United States.

“There are 4.5 million kids who've claimed their account. Almost $150,000 a day will have on the trajectory we're on. 10 million by July 4th or 250 at the anniversary of the country.” View on YouTube

Between early July 2023 and roughly mid‑August 2023, Meta will ship multiple major AI-related product launches, including (a) significantly expanded support for its open-source LLM and (b) the launch of multiple agent-style bots on WhatsApp and Instagram.

“Over the next 4 to 6 weeks, they're going to have massive launches out of, uh, the AI side of the business. I expect a lot more support for the open AI model, um, or for their open, uh, LLM. I also think they're going to launch a bunch of agents on WhatsApp and Instagram.” View on YouTube

Threads will reach at least 100 million registered users by the end of the day following its launch (i.e., within roughly 24 hours of launch in early July 2023).

“already, by my estimate, these guys get to 100 million, which it looks like they may be able to get to tonight” View on YouTube

ChatGPT usage will increase again when school resumes in fall 2023 and then stabilize around roughly 100–150 million users (on the order of magnitude of 100–150M active users) rather than continuing to decline materially below that range.

“I think that what we're going to see is kids come back to school, you're going to see the normal uptick in traffic. It probably hangs out around this 100 million, 150 million level in terms of usage.” View on YouTube

Around 5–7 years after March 2022 (i.e., approximately 2027–2029), public equity markets will again reach a major top characterized by investors repeating the same highly speculative, complacent behavior seen in 2020–2021, with overbidding for high-risk assets far out on the risk curve.

“we'll know we're at a market top five or 6 or 7 years from now, when we repeat the same asinine behavior that we just went through, when everybody becomes complacent again and overbidding this stuff way out on the risk curve.” View on YouTube

Within 1–2 weeks after March 26, 2022, Russia will increase missile attacks in Ukraine and European countries will implement a complete embargo on Russian oil exports of roughly 3 million barrels per day, with these escalations occurring shortly before formal Russia–Ukraine peace negotiations commence.

“watch the next week or two, like in any good negotiation, unfortunately, I think both sides are going to amp up their current strategies. We may see missiles coming out of Russia, and we may see European, uh, complete European embargo of Russian oil, 3 million barrels a day. Those will be the final straws right before we enter negotiations” View on YouTube

Before Russia and Ukraine enter substantive peace negotiations (post‑March 2022), there will be a significant military and economic escalation by both sides, including a European embargo on Russian oil that collapses the Russian economy and drives global oil prices up to approximately $180–$200 per barrel.

“if I had to guess, we are going to have a period of significant escalation on both sides before they both get to the table. Macron said this week that we still have the Europeans have not made a decision about the embargo of Russian oil that will collapse the Russian economy, and oil will go to 180 or $200 a barrel. I think that's a real likelihood.” View on YouTube

Throughout the Russia–Ukraine war period following March 2022, the Chinese government will refrain from supplying Russia with weapons, prioritizing its economic interests and its 5.5% 2022 GDP growth target.

“China sees this coming and says we're going to get ahead of this. We've got a people's Congress in November. We've promised them 5.5% GDP growth. 3 trillion of that is export driven. That means if Europe and the United States catches a cold, they catch the flu. Okay. So they have to do everything in their power. This is why they're not going to supply the Russians with weapons, right.” View on YouTube

By mid‑summer 2022 (around June–July 2022), the U.S. Federal Reserve will publicly characterize its outlook as seeing a more balanced risk between economic growth and inflation, rather than prioritizing inflation risk alone.

“that's why I think there's also a probability. By the middle of the summer, the fed in the United States is saying we now see a balanced risk between growth and inflation.” View on YouTube

From roughly late 2022 through about two years thereafter, public tech and growth companies will experience an extended "ringing out" period (no quick V-shaped recovery), characterized by continued valuation and business-model adjustment without a rapid, Fed-driven rebound.

“the wringing out of the system of that excess, that grift, that stupidity, that's going to be good for the fundamentals of these business. But the transition from, you know, that low rate environment to the high rate environment, it's dislocating for investors, it's dislocating for management at these companies. And it's going to be this is not, you know, a six month phenomenon. We're going to have two years of ringing out, right? Because there's no bailout here by the fed. There's no V-shaped recovery for these companies.” View on YouTube

By the end of this roughly two-year adjustment period following the 2022 rate shock, many tech companies will exhibit stronger underlying fundamentals (higher-quality margins, more disciplined cost structures) as a result of shedding the excesses of the zero-interest-rate era.

“So the wringing out of the system of that excess, that grift, that stupidity, that's going to be good for the fundamentals of these business.” View on YouTube

Absent a new, severe negative shock, S&P 500 earnings per share will not fall from about 225 to 200 in the near term (the next several quarters from Q3 2022); instead, aggregate earnings will at least remain roughly flat to modestly up year-over-year through Q1 2023.

“to go from 225 down to 200. We can't just be a slowing of the rate of growth of earnings. You have to reverse course entirely. So we have to see something we're not seeing yet.” View on YouTube

From late 2022 forward, after the large drawdowns already seen, broad equity markets (especially tech/growth) are unlikely to experience another massive, highly asymmetric leg down driven purely by valuation/rate repricing; instead, expected returns are roughly neutral to modestly positive from these levels, barring a new major shock.

“as I sit here today, yes, we're going to have harder times ahead economically, but it feels to me like a lot of it is priced in. I don't think we have huge asymmetry and skew to the downside. I think that's like fighting the last battle. It's not to say in this distribution of probabilities one of those events can occur. But from my vantage, when stocks the average stock down 20%, stocks like meta down 50 to 60%, a lot of stocks down 70, 80, 90. That doesn't seem like the time to call the Big Short. That seems like a time to be like neutral to positive.” View on YouTube

As venture funds raised in vintages roughly 2011–2018 mature and fully distribute capital over the coming years, their ultimate cash-on-cash returns (DPI) for top-quartile funds will revert toward the long-term industry mean shown by the orange line, implying that there will be on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars of valuation markdowns across LP and GP venture portfolios from their peak reported TVPI marks.

“My hunch is that by the time the cash is actually distributed, the returns are going to revert to that orange line mean, which means there are hundreds of billions of dollars in markdowns Down sitting in LPs and GPS portfolios that are likely to come because nobody really thinks that the deal is done in 15, 16, 17, 18 are going to be that far above the mean return.” View on YouTube

OpenAI and Anthropic will both be public via IPO within roughly the next six to nine months, absent a black-swan event.

“Yeah, I think I think it's very high. ... What do you think the chances are they're public when we're sitting here and I'm skiing in Hokkaido?” View on YouTube

SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI will compound revenue at well over 30% per year for many years going forward.

“I do think that these things can be compounders. They're going to compound at the rate they compound revenue. And I think all of these companies are going to compound revenue at well over 30% for the next many years.” View on YouTube

If Anthropic/OpenAI end the year with over $100B in revenue, they are on a trajectory to 3-5x that revenue again the following year (e.g., to roughly $300B+).

“If these guys end a year over a hundred billion, I think that they're on a revenue trajectory that they could 3 to 5x again next year. ... from a 100 billion to 300 billion.” View on YouTube

Trump accounts (child investment accounts) will reach over 100 million accounts set up within the next decade.

“We are on a trajectory now that we're going to have over a hundred million of these accounts set up over the next decade.” View on YouTube

Over the next 15 years, between $2 trillion and $4 trillion will be added to Trump accounts for American families and kids.

“If you do the math on this over the course of the next 15 years, you could have somewhere between two and four trillion dollars added to the accounts of families and kids who would have otherwise had zero.” View on YouTube

A child whose Trump account was maxed out from birth will be a millionaire by age 28, assuming historical average market returns.

“One of the numbers I saw was kind of amazing is again, it just goes back to the power of compounding is that if a Trump account had been maxed out and you have the standard market rate of return that we've had for say the past 30 years, then by age 28, that kid will be a millionaire.” View on YouTube

SpaceX will hit $100 billion in ARR by the end of 2026 and reach $1 trillion in ARR by 2030 (pulled forward a year from its prior 2031 target).

“I thought his guides were pretty extraordinary. 100 billion in ARR by the end of the year. And he pulled forward the $1 trillion target in ARR by a year from 2031 to 2030.” View on YouTube

Anthropic will IPO later in 2026 at a valuation of roughly $1.5-2 trillion, with revenue run-rating over $100 billion by the end of the year.

“we've talked about the Anthropic IPO, or a lot of people have talked about it later this year. I hear a lot of people saying 1.5 or 2 trillion dollars. David just talked earlier that it's going to be run rating over 100 billion maybe by the end of the year.” View on YouTube

In 2026, incoming Fed Chair Kevin Worsh will deliver more interest rate cuts than the market currently expects.

“I happen to think that I would take the over on the number of rate cuts that Worsh is going to give us this year.” View on YouTube

The Federal Reserve will raise the federal funds rate by 50 basis points at both the June 2022 and July 2022 FOMC meetings, and then pause to assess the effects of tightening in the back half of 2022.

“So they're saying we're going to hit it with 50‑50. And then we're going to take a look.” View on YouTube

By fall 2022, there will be clear evidence that US inflation is declining (“rolling over”), markets will have better visibility into the Federal Reserve’s likely policy path and upper bound on interest rates, and public‑equity investors will again be able to underwrite valuations using roughly the prior 5‑year average multiples.

“I think the base case is by this fall will have very good evidence, right, of where inflation is rolling over. I think it is rolling over what the fed is likely to do. The upward bound on on interest rates. And I think we'll be at a point where we can start underwriting to the five year average again.” View on YouTube

The Federal Reserve’s tightening path in 2022 will avoid runaway inflation, and by fall 2022 the US public markets will again be an attractive, investable environment; private venture markets will lag this improvement by roughly 6–12 months (i.e., will reach market‑clearing prices and become attractive between roughly spring and fall 2023).

“However, I do think that the fed is taking a good course here. I don't think that we have runaway inflation. I think that, um, you know, we're going to have an investable environment come this fall. However, I think for venture there's a six to a 12 month lag to that.” View on YouTube

The layoffsfyi.com tracker, which showed 714 startups with layoffs at the time of speaking (May 2022), will eventually list at least 3,000 startups with layoffs by the end of the current downturn cycle.

“there's 714 startups on this list. By the time we're done, they're going to be at least 3000 startups on that list.” View on YouTube

Nvidia will continue to perform strongly and will beat its financial guidance/consensus estimates for all remaining quarters of 2023 ("the balance of the year").

“You know, I think a lot of the AI related stocks are at or within 10% of our end of year price target. And when you when you see that, take something like Nvidia, if I'm playing at home or I'm a, you know, a professional investor, I may say, oh, I'm going to go sell some long dated calls to buy a little protection to the downside. I don't think there's any problems with Nvidia. I think they're going to continue to perform. I think their beat their numbers for the balance of the year.” View on YouTube

Over roughly the next 5–7 years from 2023, the bulk of web search "top of funnel" advertising and related economic value (currently dominated by traditional search) will be redistributed among new AI‑driven interfaces and competitors, rather than remaining concentrated in the existing ten‑blue‑links search model.

“And I will tell you that the conversation around that table, there's increasing confidence that whatever comes next, right, the top of the funnel is up for grabs. And all of those dollars over a period of five years, seven years is going to get redistributed.” View on YouTube

Of the roughly 1,000 private "unicorn" startups that existed at the end of 2021, essentially all of them (approaching 100%) will eventually raise capital in a down round relative to their peak valuation before the current valuation reset is complete.

“remember we had a thousand unicorns at the end of 2021. And I've said 100% of those are going to do a down round. And we're still in the early stages of that reset to occur.” View on YouTube

Starting in the near term after August 2023, there will be a new wave of technology IPOs, including both high‑quality ('first class') offerings and a significant number of 'down‑round' IPOs (companies going public at materially lower valuations than their last private rounds).

“the world's normalized fear of Covid has passed, hyperinflation has passed, etc. first class IPOs are coming and a bunch of down around IPOs are coming.” View on YouTube

In the IPO market for tech and growth companies: (1) During Q4 2023 there will be roughly 5–7 sizable IPOs; (2) During Q1 2024 there will be closer to 10 sizable IPOs; (3) By the second half of 2024, the IPO market will be materially more open/active than in early 2023.

“I don't think it'll look like a light switch, but it will be. I think we're going to see five, six, seven IPOs, good size IPOs in Q4. We'll probably see closer to ten in Q1. And then it will start opening up in the back half of next year” View on YouTube

As predicted on the All‑In podcast around early 2023, by the end of 2023 the dominant macro narrative in the U.S. will have shifted from inflation to disinflation (i.e., public and media discussion will focus more on slowing or falling inflation than on high or rising inflation).

“Bloomberg's headline today was the Summer of disinflation. And we said on this pod six months ago, we said it's more likely by the end of 2023, we're going to be talking about disinflation than inflation.” View on YouTube

Throughout calendar year 2026, essentially all shipped AI GPUs (notably from Nvidia and AMD) will be actively deployed and utilized; there will be no significant unused (‘dark’) GPU capacity sitting idle in data centers.

“There is not a dark GPU in the world today. The question? There's not going to be a dark GPU in the world next year.” View on YouTube

OpenAI's Spud model, its first Blackwell-trained model, will be released very soon ("any day now").

“Mythos and Spud, which is going to be out from OpenAI any day now, which is the first Blackwell trained model at OpenAI.” View on YouTube

OpenAI and Google will both adopt the same pre-release sandboxing/hardening approach that Anthropic used for Mythos before releasing their own frontier models.

“I think open AAI will end up doing the same thing. I think Google will end up doing the same thing.” View on YouTube

At some point, a genuinely successful open-source pre-training project (for training frontier-scale models) will emerge.

“I tend to agree with you Jason that there is going to be at some point a very successful open source project for pre-training. Absolutely.” View on YouTube

Anthropic will exit the year at an $80-100 billion revenue run rate, while OpenAI also sees a revenue inflection driven by an imminent new model release.

“So I think when you look out toward the end of the year, I would not be shocked if you see Anthropic exiting this year at 80 to 100 billion in revenue. And by the way, doing it at the same time that OpenAI, who is also on the wave, they'll be releasing an incredible model in the next imminently. They're going to be on that wave and you're going to see an inflection in their revenues as well.” View on YouTube

A Ukraine-Russia peace deal is close, Venezuela negotiations are progressing well, and there will be significant news on Cuba.

“By the way, while everybody's focused on Iran, stay tuned. I think we're getting close to a deal on Ukraine, Russia, right? Venezuela is, you know, kind of going seemingly very well. I think there's also going to be news on Cuba.” View on YouTube

If the Iran ceasefire, Lebanon talks, Ukraine-Russia, and Venezuela situations are resolved by July 4th (America's 250th anniversary), the stock market could rally sharply.

“If you land the plane on those things heading into America 250 July 4th, the market could really take off.” View on YouTube

Elon's new 'Elon Web Services' (EWS) hyperscaler business will generate an incremental $4-5 billion of revenue this year on top of existing mid-$20 billions analyst estimates.

“So I estimate that this is going to generate in this year an incremental 4 to 5 billion of revenue on top of what I've seen analysts estimates in the mid20s.” View on YouTube

SpaceX's IPO will trade at roughly 40-50x revenue, and with next year's projected $40-50 billion in revenue, the company will go public at around a $2 trillion valuation.

“This is why the SpaceX IPO is going to trade at 40 to 50 times revenue. Okay. So next year if they do 40 to 50 billion and this thing goes out at 2 trillion right that they're going to trade at a really high revenue multiple compared to the mag five.” View on YouTube

OpenAI’s annual revenue will reach approximately $100 billion within the next “couple of years” from late 2025, i.e., by the end of 2027.

“we think we're going to have 100 billion in revenues over the course of the next couple of years.” View on YouTube

By the November 2026 U.S. midterm elections, the U.S. macro environment will not simultaneously feature: inflation above 3%, higher youth unemployment than at the time of this podcast (Nov 2025), GDP growth around only 1.5%, and persistently high interest rates; instead, conditions will be materially better than that scenario.

“If you're right, and we have inflation over 3% next November and you have higher youth unemployment and the economy is only growing at 1.5%, and interest rates stay high. Then I think it will be a rough midterm for the Republicans. I don't actually think that's the flight path for the country.” View on YouTube

Between late 2025 and November 2026, the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates 3–4 times, and U.S. real GDP growth will re-accelerate relative to its current pace in late 2025.

“I actually think you are going to get 3 to 4 rate cuts. I actually think you are going to see a re-acceleration of GDP.” View on YouTube

From late 2025 through at least November 2026, U.S. inflation (e.g., CPI year-over-year) will trend downward from its then-current level (~3%), rather than rising or remaining elevated.

“I happen to think that inflation is going to continue rolling over.” View on YouTube

In the months following early March 2023, rhetoric in the U.S. Congress from both Republicans and Democrats will feature an unusually high and sustained level of anti‑China sentiment, more intense than in recent years.

“We're going to see a level of Chinese hate leveled out of out of Congress, both sides.” View on YouTube