Chamath Palihapitiya

Within the next year, California's budget deficit will grow from about $18 billion to about $30 billion, requiring continued bond issuance.

“California has half a trillion dollars of bonds outstanding and the state of California is looking at an 18 billion dollar deficit. They're going to continue to issue bonds over the next year. That number is going to climb to 30 billion.” View on YouTube

California will need to borrow roughly $500 billion or more to fund its current public pension obligations.

“The state of California is going to have to borrow somewhere on the order of another, this is going to sound crazy, half a trillion dollars plus in order to pay out their current pension obligations.” View on YouTube

The federal government will not be able to federalize/bail out insolvent state debts, because attempting to do so would cause 20-30% of US Treasury bond buyers to exit the market and Treasury auctions to start failing.

“That's not going to happen. And the reason that's not going to happen is then you'll see a 20 to 30% of the bond buyers just leave the US bond market. And so you will have auctions that start to fail.” View on YouTube

By some point between 2028 and 2036, the US dollar will have further decayed (lost roughly another 90% of value) as the state fiscal/debt crisis plays out, leaving the federal government unable to intervene.

“The dollar will basically have decayed in that entire process another 90%. So, whoever is sitting in the seat of government at the federal level will not be able to do anything at that time. That could be 28, it could be 32, it could be 36.” View on YouTube

The Groq-Nvidia inference chip licensing partnership will accelerate AI infrastructure becoming cheaper and more valuable, driving significantly more developer adoption, application-building, and end-user growth (billions more people using AI).

“I just think it's going to create a huge acceleration in the ability for this entire infrastructure layer to get much cheaper and much more valuable, which I suspect then it'll have a lot more developer pull. You'll get a lot more applications being built, billions and billions of more people using it.” View on YouTube

In 2022, Xi Jinping will consolidate power such that he is effectively ‘ruler for life’ in China and will significantly expand his political dominance both domestically and internationally, making him the biggest political winner of 2022.

“my worldwide, uh, biggest political winner for 2022 is XI Jinping...2022 marks the first year where he's essentially really ruler for life...I think it's going to be a he's going to run roughshod not just domestically but also internationally.” View on YouTube

In 2022, the progressive left faction of the Democratic Party will suffer a significant political backlash from mainstream voters, making them one of the biggest political losers of the year (e.g., through losses, marginalization, or reduced influence).

“My pick is the progressive left, um, as a class, because I think these guys are being exposed basically for just being laughingstocks...So they are, I think, going to pay a pretty heavy political price for mainstream voters in 22.” View on YouTube

Beginning in 2022 and continuing for decades, small businesses and smaller firms that compete with today’s dominant megacorporations will outperform and gain significant opportunity and success relative to those large incumbents.

“I think that if you were on the side of the David versus these Goliaths over the next year, you're going to have, well, frankly, over the next several decades. But starting really next year, you're going to do really well.” View on YouTube

Starting in 2022, Visa, Mastercard, and similar traditional payment-rail companies that earn 2–3% transaction fees have reached their peak market capitalization and, over roughly the next decade, will see their market caps materially decline relative to a basket of successful Web3/crypto payments projects (making a short-Visa/Mastercard, long-crypto-payments spread trade highly profitable).

“this is the year you can put on what probably will be the most profitable spread trade of my lifetime, which is to be short these companies and that anybody that basically lives off of this 2 or 3% tax and be long, well thought out Web3, crypto projects...because I think this is their peak market cap.” View on YouTube

The disruption of traditional card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Amex and similar payment rails) by Web3/crypto-based payment infrastructure will occur quickly, with major impact visible within about one year from 2022 rather than over many years.

“Last point on this. This is not one where I think this disruption happens slow. I think it happens swiftly.” View on YouTube

In June 2022, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will launch a primary challenge against Chuck Schumer for his U.S. Senate seat in New York, and she will lose that primary.

“I think that all of this pressure in on the progressive left will manifest in the Chosen One. AOC deciding to step up and run against Schumer in the primary in June of 2022, and she will lose.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2022, the All-In Podcast’s weekly audience will surpass the average viewership of most CNBC shows and some CNN shows.

“There's more than a million people a week that listen to this. We've we've far exceeded MSNBC's average viewership. We're probably going to pass, you know, most CNBC shows and some CNN shows by the end of next year.” View on YouTube

For calendar year 2022, a basket of battery metals (lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite) will be the best-performing asset class among major investable assets.

“This is simple. This will be battery metals. Uh lithium nickel cobalt graphite. Put them in a basket. You can belong these things.” View on YouTube

In 2022, a major trend will be the rapid rise of peer-to-peer payment systems that erode traditional financial payment rails, with the leading innovations and adoption emerging from Africa.

“Peer to peer payments. Um, the destruction of traditional rails. Uh, it will come out of Africa.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2022, the All-In brand will have expanded beyond the podcast to include an in-person All-In Summit (in May, in Miami) and a broader ‘All-In Media’ operation that publishes written content and other media formats aimed at a large audience.

“It is the All in Summit in May in Miami and, uh, the the birth of all in media. So I think that we by the end of 2022, will have, um, published content. Written content? Not necessarily by us, but, uh, other forms of, uh, media interaction that get the truth out to a large swath of humanity.” View on YouTube

Within approximately 3–4 years from late 2020 (i.e., by the end of 2023 or 2024), further declines in the costs of wind and solar power will render extracting oil from the ground economically infeasible in many cases, substantially undermining the economic viability of new oil production projects (especially high-cost ones).

“Because otherwise the cost of wind and the cost of solar is going to make pulling the oil out of the ground economically infeasible within 3 or 4 years.” View on YouTube

Within roughly 15 years from late 2020 (by about the year 2035), Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson will run for President of the United States and will win a presidential election.

“I'd like to go on the record with my 15 year projection then, or, uh, which is that, uh, the Rock is going to run for president and win.” View on YouTube

The U.S. will not return to more than roughly 80% of pre‑COVID social and economic normality until sometime in 2022 (possibly as late as 2023), due to the time required to scale vaccine production and distribution.

“I think that the best will get back to is sort of this 80% state, and I don't think it happens until probably 2022 and maybe 2023, but probably 2022, because you have to remember, like we have to ramp up now, billions of vaccine production like this is a nontrivial path from here to quote unquote, mass market.” View on YouTube

Donald Trump will not run for president again in 2024 (0% chance he runs).

“What's the percentage chance, Chamath that he runs again in four years? ... Zero.” View on YouTube

After leaving office, Donald Trump will definitely launch a media business and will attempt to be a political kingmaker within the Republican Party.

“I think he's definitely going to launch a media business and, uh, he'll, he'll try to become kingmaker.” View on YouTube

By December 15, 2020, Donald Trump will have effectively ended his attempts to contest the election result; the post‑election dispute will be resolved by that date.

“he'll be out by December 15th, meaning it'll this will all be done.” View on YouTube

The City and County of San Francisco will file for municipal bankruptcy at least once within the next 10 years from November 2020 (i.e., by November 2030).

“Mark my words, San Francisco will file for bankruptcy in the next ten years.” View on YouTube

The City and County of San Francisco will file for municipal bankruptcy at least once within 10–15 years from November 2020 (i.e., by November 2035).

“Maybe 15, maybe 15 years. But yeah, ten, 15 years.” View on YouTube

Following Jerome Powell's 2020 Fed speech, interest rates will stay near zero for five to ten years, forcing institutional money into equities and making stocks a persistent buying opportunity.

“we are going to keep rates at zero for the next half decade ... quite honestly it could be a decade” View on YouTube

Chamath Palihapitiya expects that over time he will successfully launch SPACs/vehicles corresponding to his reserved IPO tickers from A through Z on the NYSE (i.e., complete the full IPOA–IPOZ series).

“I reserved IPO A through Z on the NYSE. I, I hope, um, uh, to fulfill that. Um, and I think I will” View on YouTube

The fast-growing SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) market will consolidate around a small handful of dominant sponsors, in the same way investment banking consolidated around a few major firms, because running a SPAC well requires a rare mix of operational insight and public-market sophistication.

“it's probably us and maybe one or two other people who really dominate the space” View on YouTube

Chamath Palihapitiya predicts that Joe Biden will win the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

“Uh, Biden, I think Biden's gonna” View on YouTube

The 2020 U.S. presidential election will be very close rather than a landslide for either candidate.

“we were supposed to walk into a landslide. We're not, as you said, we're going to be in a nail biter.” View on YouTube

E predicts that Joe Biden will win the 2020 U.S. presidential election, despite live results and betting markets at roughly 7:45 p.m. PT on Nov 3, 2020.

“I still think the path is, um. Um, uh, I, um, I think it's Biden” View on YouTube

E predicts conditionally that if Joe Biden nets approximately 500,000 votes out of the remaining Philadelphia-area count in Pennsylvania, that margin will be sufficient for Biden to win the state of Pennsylvania in the 2020 election.

“Well then 500,000 would carry the state for Joe Biden.” View on YouTube

E reiterates the prediction that Joe Biden will win the 2020 U.S. presidential election, basing this on an expected strongly pro-Biden mail-in vote from Philadelphia that will be counted after election night.

“I'm going to I'm going to stick with Biden here, because I think that, uh, that Philadelphia vote count is crucial.” View on YouTube

E predicts that on election night 2020 no final or reliable overall election result will be available because Pennsylvania—and specifically Philadelphia’s votes—will not be fully counted or called that night.

“any result that's called tonight, I think is going to be, uh, incomplete because they're not going to call Pennsylvania because they're not going to call Philly.” View on YouTube

E predicts conditionally that if Joe Biden’s net margin out of Philadelphia exceeds roughly 350,000 votes, that margin will be sufficient for Biden to win Pennsylvania in the 2020 election.

“if there are in fact, three. No, I think that the exact math is about 350,000 votes that show up in Philadelphia, a gap of Above 350,000 votes that show up in Philly. Um, Biden will, uh, do what he needs to do.” View on YouTube

E predicts that in the days immediately following election night 2020, Americans will largely remain calm, with little violent or disruptive action, and will mostly sit tight and wait for officials to count votes and resolve the election.

“I think everybody's going to be tense. Jay I think I don't I don't think you're going to see a lot of action one way or the other. I think that people I think people in America are incredibly good people. I think that folks are just going to sit tight and hope that the folks whose job it is to do their job, do their job.” View on YouTube

E predicts conditionally that if there is still no clear election winner by late election night, then on the following trading day U.S. markets will shift to a modest risk-off posture (i.e., some decline or defensive move across risk assets).

“if we go to bed in another hour and a half, or if we finish this thing in another hour and there is no winner, a clear winner, I think markets will be back to sort of modestly risk off tomorrow.” View on YouTube

Within 3–4 days after this Election Night discussion on November 3–4, 2020, senior figures in the Democratic Party leadership will contact Chamath (the speaker "E") to solicit his financial and/or political support.

“I suspect that in the next 3 or 4 days I'm going to get a call from the Democratic leadership figuring out how much they can count on me.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years after 2020, U.S. politics will increasingly feature conflict between Democratic Party–dominated state governments and large companies, leading to a sustained trend of individuals and businesses relocating from heavily Democratic states to Republican‑run states that offer lower taxes and a more laissez‑faire regulatory environment.

“it seems like we're setting up for Democrats versus companies and people moving to Republican states to have low taxes and to be left alone.” View on YouTube

If Donald Trump were to declare victory on election night 2020 while the outcome was still uncertain, equity markets (e.g., futures) would react with panic and sell off sharply shortly thereafter.

“If we avoid it, we're going to fade a really big out here, Um, which is Trump declares victory right now. I think that is the disaster scenario... if Trump comes out and says, we won. We're done. Let's move on. It's going to be panic” View on YouTube

E predictor (likely Chamath/Friedberg context-dependent, but labeled E) maintains the prediction that Joe Biden will win the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

“I'm still sticking with Biden.” View on YouTube

The winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election will be known by the end of the day following election night (i.e., on November 4, 2020).

“We did you know I think we're going to know tomorrow.” View on YouTube

In episode 21 of the All‑In podcast (the episode immediately following this one), the show will open with the hosts reading mean tweets about themselves.

“The next, the next, um, podcast. Um, just for everybody to know, uh, episode 21, we are going to start by reading mean tweets.” View on YouTube

Large-scale adoption or revival of advanced nuclear power (e.g., fusion or new fission designs) will likely not occur for multiple decades and will probably only happen after a major, clearly cataclysmic climate-change-related event forces governments to adopt a super-abundant energy source as a last resort.

“we've taken so many steps backwards from nuclear that it's probably just going to take decades and it's going to take some cataclysmic climate change event where the only way out is the super abundant energy source, where you're willing to basically say, ah, fuck it, we're fucked. Otherwise” View on YouTube

At some future point, the Chinese government will militarily invade Taiwan, and in response the United States will deploy its own troops to Taiwan to protect access to Taiwanese semiconductor production (e.g., TSMC and related manufacturers).

“they will invade Taiwan. I've said this before, but I think that they will, and we will have no choice except to deploy troops into Taiwan, because in the absence of the silicon that we need from TSMC and a couple of other manufacturers there, we have zero capability here.” View on YouTube

The rise of DeFi/crypto architectures (DAOs, tokenized projects, service composability on chains like Solana) will destroy a significant amount of existing financial wealth over time, while Chamath judges the net effect on the world to be positive.

“when you add all these three things together, I think to me it's the most incredibly, positively disruptive force I have seen. I think it will destroy wealth. I frankly couldn't give a fuck. Um. And I think it's better for the world.” View on YouTube

The current recession will last somewhere between 6 months (short case), 18 months (medium case), or 2+ years (long case), with roughly equal (one-third each) probability across the three scenarios.

“we basically we could say this could be a, you know, short, medium, or long recession. Short would be 6 months, medium might be 18 months, and you know, long might be 2 years plus. And we just say, I don't know, say 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 probability” View on YouTube

Market conditions and startup/asset valuations will revert back to pre-COVID (and possibly pre-zero-interest-rate-policy) norms, undoing the abnormal 2020-2022 liquidity-driven inflation in asset prices.

“the new normal is going to look like the old normal, meaning the pre-COVID normal. We had the the the abnormal period was this 2-year COVID period where 10 trillion liquidity is pumped into the system. Things are going back to what they looked like before all that happened, and maybe before the Fed started with this zero-interest-rate policy.” View on YouTube

From the then‑current Bitcoin price of roughly $20,000 in late June 2022, Bitcoin still has substantial downside and is likely to rebase toward a "rational" level in the roughly $3,500–$5,000 range (i.e., on the order of ~75% further decline) as post‑QE repricing completes over the subsequent market cycle.

“And if you look at that chart, what it really tells you is that the baseline price of Bitcoin, where things seemed, you know, where rational supply and demand were meeting each other before all these, you know. B [00:34:07.110]: Five, 10,000. A [00:34:08.909]: 3500 to 5000. B [00:34:10.870]: Yeah, I would say about 5000. A [00:34:12.190]: Still 75% from here.” View on YouTube

Following its ~$10B private equity buyout, Zendesk will undergo major cost-cutting (especially in R&D and sales & marketing), its annual revenue growth will be reduced from ~30% to ~15–20%, and the new owners will be able to generate on the order of $300–500 million in annual free cash flow from approximately $1.3 billion in revenue within a few years of the buyout.

“Yeah, they are going to slash the hell out of the cost structure. They're going to run it to be highly profitable. They will probably bring the growth down from 30% a year to 20% or 15%. But the benefit, the offsetting benefit to reducing the growth a little bit will be they could probably generate three, 4 or 500 million of free cash flow on that business. If it's doing 1.3 billion and they stop investing in R&D and they stop and they bring down the sales and marketing, that could be a that could be a cash cow” View on YouTube

After the private equity acquisition of Zendesk, the new owners will materially reduce stock-based compensation by laying off many high-paid engineers and executives, retaining customer support, and shifting remaining employee compensation toward cash/bonus tied to performance, operating the company in a classic private-equity style within the next few years.

“Yeah, the stock based compensation is going to go away because they're going to get rid of all the high priced engineers. They're going to get rid of the a lot of the high priced executives. They're going to probably they're going to have to keep customer support. Probably they'll bonus people. They'll just do bonuses for hitting targets instead of giving people as much equity in the equity in the business, and they'll run it like a private equity type. Type play” View on YouTube

From roughly June 2022, U.S. CPI inflation readings will remain in the 8–9% year-over-year range for at least the next 3–4 monthly prints (through approximately September–October 2022), after which inflation may start to improve marginally.

“No. As I've said, I think you're going to see eight and 9% inflation prints for at least the next 3 or 4 months, minimum. I think that things could get marginally better after that” View on YouTube

U.S. CPI inflation will stay elevated at approximately 8–9% year-over-year for at least the next 3–4 monthly reports after this June 2022 discussion.

“As I've said, I think you're going to see eight and 9% inflation prints for at least the next 3 or 4 months, minimum” View on YouTube

From mid-2022, U.S. inflation prints will remain very high (around 8–9% year-over-year) for the next three months due in part to lagged rent effects; then by November–December 2022, global oil prices could reach approximately $180 per barrel due to Russian gas cuts to Europe and limited OPEC supply, which would in turn push inflation back up into the 7–9% range during that winter period.

“these next three months, as I as I kind of indicated last week, I think we're going to see inflation, uh, prints that are really high, in part because things like rents, which haven't, you know, which are on a lag, will get folded back in. So we're going to be printing eight and 9%. And then guess what Jason. It's the fall. It starts to get colder. You know, uh, Russia's depriving Europe of nat gas. Um, where is the oil going to come from? OPEC is basically still stiff arming the United States with respect to expanded production capacity... So where do we stand? You could have $180 a barrel oil by November, December when it's cold, not just here, but in continental Europe. Now all of a sudden inflation gets kicks right back up again. It could be seven, eight 9% again” View on YouTube

Global risk asset markets (e.g., equities) will not establish a durable bottom until (1) roughly $30 trillion has been removed from global financial markets via quantitative tightening or similar measures (or at least there is a clear, credible path to that outcome), and (2) there is an off-ramp or resolution to the Russia–Ukraine war that restores predictability to global energy and food supplies.

“we need an off ramp to this ukraine-russia war so that there is predictable energy and food supply to the world so that folks can just get back to what they do best. And if those two things can happen, then the markets will have found the bottom” View on YouTube

The current Hollywood writers and actors strike will backfire by accelerating studio adoption of AI and related technologies that reduce or eliminate the need for human actors and writers, thereby weakening rather than strengthening the bargaining power and long‑term job security of those union members.

“it's going to have the exact opposite effect that they want, if what they want, if what the writers and the Actors Guild want is to show the owners of the studios how valuable they are. The problem is that this moves the owners and the studios one step closer into the hands of tools that will disintermediate the actors and the writers.” View on YouTube

Chamath's materials/battery company will publicly announce at least one major breakthrough related to improving LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries within a few weeks of July 27, 2023 (i.e., by roughly late August to early September 2023).

“there are these like really big breakthroughs, one which will probably announce in like the next few weeks because we just raised a bunch of money around this idea.” View on YouTube

In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, President Biden and Western allies will announce and implement severe economic sanctions on Russia that are described as or effectively function as “crippling,” including broad, punitive financial measures from multiple Western countries.

“I hope everybody in Ukraine is safe. Um, but I think that Biden's going to announce some pretty crippling sanctions, and I think the West is going to be very punitive financially.” View on YouTube

Due to a 6–7 year under‑investment cycle, new large‑scale investment in U.S. domestic natural gas (including shale and offshore) starting in 2022 will not materially increase supply or generate attractive returns for roughly 6–7 years (i.e., before ~2028–2029), and major U.S. natural‑gas producers will, as of 2022, refrain from committing significant new capital to expand U.S. nat‑gas, shale, or offshore production.

“Energy independence is it takes too long. And we went through a massive capital under-investment cycle over the last 6 or 7 years. And so, you know, in order to start this up, you need to have started actually putting money in the ground 6 or 7 years ago. And the problem today is if we put money into the ground now, that's not going to yield any sort of return on invested capital for another 6 or 7 years. And so when you look at these nat gas companies, every single one to a name has basically said, we are not going to put any incremental capital into US, domestic nat gas or shale or even offshore.” View on YouTube

The United States will not successfully scale up nuclear power in a major way (i.e., will not deploy a large new fleet of nuclear fission plants that materially changes the national energy mix) in the foreseeable future; instead, U.S. growth in non‑fossil electricity generation will primarily come from solar rather than from nuclear.

“I think it's never going to happen. Um, I'm not I love... You think what's not going... Nuclear I think America America's America's ability to scale nuclear I think is a very difficult proposition. And I think our real solution is solar.” View on YouTube

The S&P 500 will experience one more significant downward move of roughly 400 index points, reaching a bottom level around 3,800, with this final decline primarily affecting large-cap companies, after which the market will have effectively bottomed (absent a world war).

“the smart folks that I talked to who I really, you know, uh, look up to and respect, think that the bottom in the S&P is around 3800 and that what we still need to do is this one last flush. And that last flush will really touch the big cap, um, companies.” View on YouTube

Jason Calacanis previously predicted, and reiterates in this episode, that Kamala Harris will become the first female President of the United States, likely by succeeding Joe Biden if he is unable to complete his first term due to age/health, i.e., before any other woman attains the U.S. presidency.

“last year on our award show, Jason Calacanis made the prediction that Kamala will be the first female president of the United States...” View on YouTube

The combined market capitalization of the large U.S. "big tech" platforms (e.g., Meta/Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet/Google, Microsoft, etc.) will reach its peak within 1–2 years of this Dec 2021 episode (i.e., by the end of 2023) and will not surpass that peak afterward, implying a topping-out and subsequent relative decline/underperformance.

“I think that this is sort of peak, uh, big tech market cap is probably within the next year or two.” View on YouTube

Barring a new serious pathogen escape from a laboratory, the COVID-19 crisis is entering its final phase as of late 2021, and the pandemic will effectively wind down from this point forward without returning to prior levels of global disruption.

“Unless something escapes from the lab again, I think that we're we're going to be okay. I think this is the end of the end.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2021, the All-In Podcast will surpass MSNBC’s business-oriented shows, and then CNBC’s and Fox Business’s shows, in audience size or viewership for comparable segments.

“I think we've probably eclipsed MSNBC. Any show that, and we're probably going to pass CNBC and Fox by the end of this year.” View on YouTube

The creator economy, powered by platforms like TikTok and YouTube, will continue to grow and support new, large-scale careers and novel content formats for individual creators over the coming years following 2021.

“I think it's incredible what these young creators are basically, you know, uh, creating. It's incredible. Super, super novel and new forms of content. TikTok is super addictive... So this is a brave new world for for creators.” View on YouTube

Through a combination of a therapeutic and a vaccine (or just a therapeutic), COVID-19 will be brought under control within two years of this taping (by roughly May 2022).

“I think that we will have this pandemic or this disease within two years” View on YouTube

Donald Trump is overwhelmingly likely to win reelection in November 2020, driven by public frustration with COVID-19 lockdowns, unless Democrats succeed in ending the lockdowns sooner.

“Donald Trump is overwhelmingly likely to win as a function of people's frustration and about the lock downs” View on YouTube

Over the coming years after May 2020, California will experience large-scale out-migration (“people are going to leave in droves”) driven by high costs and high taxes.

“California is so expensive. The taxes are so high. Uh, it's I think people are going to leave in droves.” View on YouTube

Tesla will not relocate its existing main manufacturing operations out of California, although future incremental Tesla facilities will be sited in other locations (e.g., other states) based largely on available tax incentives.

“I mean, I don't think it's a practical reality to move Tesla out of out of California. I think that the incremental facilities can be built wherever he wants them to be built, based on where he gets the tax incentives.” View on YouTube

Starting around 2020, the US and China will enter a prolonged, Cold War–style strategic rivalry (“modern Cold War”) characterized by systemic geopolitical and economic competition.

“This is the beginning of the modern Cold War. And so it's America versus China.” View on YouTube

Chamath predicts that if the U.S. rapidly deploys massive antibody testing and zoning as he describes, COVID-19 spread in the U.S. could be effectively brought under control within roughly 4–6 weeks from the start of such a program.

“And we can really, um, you know, nip this thing in the bud in a, you know, 4 or 5, six week time frame.” View on YouTube

Chamath predicts that within roughly six months from March 2020, LPs and auditors will force significant markdowns in VC portfolios, causing venture capital returns to look very poor.

“when these markdowns are forced to happen, which will take another six months, um, venture capitalists returns will look terrible.” View on YouTube

Chamath predicts that the combined effects of the COVID-19 crisis and capital-market disruption will persist long enough that startups will need at least 36 months of cash runway from early 2020 to be safely positioned.

“So I don't think 18 months is sufficient. I think you need at least 36 months double.” View on YouTube

Chamath predicts that even if COVID-19 is contained quickly (e.g., within ~60 days), the U.S. stock market will not experience an immediate sharp V‑shaped “roaring back” recovery to prior levels.

“It cannot come roaring back.” View on YouTube

Chamath predicts that, even in a worst‑case scenario, the U.S. can achieve mass COVID-19 testing capability within approximately 30–60 days from March 18–19, 2020.

“I think mass testing, if, if in the worst cases is 30 to 60 days.” View on YouTube

At some future point following March 2020, the eurozone will collapse as an economic/political construct, and Japan will effectively cease to matter as a major independent economic power, leaving only China and the United States as the two economies that meaningfully matter in the global system.

“this eurozone is going to collapse. Okay, Japan is finished. So there are two economies that matter. There's China and the United States as of today.” View on YouTube

In the years following March 2020, the United States will be able to run federal budget deficits on the order of $5–10 trillion per year without triggering a loss of confidence in the US dollar’s status as the primary global safety asset.

“It could run $5 trillion deficits tomorrow. It could run $10 trillion deficits because it is still the backstop.” View on YouTube

Over the years following the COVID-19 crisis (starting 2020), most countries will shift economic policy away from deep globalization and just‑in‑time global supply chains toward more nationally focused, resilient, and partially nationalized or domestically anchored economies, including more domestic food and critical‑goods production and less dependence on single-country foreign suppliers like China.

“I do think that we're going to swing the pendulum back towards nationalized economies and, um, and away from global economies...We are not going to act the same. Well, it will be different.” View on YouTube

In the years after the COVID-19 shock (starting 2020), Apple will be pushed—by policy and/or public pressure—to relocate a significant portion of its iPhone production capacity from China to the United States or to a more diversified set of countries with a materially higher share in the US, accepting lower margins in exchange for greater supply‑chain resiliency.

“Apple should probably be forced to bring a lot of their production capacity back into the United States...They should rely more on America. It will be less profitable, but it'll be okay and it's the right thing to do.” View on YouTube

Within six weeks of March 17–18, 2020 (i.e., by roughly late April 2020), some US cities/towns will have established ‘green zones’ where people who test negative for COVID‑19 or positive for IgG/IgM antibodies are allowed to interact and dine in restaurants, with entry contingent on showing test results plus ID.

“I am telling you that it's within six weeks from now.” View on YouTube

Following Sri Lanka’s 2022 collapse and default, multiple other developing countries including Ghana and Pakistan will experience similar crises involving food riots, energy insecurity, rampant inflation, and likely sovereign defaults in the subsequent period (i.e., within the next few years after mid‑2022).

“as goes Sri Lanka, so goes Ghana, so goes Pakistan, so goes a whole bunch of countries where you're already starting to see food riots, food insecurity, energy insecurity, rampant inflation, uh, sovereign defaults” View on YouTube

The US headline CPI year‑over‑year inflation rate will at some point in the near term after July 2022 reach at least the mid‑9% range and possibly 10% or higher.

“I actually also kind of put myself on a limb there. And I said, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point we print a mid to high nines, maybe even a ten handle at some point.” View on YouTube

At the next FOMC meeting after the June 2022 CPI print (i.e., the July 2022 meeting), the US Federal Reserve will raise the federal funds rate by 100 basis points.

“Canada surprised everybody and raised, uh, their benchmark interest rate by 100 basis points... and I think if you read the fed minutes more carefully, I think Jerome Powell is basically ready to do the same thing after this inflation print” View on YouTube

For the July 2022 US CPI print (released in August 2022), headline year‑over‑year CPI inflation will be roughly 9% (around the June 2022 value), as declining energy prices will be offset by rising rents.

“We do see a little bit of falloff in, in energy prices, but I'm not so sure that it's, it's enough, frankly, to, to move the needle. So I think that we could be in a sustained period for a while... they may actually, you know, break even. Right. Meaning rents go up by so much oil goes down by so much they cancel and we're still at nine.” View on YouTube

Given current U.S. policies in mid‑2021 (heavy stimulus, impaired labor force participation, rising input costs, and higher wages), consumer prices in the U.S. will experience significant inflation in the near term relative to the pre‑COVID period.

“we have more taxation. That's also just going to be wasted. So very poor ROI. And then now we have input costs going up, um, and prices going up to try to attract people. It's it's all going to drive price inflation.” View on YouTube

Given high fiscal/monetary stimulus, a less-motivated labor force, rising taxes, and rising input and wage costs (as of May 2021), the combined effect will be a notable increase in price inflation in the U.S. in the following period.

“So we have these two opposing forces, right? We have so much stimulus. We have, um, an under-motivated labor force. We have more taxation. That's also just going to be wasted. So very poor ROI. And then now we have input costs going up, um, and prices going up to try to attract people. It's it's all going to drive price inflation.” View on YouTube

If a moderate, centrist political agenda does not gain traction in upcoming election cycles, the U.S. will evolve toward a de facto system of 50 highly balkanized states operating much more independently from each other over the ensuing years.

“Otherwise, we are headed to 50 balkanized states operating independently.” View on YouTube

Pivot Bio, a private synthetic biology company as of May 2021, will go public (via IPO, SPAC, or direct listing) within approximately 3–4 years, i.e., by mid-2024 to mid-2025.

“This is this is a private company. But you know, you'll you'll see them in the next probably 3 or 4 years debut as a public business, um, called Pivot Bio” View on YouTube

The state of Texas will enact laws or regulations that effectively ban or disable the use of browser 'incognito' (private browsing) modes for accessing certain online content, such as pornography, in the near future following this July 2024 discussion.

“I'm pretty sure Texas is going to ban incognito mode.” View on YouTube

Based on the decline in Rick's Cabaret stock price, the speakers predict that a U.S. economic recession will begin in the near future following early July 2024.

“It's called. It's called Rick's Cabaret, but the Strip club index says a recession is is on the offing.” View on YouTube

Within a few years from this September 1, 2022 episode (i.e., by around 2025–2026), the number of human jobs at McDonald’s will be dramatically lower than in 2022, such that an average person will personally know far fewer people working at McDonald’s.

“Also, the sad reality is that within a few years, um, unfortunately, you'll know a lot fewer people that work at McDonald's because the number of jobs for humans will be dramatically lower.” View on YouTube

In the foreseeable future (implied within roughly a decade from 2022), new McDonald’s franchisees will be offered/rented a suite of robots from McDonald’s corporate as part of the franchise package, enabling them to operate with roughly 33–50% fewer human employees than a comparable McDonald’s in 2022.

“the next franchisee of McDonald's will still pay $1 million for franchise fee, but will give will be given a bevy of robots that they rent from McDonald's. And they'll have to hire half or a third less.” View on YouTube

Average U.S. retail electricity prices will increase by roughly another 40% between 2022 and 2030, such that by 2030 the cost of electricity for the average American will be about double what it was in 2010.

“The point in the United States, just to be very blunt, is that the cost of electricity has gone up by 46% in the last decade. It will go up by another 40 odd percent through 2030. So between 2010 and 2030, the cost of electricity for every single American will have effectively doubled” View on YouTube

The world will not achieve global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (or even by 2060); existing and foreseeable plans are insufficient to reach net zero within that timeframe.

“By the way, guys, I just want to take the, you know, rip the band aid off. Net zero by 2050. 26. It is not possible. There is zero credible plans that the world has to do it.” View on YouTube

Within approximately 3 to 5 years from September 2022 (i.e., by 2025–2027), the outcomes of California-style state central planning and similar interventionist policies will demonstrably fail and will be shown to have worsened, rather than mitigated, the economic and energy problems they were intended to solve.

“We will know in the next 3 to 5 years that these policies actually don't work, and actually that it actually accelerates the exact hellscape that they think they're trying to avoid.” View on YouTube

In the six months leading up to November 2022, as the two‑year clocks on the 2020–2021 SPACs near expiration, there will be significant market dislocation and "really crazy behavior" in SPAC dealmaking (e.g., heavy discounting, retrades, and pressure on sponsors) driven by the approaching deadlines to complete mergers.

“we're still in the first inning, right... these SPACs have two years to put the money to work... and so you're going to see some really crazy behavior I predict in November of 2022, right. Like the last six months leading into the expiration of all these SPACs” View on YouTube

Rising credit default swap costs on private industry will be followed by a repricing of risk on US government debt, with private-sector credit stress materializing first before sovereign risk repricing.

“Through the course of this year we've seen the cost of that insurance ramp... we're back to almost near highs. And it is the market signaling that first we'll go private industry and then the second will be the repricing of the risk for the US government.” View on YouTube

SARS‑CoV‑2 (COVID‑19) will ultimately spread through the general population of the United States rather than being contained; the remaining uncertainty is only the speed and manageability of that spread.

“at this point, I think everybody admits that this thing is going to roll through the population of the United States. What we're basically betting on now is how long that takes and how well that's managed.” View on YouTube

Trump's handling of the COVID-19 crisis (bringing in outside experts after avoiding early alarm) will increase his odds of winning re-election in November 2020 compared to if the pandemic hadn't happened, provided a stimulus package succeeds.

“his odds of getting reelected are actually higher than in the absence of Corona” View on YouTube

When the White House announces the results of President Trump’s COVID‑19 test taken on March 13, 2020, they will state that his result is negative (no active infection detected).

“I think that the answer, the answer that we will get is that he's negative.” View on YouTube

The White House’s internal COVID‑19 testing protocol around the President’s March 13, 2020 test will involve testing a larger group of approximately 50 White House personnel with anonymized vials sent to the lab so that technicians cannot identify the President’s sample; any positive results would lead to quarantining the entire tested group rather than publicly isolating the President alone.

“here's what they would do, which is they test 50 people in the white House...Then you send it to the lab and you get the results. So no lab tech can ever know if there's even one positive result. You quarantine everybody.” View on YouTube

Total deaths caused indirectly by COVID-19 (via second- and third-order economic and social effects) will exceed the total deaths caused directly by COVID-19 infection itself, over the full course of the pandemic.

“More people, let's be clear, more people will die because of the second and third order effects of coronavirus than these first order effects.” View on YouTube

Over the ensuing roughly nine months from March 2020 (i.e., through late 2020), there will be a widely discussed deleveraging of a multi‑trillion‑dollar global credit bubble. This deleveraging process is likely to be "violent and messy" rather than orderly, resulting in substantial increases in unemployment and causing many businesses to fail or shut down.

“deleveraging is going to be an important term that folks will hear over and over over the next nine months. And that process of deleveraging, this multitrillion dollar credit bubble that we have to hopefully in a, in a in a reasonable way, but probably not. It'll be violent and messy. Unwind will leave. I think a lot of people unemployed. A lot of businesses out of business and or could.” View on YouTube

Over the nine months following mid‑March 2020, public discussion will frequently reference deleveraging as the global economy undergoes a violent and messy unwinding of a multi-trillion-dollar credit bubble, resulting in substantial increases in unemployment and in many businesses shutting down.

“deleveraging is going to be an important term that folks will hear over and over over the next nine months. And that process of deleveraging, this multitrillion dollar credit bubble that we have to hopefully in a, in a in a reasonable way, but probably not. It'll be violent and messy. Unwind will leave. I think a lot of people unemployed. A lot of businesses out of business” View on YouTube

The equity-market drawdown that began in late February 2020 will not bottom within the first month; instead, the market bottom will occur roughly 200–250 days into the decline, i.e., around September–October 2020.

“Travel travel is an 8.8 trillion, $9 trillion economy... when you see drawdowns like this in the stock market... The bottom isn't put in 20 days into a drawdown like this, right? It doesn't happen on day 20... The bottom comes in somewhere between day 200 and day 250. What that means is that September to October” View on YouTube

As public companies report results over the ensuing one to two quarters after March 2020, investors will conclude that the COVID-19-driven economic crisis is substantially worse than the 2008 financial crisis.

“when these public companies do that, the stock market and investors, by and large will realize, wow, this is a much bigger problem than 2008.” View on YouTube

In the months after mid‑March 2020, COVID‑19 fiscal responses will escalate from an initial $8B US package to (1) a roughly 10x-larger US package, (2) within a few more months, an additional US package of a few hundred billion dollars resembling TARP and focused on bailing out specific industries, and (3) ultimately, globally coordinated stimulus across major economies totaling on the order of one to one-and-a-half years of world GDP, with implementation via the IMF/World Bank for developing countries and large domestic packages (e.g., Germany abandoning austerity) in developed countries.

“we started with an $8 billion package. You know, uh, this last package, I think when we put the numbers together will probably be an order of magnitude bigger. Okay, whatever. You know, we'll wait a few months, and then we'll have a couple hundred billion dollars. It'll be kind of Tarp like. It'll probably be a bailout of a couple of specific industries. ... and, uh, uh, the ultimate package probably needs to be on the order of a year to a year and a half of world GDP spread across all the major countries of the world.” View on YouTube

The probability that COVID‑19 and its economic consequences will be fully resolved and the US will be back to business as usual within a couple of months of mid‑March 2020 is 0%. Instead, (a) the main direct health impacts of the disease will largely be dealt with within 8–12 weeks (by around May 2020), (b) the economic bottom will occur in Q3–Q4 2020, and (c) the S&P 500 index will decline to approximately 2000 or lower during this period.

“Uh, zero? Um, if you I think we deal with the first order effects of the disease in, uh, 8 to 12 weeks. So, you know, probably by May, we'll have a decent handle on the impacts, and we'll be through most of the worst of it. Um, and I think the economic bottom is probably Q3, Q4. Um, and, uh, I think that, you know, we're like, we're going to touch 2000 on the S&P, if not lower.” View on YouTube

Global economic and social activity will remain effectively “shut down” for roughly two months starting from mid‑March 2020.

“we are the world as of now is shut down for two months. The world.” View on YouTube

Following the COVID‑19-induced demand shock beginning in early 2020, global travel demand will take approximately 19 months to recover to its previous (pre-shock) level.

“Whenever there's a demand shock in travel. I like travel, by the way. Just because it's a really good. Another canary in the coal mine... when there's a demand shock, it typically takes 19 months for it to recover one nine months.” View on YouTube

The long‑term impact of widespread work‑from‑home after COVID will be reduced utilization of traditional office real estate but not its complete destruction; over time (over the next several years after 2021), companies will move toward smaller offices and more flexible space arrangements, leading to improved business performance for flex‑space providers such as WeWork relative to pre‑pandemic conditions.

“Your point of commercial real estate. I actually think it just brings the utilization down, but I'm not sure it destroys it because I think people need the physical plant now. Maybe over time they'll get much smarter about getting smaller spaces and having flex spaces. So like things like WeWork do better.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, post‑COVID inflation in the United States will prove transitory rather than persistently high; as bond‑market inflation expectations (e.g., the 10‑year breakeven rate) fall back and it becomes clear that long‑term inflation is not a serious problem, U.S. homebuilders will deploy capital aggressively and U.S. housing supply will increase sharply from its pandemic‑era lows.

“I'm going to go back out on a limb and put up my, uh, ten year break even. I think this whole inflation thing is a head fake. And I think that, um, the right now we're in this weird position where the, the home builders are not necessarily sure whether they're going to rip in the capital necessary to build a bunch of homes. The reason they would slow down is if they think that inflation is coming. Rates go up, mortgage rates go up, and then demand falls off. But if it turns out to be a head fake, the builders will then actually build what's necessary... And I think you'll see housing supply pick back up really aggressively.” View on YouTube

Substantive, widely deployed AI products that deliver “momentous value” in enterprise software, healthcare, and the physical sciences will begin to appear and work reliably within roughly 18–36 months from July 2023 (i.e., between January 2025 and July 2026).

“the real stuff, which is around enterprise software, healthcare, uh, the physical sciences, that's where the real AI leaps, I think, will have really momentous value. Those are still 18 to 20 4 to 36 months away from seeing the light of day in terms of real products that that actually work.” View on YouTube

During the current Bank of England tightening cycle that was ongoing as of July 2023, the UK policy interest rate will reach at least 7% and could go as high as 8% before the cycle ends.

“the UK, it seems like I don't know what you guys think. It's definitely going to seven and it could go to eight. I mean it could be a very bad situation for the UK.” View on YouTube

Within approximately 5–10 years from July 2023 (i.e., by July 2028–July 2033), U.S. public and political discourse will no longer talk about China as a major adversarial focus in the same intense, hawkish way it is being discussed in 2023; concerns about China as the dominant strategic threat will have notably diminished.

“I just think that, uh, dollars tend to lead these things. And I think that in, uh, the next 5 to 6 years, 5 to 10 years, we're not going to be talking about China the same way we are today.” View on YouTube

Annualized U.S. federal revenue from Trump-era tariffs will approach roughly $500 billion per year once the program is fully ramped (i.e., tariff receipts will reach on the order of $400–500 billion in a 12‑month period by the late-2020s).

“I think that the United States is going to book probably close to half a trillion of incremental revenue.” View on YouTube

Through at least the next 30 years (to circa 2055), U.S. presidents of both parties will largely maintain Trump-originated tariffs; there will be no complete rollback to pre-2018 tariff baselines.

“Whoever is president over the next, you know, five, ten, 15, 20, 30 years, there'll be some Democrats, there'll be some Republicans. It's going to be very hard to justify why you would undo this now, because this source of revenue is going to be an incredibly important one.” View on YouTube

The battery factory project in Michigan that Chamath is describing will (1) break ground in July 2026 and (2) begin commercial operations by July 2028.

“So in all of these cases, I think that a you have this uptick in revenue because of tariffs on the short term. And b, the important thing is to redo this pie chart in probably a year. Like, for example, our groundbreaking in Michigan will be in July of next year for that factory. It'll be online two years after that.” View on YouTube

For calendar year 2025, starting from April 1, 2025, Trump-era tariffs will generate an annualized run rate of roughly $50 billion per month in revenue (equivalent to about $400 billion if applied over a full 12‑month period).

“Well, the number, the number I said, Jason, is like a yearly run rate. So technically, if you just look at the calendar 25. You only get a stub of eight months because it starts April 1st.” View on YouTube

For the upcoming Q2 (the quarter immediately following this May 2025 recording), U.S. real GDP growth will be greater than 3.0% but less than 4.0% annualized.

“What you're probably going to see in Q2 is a really hot GDP print. If I'm a betting man, which I am, I think the GDP print is going to come in above three. Not quite four, but above three.” View on YouTube

Even assuming permitting and technology de‑risking proceed successfully, commercially operating small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) in the U.S. will not be online before approximately 2035; widespread SMR deployment is at least a decade away from 2025.

“We all talk about smrs small modular reactors. The reality is that if you get everything permitted and you believe the technology can be de-risked, you're still in a 2035 plus time frame, you're a decade away.” View on YouTube

As of 2025, any newly initiated (unplanned) natural-gas power plant project in the U.S. will require at least about four years before it can begin commercial operation.

“If you have an unplanned nat gas plant today, the fastest you could get that on is four years from now.” View on YouTube

For the three currently mothballed but restartable nuclear reactors in the U.S., the earliest realistic restart dates fall between 2027 and 2030.

“If we tried to restart a mothballed nuclear reactor, of which there are only three, we can restart, that's a 2027 to 2030 time frame.” View on YouTube

If the proposed billionaire wealth tax had been passed and then challenged, the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court would strike it down as unconstitutional rather than allow it to stand.

“I'm not going to be the one that that, you know, files a lawsuit the day after it's passed and takes it to the Supreme Court, which will get heard. And, you know, this conservative Supreme Court would not have allowed this, this tax to stand.” View on YouTube

If Democrats enter the 2022 midterm elections having passed no significant legislation despite holding the presidency and both chambers of Congress, they will suffer extremely large losses (a political "bloodbath") in those midterms.

“you guys got to get something done. Because if you go into the midterms with nothing done with a Democratic president, Democratic Senate and Democratic House, this is going to be a bloodbath.” View on YouTube

U.S. inflation will not be merely transitory but will persist at elevated levels for an extended period rather than quickly reverting to pre‑2021 norms.

“The thing that I have struggled with the most in these last few weeks is trying to come to a conclusion on inflation. My worry is that it's here and it will be persistent.” View on YouTube

The current inflationary cycle in the U.S. will become distortive and harmful to the U.S. economy, particularly because rising interest rates, when they occur, will make servicing the federal debt very difficult.

“I think what we've created is a really distortive inflationary cycle that's going to really hurt the United States because, as Sachs talked about, we cannot print enough money to pay for the debt when interest rates go up.” View on YouTube

As pent-up demand is met and wages rise, consumer prices will continue to increase, disproportionately harming the middle and lower-middle classes; in addition, current asset bubbles will deflate or be repriced, and if the Federal Reserve tapers asset purchases and raises interest rates 2–3 times within the next 12–18 months, U.S. equity markets will experience a significant downturn ('an ugly stock market').

“Everybody will spend they will spend more. You know, you can't get cars, you can't get this. You can't get that. All this pent up demand will get fed. And the downstream implication is I think that prices will rise, but it will disproportionately hurt the middle class and the lower middle class. And then these asset bubbles will probably deflate or they'll have to get rerated. And if the fed stops tapering and hikes rates 2 or 3 times over the next 12 to 18 months. Man, this is an ugly, ugly, uh, stock market.” View on YouTube

Play‑to‑earn games in DeFi/metaverse environments will evolve into full-time jobs for some people, leading them to spend 8–10 hours per day in some form of metaverse environment.

“there are play to earn movements that are happening in, in sort of this, you know, layer three kind of DeFi world where you're getting paid to basically play games that could be a job, and then you will spend 8 to 10 hours in a metaverse of some sort.” View on YouTube

Robinhood will face extensive class action litigation over the GameStop trading restrictions, to the point of being sued "into oblivion," with many lawsuits filed seeking recovery of users' implied losses from the restricted trading period.

“I think that what's going to happen is they're going to get sued into oblivion. I think that the class action lawsuits here, when people talk about the implied losses that that they that they had over the last 24 hours, David Sachs is right. You can't undo it.” View on YouTube

Following the negative U.S. GDP print in Q1 2022, there is a heightened likelihood that additional quarters in 2022 will also show negative real GDP growth, potentially meeting the technical definition of a recession.

“So I think now the odds even push further in this direction that we could have more quarters of negative GDP.” View on YouTube

If the Federal Reserve attempts to raise interest rates by roughly 400 basis points from early-2022 levels while the economy is slowing, this will significantly risk tanking (causing a sharp downturn in) the U.S. economy during the subsequent tightening cycle (2022–2023).

“So I think, uh, I think it could be a very difficult path ahead for the fed. How do you raise rates 400 basis points into, uh, into a slowing economy? You could raise basis points 75, you know, 75 Bips, maybe 100 Bips, but it gives them very little freedom to operate without really tanking the economy.” View on YouTube

Global semiconductor (chip) shortages will persist through at least the end of 2024, according to Intel's guidance cited here.

“Intel today actually said there's going to be shortages in chips through 2024.” View on YouTube

At the May 2022 FOMC meeting, the Federal Reserve will raise the federal funds rate target by 50 basis points.

“So they're probably going to tighten 50 basis points in May. That's relatively well expected.” View on YouTube

Forgiving roughly $0.5T of U.S. student loans (the first $10,000 per borrower) would produce approximately a 2.5% one-time boost to U.S. GDP.

“By the way, that's it's a 2.5% boost to GDP, right.” View on YouTube

Elon Musk will (1) successfully close the acquisition of Twitter, (2) improve and "clean up" the platform, (3) roughly double his investment over about 6–7 years, achieving an approximate $100B terminal valuation for Twitter, and then (4) donate Twitter into a foundation or trust to obtain roughly a $100B tax credit usable to offset capital gains when SpaceX or Starlink go public.

“I think he's going to buy Twitter. I think he's going to clean it up. I think he's probably going to generate something like A2X on this... that basically, you know, puts that asset worth at around $100 billion... And then here's the masterstroke... I think he's going to donate it into a foundation and a trust... then if he if he were to donate it into a foundation, he'd get $100 billion credit that he could use, you know, to offset the gains when SpaceX or Starlink go public.” View on YouTube

Elon Musk’s equity investment in Twitter at a $44 billion valuation will at least double and possibly triple in value over time, meaning Twitter’s equity value under his ownership will eventually reach at least $88–132 billion.

“And it turns out that contract law still matters in the United States. And Elon did the right thing and just said, you know what? I'm going to own this thing and probably double or triple my money.” View on YouTube

The effective economic value per monthly active user (MAU) of Twitter, implied by the company’s business performance and/or potential valuation, will approximately double or triple from its then-current level within a few years after Elon Musk’s acquisition.

“And, uh, and I think that those Maus, the value of those monthly active users could probably double or triple pretty quickly.” View on YouTube

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies will become a significant and pervasive part of everyday life for a large portion of the global population in the future, comparable in importance to other major computing platforms.

“Let me put it in a different way. I think that we should assume that VR and AR is going to be a really important part of our existence.” View on YouTube

From late October 2022, broad U.S. stock market indices (e.g., S&P 500) will rise in the short term (over the next several months) before subsequently declining again, consistent with a temporary market bottom followed by another downturn.

“I think the stock market is going up. Then it'll go back down because I think what David said is right. But for the short term, this thing is going up.” View on YouTube

At some point in the future, David Sacks will serve as U.S. Secretary of State.

“Sacks David Sacks will be our next secretary of state.” View on YouTube

David Sacks will become U.S. Secretary of State within the tenure of the next two or three U.S. presidential administrations following October 2022 (i.e., by the end of the third presidency after Biden’s).

“I'll go long that David Sacks will be our secretary of state within 2 or 3 presidents.” View on YouTube

Public and media attention to the Signal war-planning leak ("signalgate") will substantially die down and largely be forgotten within roughly two Scaramuccis (about 2–3 weeks) from the time of the incident.

“And so I think like, you know, let's give it two scaramucci's. I think we'll forget about it.” View on YouTube

As a consequence of the Biden debate fallout and internal party dynamics, the Democratic Party will undergo a significant internal realignment or ‘reset’ (e.g., leadership, platform, or coalition changes) over the next election cycle or two.

“I think the Democratic Party is It's probably at risk of a pretty meaningful reset.” View on YouTube

As OpenAI deepens its ties with U.S. national security and large institutional investors (e.g., BlackRock, T. Rowe, major mutual funds), future U.S. Senate scrutiny of OpenAI will increasingly occur in confidential, national‑security–framed settings, and the company will face effectively no serious legal or regulatory harassment such as IRS audits (i.e., probability of an IRS audit becomes near zero over the coming years).

“So now what happens is, when you have Senate hearings about this stuff, it's more likely that it's confidential behind closed doors. It's under the purview of national security. All these things are beneficial to OpenAI. And then secondly, they were able to get Elon to drop his lawsuit conveniently... The only thing left is to get shares into the hands of the blackrocks, the tea rose, the all the big mutual fund apparatuses of the world that then syndicate to all the individual investors of the world. And you have everything. You have government connections. You have no real legal overhang. Then the likelihood that an IRS agent all of a sudden decides to audit OpenAI is basically zero.” View on YouTube

Over the next few years, frontier foundational AI models will converge in capabilities such that they become near‑interchangeable commodities from the user’s perspective (a “consumer surplus”), with only marginal performance differences between major providers.

“Foundational models are quickly becoming a consumer surplus. Every model is roughly the same. They keep getting better and better, but they're also approaching these asymptotic returns.” View on YouTube

As training data pipelines become more curated and refined, the cost of training competitive frontier models will rise to levels that are untenable for most companies, leaving only a few large tech firms able to afford state‑of‑the‑art model training over the next several years.

“And it looks like one of those variables that people are looking at is how you basically take the internet not as raw data, but then you actually kind of refine it and refine it some more and then use that as the basis of learning. And what that does is it drives up model costs to a degree that are probably untenable for most companies except, but for a few.” View on YouTube

According to Dario Amodei (as cited by Chamath), by around 2027 the cost to train a top‑tier, “good functional” frontier AI model could reach approximately $100 billion, up from mere billions today.

“So I think it was Dario Amodei, the CEO of anthropic, who said the cost of a good functional model today is in the billions, but by 2027 it could easily approach $100 billion.” View on YouTube

If frontier model training costs rise toward ~$100B by ~2027, only mega‑cap tech firms such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon will be able to fund such efforts, and smaller AI startups (including Ilya Sutskever’s SSI) will be unable to raise comparable capital to compete at the very top end.

“The problem that that represents for Elia's company, and I wish him the best of luck. But the reality is there isn't a $100 billion for him to have. Google will find it. Microsoft will find it. Facebook will find it... Amazon will find it. But I suspect that these other startups, there just isn't that much money going into AI because the returns don't justify it.” View on YouTube

Over the medium term, the foundational model market structure will resemble ride‑sharing: roughly one dominant commercial winner in closed‑source models, alongside numerous open‑source alternatives that are asymptotically similar in capability, with competition focused primarily on cost and compute efficiency.

“I think that you could make a claim that the AI foundational model market will look similar to that one startup can probably win, but there will be a bunch of open source alternatives. They're all asymptotically similar. And so it's an arms race on cost and compute.” View on YouTube

Venture capital firms will not fund multiple AI companies at the ‘hundreds of billions of dollars’ scale required for frontier model training; instead, that level of capital deployment will remain limited to a small number of mega‑cap incumbents over the coming years.

“And I just don't see VCs having the temperament and the wherewithal to fund hundreds of billions of dollars into multiple companies to do that.” View on YouTube

If the U.S. and Russia go to war over Ukraine (i.e., direct military conflict between the two), global equity markets will experience an extreme crash on the order of effectively wiping out equity values (a depression-level drawdown well in excess of standard bear markets) immediately following the outbreak of such a war.

“If this happens, the, uh, the stock markets will just go absolutely to zero. I mean, if you could have negative stock prices, this may be a good catalyst to.” View on YouTube

In calendar year 2022, the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise the federal funds rate approximately five times, in increments of about 25 basis points each.

“we effectively now started to price in about five rate hikes this year. So probably 5 25 point rate hikes effectively that's what that's what the that's what the yield curve tells us.” View on YouTube

Global supply-chain disruptions that were acute in early 2022 will mostly be resolved by late 2022 to early 2023, with major companies such as Apple and Tesla back to normal or near-normal supply conditions by early 2023.

“I'm less worried. Yeah. And the reason I'm less worried is when you actually talk to the companies that that are spending enormous amounts of money on CapEx, they've actually guided to the fact that by the end of this year and the beginning of next year, most of these things will be worked out... And they were pretty clear in the last few days that this will be done by 2023, early 2023.” View on YouTube

Global supply chain and CapEx-related disruptions affecting companies like Apple and Tesla will substantially resolve within roughly 6–9 months from late January 2022, with supply chain issues largely worked out by early 2023.

“I think I think we're I think we're dealing with a, you know, 6 to 9 month issue of having turned things off and now now rapidly trying to turn things back on. And we can't necessarily get that timing right. But I do think it'll work itself out faster than people expect. Personally that's what I think because the cost of Apple and Tesla specifically guiding to that is too enormous. You're talking about collectively almost 4 trillion of market cap. So they're not going to get something like this wrong. And they were pretty clear in the last few days that this will be done by 2023, early 2023.” View on YouTube

Around 2030 to 2032, Social Security will run out of money to pay obligations and a number of US states will become unable to pay their obligations, forcing a Social Security bailout/restructuring and state bailouts/restructuring.

“Then the next big thing is going to happen around 2030 to 2032. And that's really where Social Security doesn't have any money to pay anymore. And I think during that era is also when a lot of the states are going to become bankrupt. We're not going to be able to pay their obligations. And when the states can't pay their obligations around 2030 to 2032, you're going to have both the Social Security bailout and restructuring as well as the state bailouts and restructuring.” View on YouTube

In the coming years, additional countries in the Middle East and/or Muslim-majority world will formally join or normalize relations with Israel under the framework of the Abraham Accords or an explicit extension of them.

“Steve Wittkopf spoke about the fact that you should expect the Abraham Accords to expand.” View on YouTube

Over the next roughly 40–50 years (counting from 2025), New York City will deteriorate to conditions similar to those of New York City in the 1980s (high crime, disorder), before cycling back again.

“So I suspect what happens is that New York takes a 40 or 50 year journey, and at some point it will look like New York of the 80s.” View on YouTube

New York City real estate prices will experience a major decline ("crash and burn") in the coming years following the implementation of the current socialist-style policy agenda.

“But I would be short New York real estate. I think it's going to crash and burn.” View on YouTube

If the Federal Reserve under Jerome Powell begins an aggressive interest‑rate cutting program in the near term (starting in 2025), the S&P 500 index will rapidly rerate upward, reaching approximately 7,000 within a short period following the onset of that cutting cycle.

“I think the the free money trade here is to be levered long. I think you can make a lot of money right now... if Powell starts an aggressive cutting program, either because he has to or because he's trying to keep his job, I mean, man, you could see the S&P at 7000. Very quickly.” View on YouTube

AI token demand will increase roughly 10x while the cost of an output token falls by about 90% by the end of 2026.

“I think you're right. I think you're going to see a 10xing in the demand for tokens, but I also think you're going to see a 90% price reduction in the cost of an output token probably by the end of this year.” View on YouTube

If data center project cancellations continue at the current pace (about 7 gigawatts cancelled in 2026), the AI/data-center industry will have foregone roughly $130 billion in cumulative revenue across 2025-2026 due to cancelled projects.

“What that means is that 2025 the industry as a whole lost 50 billion of revenue and this year if 7 gawatt gets canceled it's about 70 billion. Now you're talking about 130 billion of lost revenue over these two years that'll go forward in time that we miss out on.” View on YouTube

Tariffs will ultimately create more economic equality for the American worker.

“we have a hollowedout middle class and the tariffs will create more equality for the American worker in the end.” View on YouTube

At some future point when the People’s Republic of China perceives a favorable strategic window, it will bring Taiwan under full Chinese (PRC/CCP) control, and the United States will ultimately choose not to intervene militarily in a meaningful way to stop this.

“This sign Taiwan's death warrant. I'm sorry, but you should just assume we should... No, my point is the following. Taiwan will. When the when PRC has the right window, be under complete Chinese control. And we, because of how we have executed this and how we've executed the rest of our Middle Asia strategy means that we will not really engage.” View on YouTube

Chinese companies listed in the U.S. via VIE-based ADR structures will ultimately have to be delisted from U.S. exchanges.

“You're going to have to delist these ADRs.” View on YouTube

The Chinese government will eventually cancel some of the VIE structures underpinning major Chinese tech companies, following the introduction of new tech and data regulations.

“they're starting to now introduce legislation as a prelude, in my opinion, to canceling some of these V's in the most important area that we care about, which is tech.” View on YouTube

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service will become a commercially significant, widely deployed product, and Tesla’s humanoid robot project (Tesla Bot) will likewise mature into a real, functional product line rather than remaining a demo or experiment.

“I think Starlink is going to be a real thing. I think this is probably going to be a real thing.” View on YouTube

In the years following early 2021, Biden-era policies of large fiscal stimulus and continued high federal spending will (1) increase overall inflation, (2) increase commodity prices, (3) suppress the rate of wealth creation for the rich compared with the prior trend, and (4) increase real earned income for people without significant investments, leading them to increase consumption.

“we're not even three months into his presidency. And you forecast that forward. It feels like we're entering an era of spend, spend, spend. And that was an opinion of mine, which I believe is actually fairly accurate. I do think it will drive inflation. I do think it'll drive commodity prices. And I think on balance, I do think it will suppress the wealth creation of the rich. And I do think it will give folks that don't necessarily have investments the ability to make more in real income, which they will spend.” View on YouTube

From 2021 onward, in advanced economies with significant technology-driven deflationary sectors (such as the United States), true hyperinflation (runaway price inflation of the type seen in Weimar Germany or Venezuela) will not occur because structural forces make such hyperinflation no longer possible.

“I don't think that it's even possible to actually have hyperinflation anymore.” View on YouTube

Within less than one year from late March 2021, a nickel supply deficit of roughly 37–40% relative to required volumes for planned battery production will emerge.

“right now we have, we have a deficit of nickel that's going to emerge now in less than a year. And we have, uh, we have about a 37 to 40% shortage of what we need.” View on YouTube

Due to flooding at major Russian nickel mines and the resulting nickel shortage, the retail price of a Tesla vehicle will roughly double relative to its pre-flood price, as the nickel shortage propagates through battery costs.

“A flood in a nickel. Mine is going to cost the price of a Tesla to basically double.” View on YouTube

In the Western Hemisphere, permitting and approvals to greenlight new large-scale metal mines (e.g., copper, nickel) will continue to take on the order of 20 years, while significant metal shortages for electrification will begin within about one year from late March 2021.

“right now in the Western Hemisphere, it takes 20 years to greenlight a mine. 20 years. Our shortages start in the next year.” View on YouTube

In California, by April 15, 2021, Covid-19 vaccines will be available to all adults, and by May 15, 2021, every Californian who wants to be vaccinated will have been able to receive a Covid-19 vaccine dose.

“everybody can get a shot now as of April 15th, which means by May 15th, everybody who wants to get vaccinated” View on YouTube

Starting from late March 2022, broad equity markets will trend mostly upward in the immediate short term (the next few weeks to a few months), after which market volatility will increase again.

“I, I think the markets are mostly moving upwards for the short term. And then I think volatility is going to come back.” View on YouTube

Given the repricing of public SaaS and questions about long‑term profitability, late‑stage private SaaS companies will face significant valuation and financing troubles during the 2022–2023 reset period.

“And so if that's true, then the late stage private SaaS companies are in trouble.” View on YouTube

For late‑stage private companies like those listed (e.g., Gopuff, Canva, Klarna, Discord, Ripple, Grammarly), if operating performance holds and interest rates rise as expected from March 2022 levels, their fair valuations must be marked down by approximately 15–40% immediately; however, if they subsequently grow revenue at a superior rate, they can recover to their prior peak valuations within roughly 18 months of the markdown.

“Here's what you can say if if everything is held equal just with the rise of rates, you have to reset those valuations between probably 15 and 40%, okay, at a minimum minimum. But what Brad said is also true, which is if they then keep growing at a superior rate, they can get back to even so, meaning 18 months. They could also show up again at 40 and be net net a wash.” View on YouTube

Starting in 2022, markets will undergo a prolonged and complex multi‑year process of unwinding the valuation and capital allocation distortions created during the prior 2–3 years of ultra‑low rates and excess liquidity.

“So we are at the beginning of probably a very complicated process of unwinding the distortion that we've lived through in the last couple of years.” View on YouTube

Apple will not succeed in moving all iPhone manufacturing for units exported to the US from China to India within 18 months, i.e., Apple will not have fully completed this shift by the end of 2026 as reported.

“See you in 2035... they should do it. But I'm just saying that's a it's very smart. It's not going to get done in 18 months.” View on YouTube

Between roughly 2025 and 2055, India will experience a prolonged high-growth economic phase comparable in impact to China’s 2003–2012 boom, becoming a major global manufacturing and growth engine over the next 20–30 years.

“India has one massive advantage over China, which is that it has one fifth the labor cost of China, which has one fifth the labor cost of America... In many ways you could say that it's it's China circa 2003... So India is going to have that moment over the next 20 or 30 years.” View on YouTube

Tesla will be operating real robotaxi services (vehicles driving themselves without active human drivers, offered commercially to the public) within approximately two years of this conversation, i.e., by around April 2027.

“Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, like right now my car is effectively a robotaxi.” View on YouTube

During Trump's new term, the administration will maintain an open, non-retaliatory posture toward major business leaders and companies (including prior political adversaries like Meta/Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI/Sam Altman), avoiding targeted ostracism or exclusion of specific firms from White House engagement on political grounds.

“So it's just business. People from the entire world were there. And so I think what it says is America is going to basically turn a totally new page. We're not going to ostracize people. We're not going to play favorites.” View on YouTube

Any eventual disposition of TikTok’s U.S. operations under Trump (including a sale or restructuring that satisfies U.S. national security concerns and allows it to continue operating) will occur at a transaction price that is far below Thomas Lafont’s ~$100 billion standalone valuation estimate for the U.S. asset, with an effective valuation deeply discounted by U.S. government leverage, rather than near its modeled economic value.

“at the end of the day, the president was very clear that it is completely and entirely worthless without his permit, and he wants to own 50% of this asset. Now, if you're a buyer of something, you're not going to pay $100 billion. If you control whether it can exist or not, you're basically going to pay today's equivalent of one franc, which would be $1... my point is, I find it very hard to see how it gets to the actual value that it is today.” View on YouTube

Over the next several years of Trump’s new administration, the U.S. federal government will increasingly structure major industrial-policy and technology initiatives so that, in exchange for special incentives (e.g., expedited permitting, access to federal land, grants, or regulatory waivers), the government secures an explicit ongoing economic participation in private projects—such as equity stakes or royalty-like revenue shares—rather than solely providing support via traditional grants, loans, or tax credits.

“So my prediction is that this becomes more of a template for the future. It'll be less about permitting. It'll be more about creating incentives and allocating those incentives for a share of the upside. And I think that there is a really strong economic argument for America to do that.” View on YouTube

Following Trump's birthright citizenship executive order, related lawsuits will rapidly send the issue back to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will take up the question of how to interpret the 14th Amendment’s 'subject to the jurisdiction' clause, and will do so in the near term (within the next few years).

“This is going to the Supreme Court... I think what this EO did and the lawsuits that happened almost instantaneously as a result, will now send this back to the Supreme Court very quickly, and people will opine on what that means.” View on YouTube

If the U.S. successfully implements a set of stablecoin payment rails that make payments instantaneous and near-costless, this will significantly accelerate U.S. GDP growth and reduce payment-related fraud, and David Sacks will be one of the key figures who designs/figures out this system.

“I think a set of stablecoin rails that makes payments instantaneous and costless is an enormous acceleration to GDP. It would cut fraud, and I think that David's going to go and figure that out.” View on YouTube

Once implemented at scale, United States stablecoin payment rails will be highly disruptive to the existing financial/payment system and will create substantial net economic value.

“But I do think that the United States stablecoin rails will be hugely disruptive and value added.” View on YouTube

By December 31, 2025, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield will exceed 5.0%, and the U.S. 30-year Treasury yield will exceed 6.25% (and may reach up to ~6.5%) if current escalation trends since Liberation Day persist.

“Today, the ten year is around 4.5% at the rate in which it's escalating since Liberation Day. By the end of this year, we're going to be past 5%. The 30 year is on a rate now to get past six and a quarter, maybe even reach 6.5%.” View on YouTube

If the current House version of the ‘big beautiful bill’ passes the Senate and becomes law with no material fiscal tightening, then within 60–90 days of passage bond markets will have re-underwritten U.S. fiscal risk at prevailing real rates (around 5–5.5% for long-dated Treasuries) and will react negatively, i.e., with higher required yields and/or visible signs of stress in U.S. Treasury demand.

“If it looks like it passes as is then that's what they'll do. And to your point, David, we'll know in the next 60 to 90 days.” View on YouTube

Within 12 months of this May 2025 episode (i.e., by May 2026), Google will make its AI-mode experience the default front-door search interface for a large share of its existing search users, rather than traditional ten-blue-links search, as a result of ongoing A/B testing and rollout.

“I suspect it will be done in less than a year. And for a large swath of users, they are going to put AI in the front door. I think that's a fait accompli.” View on YouTube

Ford will be selling on the order of 2.5 million electric vehicles annually by around 2026–2027, and General Motors and other major automakers will follow a similar strategic path by ramping their own EV production and battery investments over that timeframe.

“Ford needs batteries there. Forecast is they'll be selling 2.5 million electric vehicles by 2026, 2027. So whatever Ford does, you can expect GM will also do. You can expect all of the other big companies to do so.” 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

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

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

The Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) / Trump Media & Technology Group transaction will successfully complete its de-SPAC, and at closing the enterprise value will be very high relative to expectations, surprising observers.

“I think we will all be shocked at the actual closing enterprise value when this thing SPACs, because it will de-spac. And we're all going to kind of scratch our heads thinking, how did we not see this?” View on YouTube

If Trump Media & Technology Group primarily pursues a strategy of acquiring media and tech assets (M&A-focused rather than organic product building), it will significantly disrupt and reshape the U.S. media landscape.

“I think this is going to really shake up the media landscape. If they can execute well, they just need to think about this as an M&A vehicle, not as an engineering and product creation.” View on YouTube

At some future point, the technology and venture market will undergo a major valuation reset or rerating similar in severity to the dot-com crash around the year 2000, with the current high levels of liquidity making that correction particularly violent.

“All of this liquidity will probably make it even more violent when it does happen, because it'll eventually will happen. We'll go through a rerating like the year 2000. Who knows when it is and what the catalyst is, but that's the real downside of all of this, is that it'll eventually have a valuation reset that's going to be...” View on YouTube

In December 2021, Chamath will travel to Africa and conduct multiple lectures and talks there.

“I'm about to do this thing in Africa and I'm going there in December. I can't wait. And, you know, we're thinking of just doing a couple of like, lectures and talks.” View on YouTube

Jason has the option to join Chamath on the Africa trip in early December 2021; if he accepts, they will travel there together at that time.

“You can come with me in early December if you want.” View on YouTube

By the end of Joe Biden's first two years in office (by January 20, 2023), the amount of legislative and policy accomplishments he secures will be less than the amount Donald Trump achieved in his first two years (January 20, 2017–January 20, 2019).

“we may be facing a situation I'd love to get your guys's reaction where Donald Trump, in his first two years of his presidency, may actually have gotten more done than Biden will get done in his first two years.” View on YouTube

Within roughly one week of this episode’s recording in late October 2021, both Chamath and Friedberg will have newborn children (their partners will have given birth by then).

“This time next week. Both Freedberg and I may have kids.” View on YouTube

If DOGE is able to wipe a very large share of existing federal regulations off the books (followed by selectively reenacting only necessary ones), U.S. real GDP growth will reach approximately 4–5% annually, compared to its current lower growth rate.

“I think that the US economy could be growing at 4 or 5%, but the reason it doesn't grow at 4 or 5% is in that one single chart. It is impossible to be able to live up to your economic potential when you have this burden on your neck. So I think the real opportunity for Doge is to basically do whatever it needs to do, using the law to wipe as many of these regulations off the books.” View on YouTube

If DOGE is used to dramatically simplify the U.S. tax code (potentially including adoption of a flat tax) by cutting it down and only reenacting necessary provisions, U.S. real GDP growth will increase by approximately 1–2 percentage points (100–200 basis points) relative to the current trend, producing a sustained economic expansion.

“could you imagine if these guys basically used Doge as a mechanism to shrink the tax code, create a flat tax, potentially... the idea of just cutting this all the way down, and then finding through that process what you actually need, I think, can find America 100 to 200 basis points of GDP growth. It could be an economic renaissance.” View on YouTube

Over the next one to two U.S. federal election cycles (approximately 4–8 years from 2024), there will be a significant increase in MAGA-aligned candidates running primary challenges against anti-MAGA incumbent Republicans across many districts in the United States.

“I think sacks laid it out, which is that if you use the combination of the carrot and the stick... I think those folks are going to have a very tough four and eight years, because I think you'll see a bunch of MAGA candidates rising up to run against him everywhere in the United States.” View on YouTube

As a result of Mitch McConnell’s unequivocal statement that Trump provoked the Capitol rioters, enough Republican senators will break ranks that Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial in the Senate (beginning in late January 2021) has a real chance to result in conviction, rather than acquittal.

“I think Mitch McConnell set the stage to have Donald Trump impeached. And the reason I think that is this was the first time he was completely unequivocal, which is that Donald Trump provoked all these folks. And I think what it allows the Republican Party to do is to get together under closed doors, you know, behind closed doors. Circle the wagons and say it's either him or us. We choose right now. And I think what's going to happen, if I had to guess, is that that allows a lot of people to break ranks and support the impeachment in the Senate. That's going to start on Monday. Um, and I think there's a real chance now that, that this impeachment goes through and he gets convicted.” View on YouTube

Based on market signals (e.g., valuation changes correlated with political flashpoints), large U.S. tech platforms (e.g., Facebook, Google, etc.) will, in the coming years, face such heavy regulation that they will no longer operate as normal profit-maximizing private companies in their current form.

“What you'll see is at least capitalism is voting, that these companies will not be allowed to be companies much longer.” View on YouTube

Over the medium term (within several years of 2021), major U.S. big tech platforms will be regulated to the point that they effectively function as quasi-governmental utilities or quasi-nonprofits operating largely on behalf of national governments rather than as fully independent commercial enterprises.

“It's going to be a quasi governmental organization. Exactly that the level of regulation at a government. But government level is going to be so onerous as to make these companies, quasi non-profits that work on behalf of countries.” View on YouTube

Between roughly 2021 and 2041, the United States will significantly re-emerge economically, driven by innovation in climate change technologies, agriculture, biotechnology, and technology, generating on the order of $20–30 trillion of GDP per year over that 10–20 year period, for a cumulative additional GDP on the order of $300–500 trillion.

“This problem has to get fixed because I think in the next ten, I think. I think in the next ten and 20 years, the United States is gonna fucking re-emerge like a phoenix. And the reason, the reason is gonna be because of innovation around climate change and agriculture and biotechnology and technology. These four areas are going to recast GDP. But what that also means is that if we're going to create, you know, 20 or $30 trillion a year for the next ten and 20 years, 300, 500 trillion, how the fuck do we make sure that more than 18 people participate?” View on YouTube

The Israel–Gaza war and the emerging conflict around Houthi attacks in the Red Sea will both be resolved quickly (within a relatively short timeframe from Dec 2023), as regional and global powers will come together to pressure Iran and other actors in order to protect their multi-decade economic plans.

“All roads, I think, lead, in my opinion, to a coming together of folks to say, okay, let's use this as a definitive moment to just clean the decks here. And I think that that'll put a lot of pressure on Iran, a lot of pressure on the money flows. I suspect that both of these two hot wars get resolved quickly, because the larger, multi-decade implications for the Middle East are too big to let it be subsumed by the Houthi rebels or Hamas.” View on YouTube

For the foreseeable future after December 2023, acquirers and investors should not expect to be able to complete $20 billion-scale M&A deals in any industry, due to the prevailing regulatory and antitrust environment.

“Those are a different era. I really think these... are all very different era. I don't think that that's what you can expect anymore. I don't think you can underwrite to get a $20 billion deal done in any industry.” View on YouTube

If Hustle (Chamath's company) sustains approximately 40% annual revenue growth for the next 10 years from 2023, the company will become a very large-scale business (on the order of a major industry player by size/revenue).

“by the way, if I can grow for ten years, if we can grow for ten years at 40% a year, this will be a ginormous business.” View on YouTube

Over the coming venture cycles driven by AI-driven capital efficiency (i.e., over the next several years), typical venture fund sizes will shrink by roughly a factor of 3–4, such that funds that are $200M in 2023 scale down to about $50M, $500M funds to ~$100M, and $1B funds to ~$200M, returning to 1990s-style fund sizes.

“All I'm saying is, I think what it means is that the $200 million fund today becomes 50. The $500 million fund needs to be 100, and the billion dollar fund needs to be 200. It's basically back to the future. It's like back to the 1990s style” View on YouTube

As a result of the Colorado Supreme Court decision removing Trump from the 2024 primary ballot, Donald Trump will go on to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and will become the strong favorite to win the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

“But now I think that they've basically made his winning the Republican nomination a foregone conclusion. And he is the overwhelming favorite to win the presidency after this.” View on YouTube

The U.S. Supreme Court will overturn the Colorado Supreme Court decision disqualifying Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot, restoring his eligibility there.

“And I think Will is surely to get overturned in the Supreme Court.” View on YouTube

Within the next few quarters after April 2022 (i.e., by roughly mid-2023), public-company CEOs will have clear, quantifiable business evidence from cases like Disney and Netflix showing that focusing on mission (like Coinbase’s approach) creates more shareholder value than accommodating internal political activism, and they will be able to use these numbers to justify adopting Coinbase-style policies.

“in the next few quarters, I think CEOs will actually be better equipped to numerically point to why taking Brian's path is the value creating path for shareholders and for stakeholders, and the cost of getting distracted, quote unquote, can be really expensive if you if you are a for profit company.” View on YouTube

As Google rolls out Apple-style privacy changes on Android over the next product cycles (starting in 2022), the effectiveness of online ads will further decline, driving customer acquisition costs higher for companies that rely heavily on paid digital acquisition, making their growth meaningfully more expensive going forward.

“it's really hard for these ads to be as effective as they used to be. And it's only going to get worse because Google has also said that they're going to implement a lot of the same versions of what Apple did inside of Android. So customer acquisition is going up. So if you look at then all the companies that have to live and die on Ckac, it's going to be an expensive, um, road.” View on YouTube

Over the next several years, as 7–9 major streaming competitors invest heavily in content, Netflix will no longer be able to dominate the streaming market or earn the outsized returns it historically enjoyed; instead, those returns will be spread across multiple services.

“all of those returns will now get spread across seven or 8 or 9 competitors. Which means that just by definition, mathematically, Netflix can't win the way that they used to.” View on YouTube

If interest rates stay roughly in the 3–5% range over the next 4–5 years (from late 2022), IPO candidates with aggressive founder-control structures (e.g., extreme supervoting, no effective shareholder rights) will face meaningful resistance from public-market investors and bankers, making it significantly harder for such governance overreach to get done in IPOs.

“that dog doesn't hunt when rates are at 4 or 5%. I don't care who you think you are, but when you try to go public in over the next 4 or 5 years, if rates are sustained, you know, three, 4 or 5%, that will be the check on all of these people's overreach, because you will have, you know, liquid alternatives that on a risk adjusted basis, seem better. And when rates are zero and everybody was forced to own tech, we all gave up our standards.” View on YouTube

Over the next several years, Snap Inc. will suffer sustained investor flight: its shareholder base will shrink and its stock will trade as an out-of-favor, thinly owned "refugee" in the public markets due to perceived poor governance and lack of influence for outside shareholders.

“so you know, snap will be an example of where investors are going to abandon that company because because it's just there's no point. There's no governance. There's no ability to have a conversation. It's in the too hard bucket, so people will just leave it. It'll be, uh, stranded and it'll be a refugee in the public markets.” View on YouTube

Within a few years, Meta (Facebook) will adopt the same cost-discipline and capital-return playbook as Microsoft, Google, and Apple (e.g., meaningful cost cuts, higher margins, and shareholder-friendly capital allocation), and its business and stock performance will converge toward the "mean" of those large-cap tech peers.

“I think meta will be fine eventually, because I think that they will revert to the mean. And the mean is Microsoft, Google and Apple. And we already know what that playbook looks like. So I think what Brad predicts is more likely than unlikely.” View on YouTube

At some point in the future (beyond 2022), US federal debt-to-GDP will surpass 200% and later 300%, without causing systemic collapse of the US economy or government functioning.

“We are in a debt spiral. That is a feature, not a bug, of how democratic societies work... The first time the United States went past 100%, we thought it was the end of the world. It turned out it wasn't. We'll will eventually go past 200... Then we'll get to 300%. We'll keep moving forward.” View on YouTube

In the produced version of this episode, the editor Nick will include a picture-in-picture display of the referenced poker hand.

“We'll get we'll get Nick to play picture in picture this hand.” View on YouTube

Antonio García Martínez’s total financial recovery from Apple related to his firing (including lost equity appreciation and other damages) will end up being on the order of $20 million.

“I do think you end up getting to probably 20 million.” View on YouTube

In the 2021 Biden infrastructure/tax package, there will not be enough support in Congress to pass the proposed large increase in capital gains tax rates, and the federal corporate tax rate will settle at about 25% rather than rising to 28%.

“I had heard from somebody that there just is not the broad based support, um, for, uh, the capital gains tax. So that's not going to happen. Um, and it looks like the corporate tax will probably go to 25%, um, not even up to 28%.” View on YouTube

By fall 2021, the short‑term, stimulus‑driven spike in consumer demand and inflation in the U.S. will have largely worked through the system, and markets will revert to the prior pattern where technology and growth stocks outperform as demand normalizes.

“there's a body of people now that are voting a very different scenario than inflation. What they're voting for now is this idea that by the fall, a lot of this short term pent up demand will have worked its way through the system. And instead, we'll be back to this realization that we've had for the last 20 years...” View on YouTube

Assuming the short‑term demand spike subsides by fall 2021, U.S. growth stocks will enter a renewed bull phase with substantially improved performance versus their levels during the spring 2021 inflation scare.

“If that's what we see. Good times are back in growth stocks.” View on YouTube

As of May 22, 2021, the then-current crypto pullback is an early-stage phase of a longer-term growth cycle for crypto, not the beginning of its decline; crypto markets will continue to develop and expand after this correction.

“It's the beginning of the beginning” View on YouTube

Governments, including the United States and China, will not be able to fully stop Bitcoin as a global system; Bitcoin will continue to exist and function despite future government actions.

“there was nothing that they could do to stop it before. There's nothing that they can do to stop it now.” View on YouTube

In the coming period under the new Trump administration, technology and large companies will become significantly more aggressive in pursuing mergers and acquisitions, leading to a clear increase in tech M&A activity compared to the prior (Democratic) administration.

“So when you connect the dots, the way that I interpret it is that I think companies will be much more aggressive on M&A. Jason, it's what you've been asking for. I think you're going to get it.” View on YouTube

Due to what he views as an overcorrection by the Federal Reserve, the pace of interest-rate cuts in 2025–2026 will be slower than previously anticipated, leading to increased economic pressures such as weaker growth and/or higher financial stress.

“So I think there's an overcorrection here that's happening, which I think is dangerous. And I think it's going to slow down the pace of cuts, which I think will then create a lot of other pressure in the economy.” View on YouTube

Geopolitical and economic tension in the broader China–U.S. narrative will continue to increase and "swell" over the coming decade or two (the 2020s and into the 2030s).

“I was just trying to highlight where I think everything is headed over the next decade or two, independent of what are obvious human rights issues going on.” View on YouTube

Some version of the bipartisan antitrust bill that just passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee (referenced as the bill to "rewrite some of these anti-competitive" rules, with a 75–25 committee vote) will be passed by the full U.S. Congress and become law in the near term (within the current legislative session following this January 2022 recording).

“so it's I think some version of that is going to pass.” View on YouTube

The proposed Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard announced in January 2022 will receive regulatory approval and close, without being blocked on antitrust grounds.

“I still think this Microsoft Activision deal, on balance gets done because if you take the absolute values away from it, the reality is that it's an adjacent part of Microsoft's core business, and there's nothing fundamentally monopolistic about what would happen if you let Microsoft and Activision come together.” View on YouTube

From the vantage point of late January 2022, there is a material risk that the Federal Reserve will overreact to incomplete inflation data by tightening too aggressively, causing the US economy to enter a recession within the subsequent couple of years.

“We are in a really complicated moment. And I think the risk is that there is an overreaction to incomplete data. And we plunge the US economy into a recession.” View on YouTube

As of January 2022, the high‑growth tech stock drawdown is about 80–90% complete, implying that most of the price declines in that sector will have occurred within roughly the next 1–3 months.

“We're in the eighth in my opinion. I think we're in the eighth inning of of the tech drawdown.” View on YouTube

From the January 2022 level, if large-cap US tech stocks (the "big tech generals" that dominate the indices) fall an additional ~10–15%, that move will mark or closely coincide with the bottom of the broader equity-market selloff, after which most of the drawdown pain will be over.

“When you see this thing really get cracked is when those folks, you know, trade down another 10 or 15%. And then I think we're kind of through most of the pain.” View on YouTube

Implicitly, the continued pattern of Covid-driven school closures like those in Flint, Michigan in early 2022 will lead to significant long-term negative consequences for affected students that will be evident when outcomes are evaluated in the following decades.

“We saw another implication just this week in Flint, Michigan... I think, like, we have to have an honest accounting of, um, of all of these things because the implications are real.” View on YouTube

Roughly 20 years after the Covid-19 pandemic (i.e., in the 2040s), the dominant retrospective assessment will be that pandemic-era learning loss among children was the largest long-term cost of the crisis, outweighing other social and economic costs when historians and policymakers look back.

“This is really the accounting of the cost. And we are, as we've said before, learning loss in our kids is going to be the single biggest thing we look back in 20 years coming out of this pandemic and realize was the biggest price we paid for this.” View on YouTube

The video AI model referred to as "Vo 3" (likely Google's Veo 3) will cause such disruption that Hollywood, as an industry in its current form, will be effectively "done" within approximately one year from this June 2025 recording (by mid-2026).

“like Vo three, which we haven't really spoke about, is going to destroy Hollywood like in the next year, like Hollywood is done, I think.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, essentially all major enterprise and business software systems globally will be rebuilt end‑to‑end using new AI‑enabled development toolchains, replacing the current generation of vertical SaaS and custom software.

“I think, Jason, if you look at the entirety of the software that runs the world, we're going to rebuild it soup to nuts. All of that” View on YouTube

Chamath agrees that in the coming decade the S&P 493 will see very large dispersion in equity returns between AI adopters (which rebuild software and workflows with AI) and laggards, producing unusually large money‑making opportunities for stock pickers.

“100%.” View on YouTube

Traditional enterprise SaaS, sold as ever‑proliferating vertical tools with per‑seat or escalating license models, will structurally underperform going forward: growth rates will materially decelerate and return on equity will fail to meet prior expectations as customers increasingly reject ‘yet another tool’ in favor of AI‑driven, cheaper custom software.

“I think that the jig is totally up for software.” View on YouTube

Over the long term, pure consumption‑based pricing models for data platforms like Snowflake (where customers pay variably for large and growing data storage/compute) will prove unsustainable: many customers will migrate to lower‑cost alternatives (e.g., Postgres/Supabase and similar) and Snowflake‑style models will underperform or be forced to change.

“in this world, nobody's going to pay consumption because you're like, how do you expect me to, you know, hold and store and pay for terabytes and terabytes, potentially a day of data? It's not sustainable.” View on YouTube

Many traditional ‘IT services’ and similar rolled‑up service businesses will face a lack of terminal buyers within roughly the next decade as AI agents become capable enough that much of their value proposition is automated away, depressing exit values for private‑equity roll‑ups in those sectors.

“I think the problem is that even if you take some of these kind of May industries and roll them all up, you ultimately have to find a buyer who wants to own that business after you...the fear that I have is that there is no terminal buyer for many of these companies.” View on YouTube

By roughly five years from now, Microsoft’s global employee count will be higher than it is today (around its ~250,000 peak), despite AI‑driven productivity gains.

“I suspect Microsoft's employee base grows.” View on YouTube

An equal‑weighted index consisting only of AWS (if separable), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform held over the next five years would deliver such strong returns that an investor ‘wouldn’t need to own anything else’—i.e., it would outperform the broad market and most diversified portfolios.

“If I could somehow automatically create an index of all three of those businesses right over the next five years...you wouldn't need to own anything else.” View on YouTube

The SEC and other U.S. regulators will not be supportive of DAO structures as a primary mechanism for broad retail participation in private investments, because endorsing DAOs would undermine their existing oversight regime.

“it does set up a very binary decision by the SEC and US regulators, which unfortunately, they're not going to go and be supportive of, because the binary decision to support them would effectively negate their oversight.” View on YouTube

As full‑body MRI providers like Prenuvo accumulate more imaging data and improve their machine‑learning models, the duration of a full‑body MRI scan will shrink from around 60–90 minutes to roughly 40 minutes, and the per-scan price will decline from about $1,500–$2,500 into the low hundreds of dollars, while maintaining equivalent diagnostic resolution.

“And so as a result of that, they're able to actually take the MRI images, and they can do fewer and fewer scans to get the equivalent resolution. So two things will happen. One is the scan time will come down, right? So it was an hour and a half. Now it's sort of right under an hour. It can probably be as low as 40 minutes, which is relatively tolerable for most people. And then the cost will come down into the hundreds of dollars because you'll be able to very rapidly assess.” View on YouTube

From June 2020 onward, no national government anywhere will be able to re‑impose broad Covid-style lockdowns or shelter-in-place orders with high public compliance; instead, for the foreseeable future, countries and large companies (e.g., Apple) will operate in a recurring 'start and stop' pattern where localized closures and re-openings occur as cases flare up, rather than returning to sustained, population-wide lockdowns.

“No, no, no, we're out, we're out, we're out. The genie is out of the bottle. Look, the reality is, um, there is not a single country government, um, that can tolerate future lockdowns because I think the populations will revolt. Um, and so we're going to have to deal with, um, cases as they crop up, and we're going to have to deal with infection rates popping up. And, you know, we'll have to deal with this bursty economic landscape today. Apple just announced they're closing a bunch of stores and a few in a few states. They'll I'm sure they'll reopen them in a few weeks. Um, but we're gonna be in this sort of start and stop mode now for the foreseeable future. Um, but it's just not possible to ask people now to go back into any form of quarantine or shelter in place. I just don't think they'll do it right.” View on YouTube

Over the coming period following June 2020, many of the discussed police-reform measures (e.g., changes to union contracts, training, use-of-force rules, and related legislation at multiple levels of government) will in fact be enacted in at least some U.S. jurisdictions, because the needed reforms are so obvious that different political ideologies will converge on similar policy changes for their own reasons.

“there's a lot of reasons where you could have bipartisan agreement on a bunch of these things. But again, I think we're we're we kind of like get caught up and we refuse to see the forest from the trees and want to fix these things. But, um, I suspect that a lot of these changes will happen just because they're so bloody obvious. And depending on your ideology, you can frame the same reason for completely different motives and get to the same answer.” View on YouTube

Going forward from 2020, user bases of major social platforms will continue to self-segregate ideologically, with Facebook skewing more toward 'middle America' and right-leaning content while Twitter skews more toward affluent coastal, left-leaning users; people will increasingly choose platforms that reinforce their existing political views.

“So it just kind of tells you like, and if you break down the issues and, you know, there's a there's a couple of people who tweet out, um, the most popular, uh, tweets on Twitter versus the most popular content on Facebook. What you see is the left and right distribution. Um, and so I think that the audiences are, are segregating themselves into, uh, into, into using products that basically feed them what they want to hear.” View on YouTube

In the future (following 2020), the largest U.S. tech companies (e.g., Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon) will face significantly increased government action: at minimum, heavier regulation, higher taxation, and constraints that slow their operations, and at maximum, antitrust breakups of one or more of these firms.

“what you've seen over the last 5 or 6 years is that there is an increasing regulatory headwind. Um, and if you basically play the game theory out, um, you know, these companies are going to get regulated and they're going to get overtaxed and they're going to get kind of slowed down at a minimum and broken up at the maximum.” View on YouTube

While Trump currently trails Biden roughly 25-75 in the odds of winning the November 2020 election, that gap will narrow to about 45-55 by election day, with the outcome hinging on Biden's VP pick and voter-turnout efforts.

“right now it's sort of 75 25 he loses okay I think that's gonna get closer to 55 45 as the date comes close” View on YouTube

Within roughly 20–30 years from 2021 (i.e., by 2041–2051), the United States will see the emergence of a more competent and sophisticated authoritarian-style populist leader (“American strongman or strong woman”) who is more effective than Donald Trump at building and maintaining mass support while avoiding many of his obvious flaws.

“over the next 20 or 30 years, these polarizing figures will become crisper, sharper, smarter. You know, they'll find a way to foment all of all of the support without any of the long tail shittiness that Trump figured out like Trump was. You know, he's like a beta test of an idea, right? He was like version 0.1. Wait till we see version 1.0 of the American Strongman or Strong Woman. It's really going to be fucking scary.” View on YouTube

The Los Angeles Times newspaper is very likely to cease to exist as a distinct operating entity within approximately 4–5 years of February 2021 (i.e., by sometime in 2025–2026), either by shutting down or being absorbed in a way that ends it as a standalone publication.

“there’s a Wall Street Journal alert. Um, for the owner of the LA times who's about to sell the times, like it's very likely that the times in 4 or 5 years doesn't even exist.” View on YouTube

All four regular hosts of the All-In podcast will have received a COVID-19 vaccine by April 1, 2021.

“Let's just do let's end on this. Pick a date. When you think all four besties are vaccinated, I'm gonna say April 1st.” View on YouTube

Global oil production capacity cannot materially increase beyond roughly current levels before about 2028–2030; significant new capacity will not come online until that timeframe.

“There is very little room right now to expand that without pushing the date in which that capacity is available out until 2028 to 2030, so effectively a decade from now.” View on YouTube

The Inflation Reduction Act effectively ends the political viability of a U.S. carbon tax; a federal carbon tax will not be implemented in the United States in the foreseeable future.

“I actually think that what this bill did was kill the idea of a carbon tax? I think it makes it completely. Unimportant. And it'll never see the light of day.” View on YouTube

Implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act will reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to roughly 40% below the target baseline level policymakers are using for 2030 (i.e., achieving about 40% of the desired emissions reduction by 2030).

“this plan will still get us to about 40% of the way there, where we want it to be by 2030” View on YouTube

Voluntary/offset carbon markets and carbon trading will not become the large, central climate solution many expected, and direct air capture companies will remain small, marginal "toy" projects rather than large, mainstream, economically credible businesses over the coming decades.

“So I think carbon markets and carbon trading are not going to be the thing that we thought it was going to be. I think stuff like direct air capture again are going to be toy projects off to the side. I don't think that those are those are not those are not going to be credible businesses like we thought they were going to be.” View on YouTube

Global decarbonization and climate-change mitigation will not be substantially "solved" by 2050; meaningful completion of the project of addressing climate change will likely slip to around the years 2150–2200.

“Nothing's going to get solved by 2050. Maybe you'll see something done by 2100. Probably not. It'll probably be a 2001 52,200. 2200 kind of an objective.” View on YouTube

The U.S. government will not succeed in hiring the full 87,000 additional IRS employees authorized in the Inflation Reduction Act; actual hiring will fall significantly short of that target.

“It'll be impossible for these guys to find 87,000 humans that want to work at the IRS.” View on YouTube

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act will serve as a template for other countries, which will adopt their own similar subsidy- and permitting-based climate frameworks in the following years.

“the bill has actually cleaned up a lot of future question marks about what we have to do as a country to go about doing our part for climate change. And I think it probably creates a reasonable blueprint for everybody else. And now they're going to have to do some version of the same thing.” View on YouTube

If the U.S. later passes a streamlined permitting framework for hydrocarbon projects as envisioned alongside the IRA, that reform will significantly increase U.S. fossil-fuel production revenues and improve U.S. national security in subsequent years.

“if we actually pass this framework, which is still yet to be written, uh, around how to make permitting more seamless and efficient for these hydrocarbon projects, it will really unleash, um, a massive torrent of both revenues back to the United States. Um, it'll increase our national security” View on YouTube

Climate-tech businesses whose unit economics are not contribution-margin positive without Inflation Reduction Act subsidies, and whose path to profitability depends solely on those subsidies, will ultimately fail as sustainable standalone businesses.

“If you're not contribution margin positive today, pre this bill in climate change and the bill is the only way that you get there. Your dough, you just don't know it.” View on YouTube

The bulk of new IRS audit activity enabled by hiring tens of thousands of additional agents will fall on middle- and upper-middle-income taxpayers and small business owners, rather than on ultra-wealthy individuals who are already routinely audited.

“They're gonna find a lot. They're gonna find a lot of middle class and upper middle class, folks, and they're going to have to focus on them...it's going to touch the folks that are not audited. And by and large, a much, much larger majority of middle income and upper middle income people are not audited” View on YouTube

During the 2020s decade, consumer privacy and data protection will become a primary differentiating feature and major selling point (a "killer feature") for technology products and services, driving significant market behavior.

“this is why I'm saying I think that, you know, Trump is probably acting out of an expression of power. But I think what we're realizing is actually this is about core fundamental privacy and the safety and security of each of us as individuals. And it should start a bigger conversation. Like privacy. I really do think this privacy is the killer feature of the 2020s, right?” View on YouTube

In the United States, short‑term interest rates (the Federal Funds rate) will remain effectively at zero (near the lower bound) for approximately a full decade starting from 2020, i.e., through roughly 2030, with no meaningful rate hikes during that period.

“they basically said we're keeping rates where they are until at least 20, 23. You know, my personal view is if rates are going to stay basically at zero for the next half decade. And I think it's probably pretty likely that we're going to see rates stay at zero, probably a full decade.” View on YouTube

Despite the COVID-19 shock, the U.S. will not develop a lasting, structurally large "permanent unemployed class"; instead, over the ensuing years (early–mid 2020s) employment will broadly recover as capital markets remain expansive and companies invest and hire.

“And in that, I actually think there's a real bid to, uh, employment... So in general I'm kind of constructive and bullish. Um, and I don't think that this idea that there's a permanent unemployment class, um, sticks around” View on YouTube

Despite fears of a permanent unemployed underclass from COVID-19 job losses, zero interest rates will push capital into corporate investment and hiring, meaning the mass unemployment will not become a permanent structural feature of the economy.

“i don't think that this idea that there's a permanent unemployment class sticks around” View on YouTube

From September 2020, COVID-related societal posture (significant precautions, restrictions, and altered behavior relative to 2019 norms) will persist for roughly another 18–24 months, i.e., until around March–September 2022.

“So I tend to think it's another 18 to 24 months of this posture.” View on YouTube

Biden remains the favorite to win the November 2020 election, but the race hinges on the debates: if Biden has any major verbal gaffes or appears cognitively inconsistent, Trump wins, whereas a solid debate performance secures the win for Biden.

“i i still think on the margin uh biden is the favorite” View on YouTube

If, leading up to the 2020 U.S. election, enough voters come to feel that cancel culture and political correctness have gone too far, those voters will respond by electing Donald Trump as president in November 2020.

“mark my words, if people feel that the pendulum has swung too far, they will elect Donald Trump because he is the complete antithesis of giving a shit about any of this stuff. So that would be the bellwether.” View on YouTube

If Donald Trump wins the November 2020 election by a meaningful margin, then in the ensuing years the current Republican and Democratic parties will disintegrate and be replaced in U.S. national politics by approximately three or four significant parties.

“I think if Donald Trump wins in a meaningful way in November, I don't think he will. But if he does, the actual silver lining for for everybody is I think the Republican Party will disintegrate and the Democratic Party will disintegrate. And in its place, I think you'll probably have 3 or 4 parties.” View on YouTube

If Donald Trump wins the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he will lose the 2024 general presidential election.

“If Trump wins the Republican nomination, then he will lose the presidency.” View on YouTube

If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee in 2024, the Democratic presidential nominee—regardless of who it is—will defeat him decisively in the general election.

“Because if it is Trump, whoever the Democratic candidate is, I don't think it really matters. We'll crush Trump.” View on YouTube

If Donald Trump secures the 2024 Republican presidential nomination (by activating his base in the primaries), the Republican Party will lose the 2024 general presidential election.

“So the Republicans have to take this really serious. If moderate Republicans want to have a chance of winning, you guys have to figure out how to beat Trump in a ground game, because if his base shows up, he has a decent chance of winning the nomination. But then you will lose the general.” View on YouTube

If Alphabet/Google were to reduce compensation/headcount costs along the lines discussed in the episode (roughly halving or fully meeting the shareholder’s proposed cut target), Alphabet’s stock price would rise approximately 35% for a partial cut and about 65% for the full cut within one trading day of such an announcement.

“I mean, if you sensitized it to what you said, David, a if it was just 75 or half that number, then, you know, the stock goes up 35% overnight. And if it goes up to the full number, yep. The stock goes up 65% overnight.” View on YouTube

A ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine will be reached within 2–3 weeks of this conversation (i.e., by mid-April 2022).

“I suspect and, you know, I could be completely wrong, um, is that we're much closer to a ceasefire than anybody thinks. And I suspect that you could see something in the next 2 to 3 weeks.” View on YouTube

The active phase of the Russia–Ukraine war (i.e., fighting prior to a ceasefire) is nearly over and will end in the near term, consistent with a ceasefire being reached by roughly mid-April 2022.

“it means we are really, really close to this being done.” View on YouTube

Following the Western sanctions response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan is no longer a realistic option for China for the foreseeable future (effectively “off the table”).

“What's happening to Russia as a completely export? Do you think it is? It's completely off the table, completely off the table.” View on YouTube

From mid-March 2022, broad equity markets will rise (a 'melt up') over approximately the next 1.5–2 months, assuming no major escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war (e.g., nuclear/chemical weapons or similar shock).

“well, I think that we're in the midst of what I would call a melt up. So, you know, probably the next month, month and a half, there really isn't much quote unquote, bad news that hasn't been priced in... in the absence of these things, you basically have really constructive dynamics right now for at least the next month and a half, maybe even two months.” View on YouTube

In the second half of 2022, US inflation will begin to be brought under control, and the US economy will remain strong enough to sustain Fed funds rates around 2–2.5% while still delivering solid GDP growth.

“what people realized was, okay, you know, inflation may actually start to get tamed in the back half of the year. The economy is still quite strong, and we could actually support two, 2.5% interest rates and still actually grow really well.” View on YouTube

Assuming no major unexpected escalation in the Russia–Ukraine war (e.g., nuclear or similar), financial markets will have positive/constructive dynamics for at least 1.5–2 months after this conversation (through roughly May 2022).

“in the absence of these things, you basically have really constructive dynamics right now for at least the next month and a half, maybe even two months.” View on YouTube

From the time of this recording in March 2022, the near-term direction of the stock market over the following weeks will be upward.

“So where are we going from here? Probably up.” View on YouTube

In the years following the Russia-Ukraine war that began in 2022, US and allied foreign policy doctrines will be significantly revised to rely much more heavily on coordinated government sanctions and corporate/CSR-driven economic pressure as core tools, representing a fundamental change from prior playbooks.

“The foreign policy playbook is going to get fundamentally rewritten after this Russia Ukraine war, in large part because of the effectiveness of government sanctions plus corporate social responsibility...” View on YouTube

(Via approving citation of Tyler Cowen) Wokeism has already peaked by early 2022 and will evolve over the coming years into a narrower subculture that is highly educated, disproportionately white, and fairly female, no longer capable of "running" the country or all major institutions.

“And I think that that probably does summarize sort of like where it starts, which is, I think, rooted in a very good place, but unfortunately, all too often where it ends, which is that sort of moral absolutist judgment, cancel culture around it.” View on YouTube

Following the rapid 2021–early-2022 crash in high-growth tech stocks, there will be a correspondingly fast reset (downward repricing) of late-stage private tech company valuations, occurring over the next several quarters rather than over many years.

“So now that we have that reset, it's pretty natural that there's going to be a very quick reset on the private market side.” View on YouTube

Within 1–2 years of early 2022, many highly valued late-stage private tech companies will be forced either to go public or raise capital at significantly lower valuations; if they IPO in that window, their market caps will be substantially below their last private valuations ("taken to the woodshed").

“at some point in the next year or two, these other companies have to get public. The hope is that the market catches back up so that you can defend the last valuation. And that's the that's the way that this stuff doesn't require a lot of pain. The problem is, if you're high, burn and you were counting on yet another successive round, or you're at a point in your life cycle where you need to go public in the next two years, if you go public, you will get taken to the woodshed.” View on YouTube

Tiger Global’s strategy of doing passive Series A investments in early-stage startups will succeed in attracting many founders in the coming years, because a significant number of entrepreneurs will prefer passive capital that is unlikely to challenge or remove them, even if this is not optimal for company quality.

“I think it's going to work, but not for the right reasons. The reason it'll work is there are way more entrepreneurs now than there are great entrepreneurs. And so of all of these entrepreneurs that exist, the idea of getting passive money where you won't get fired... So the CEO now, why would you take a $15 million series A check from Sequoia where they could fire you, whereas $15 million from Tiger, they may never call you.” View on YouTube

China's progress in advanced AI capabilities will be significantly slowed for a substantial period (multiple years) if it continues to lack access to leading‑edge US semiconductor manufacturing technology and Nvidia's top-tier AI chips due to export controls.

“I think that the technology that they need is extremely non-trivial. And I do think that it actually slows them down quite a bit if they don't have access to it.” View on YouTube

The 2021 Gavin Newsom recall effort will materially affect the candidate fields in future California gubernatorial races: (1) it will influence which candidates choose to run in Newsom's regular re-election in 2023/2024, and (2) it will change which Democrats run for governor in the subsequent open-cycle four years later (around 2027/2028), compared with the candidate fields that would have emerged absent the recall.

“The implications of this recall, I think are really important. Um, and I think it plays out in who runs, uh, in two years when, um, Newsom is up for reelection. And absolutely, it'll change. Who runs on the Democratic side in four years?” View on YouTube

Following the 2021 Wall Street Journal revelations about Instagram's internal research on teen mental health, there will be multiple legal and regulatory actions against Facebook/Instagram: (1) U.S. state attorneys general will file lawsuits and support class actions alleging harms such as eating disorders, anxiety, or related mental health issues in minors caused or exacerbated by these apps; and (2) governments in other countries (e.g., in Europe or Asia) will initiate their own investigations or actions based on these issues, within a few years after 2021.

“are we really willing to bet that now there are not 50 individually ambitious, politically ambitious state AGS licking their chops, reading this stuff, wondering how many kids in their state may have suffered from an eating disorder or anxiety and blame it on one of these apps, of course. Are we are we convinced that not a single lawsuit will get filed? Are we convinced that there's not going to be any class action? And by the way, that's just the United States. What is somebody that's sitting around a, you know, around a table of politicians desks in, you know, Germany, Belgium, uh, France, Thailand, uh, they're going to find their issue in this treasure trove of content that's being, you know, continuously drip fed out to the public.” View on YouTube

Within the next several years after 2021, it is plausible that the U.S. FDA (or a comparable federal health regulator) will assert regulatory authority over social media platforms like Instagram on the basis of mental health and eating-disorder impacts on users, in a manner analogous to how it has acted against products like Juul; i.e., social media products could be subjected to FDA-style public-health regulation.

“what's crazy here is, you know, the FDA could actually act like if the FDA is willing to act on Juul. What is the difference if the FDA says they feel like, let's just assume that somebody in the FDA says, we feel like we should have a responsibility to think about mental health and eating disorders.” View on YouTube

For people of their generation (middle-aged adults in 2021), typical lifespans will extend such that it is very likely they will live into their 100s (age 100+).

“here's the thing we are living longer and longer than ever. It is very likely that we're all going to live to our hundreds.” View on YouTube

Large sums of money will be spent influencing both political parties to shape AI regulation in ways that favor regulatory capture by incumbent AI labs.

“there's going to be a torrent of money that's going to try to influence both sides of the political aisle to regulate this in a way that creates some form of regulatory capture” View on YouTube

The eBay and PayPal buyouts mark the start of a broader wave of 'mega deal' acquisitions of mature, founder-less digital/software businesses, which acquirers will revitalize and modernize with AI.

“I will make a prediction. I think that eBay and PayPal are probably the beginning of a wave of mega deals ... I think that there's probably a big wave of this to come.” View on YouTube

Within roughly 6–12 months after the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires (by early 2026), market forces will largely normalize the pricing and availability of rebuilding-related goods and services in the affected areas, reducing the need for emergency price and solicitation controls.

“I suspect that in six months and nine months and 12 months, the free market will sort all of these things out.” View on YouTube

TikTok will ultimately be forced to divest to a new (likely American) owner, and that sale will probably occur during a Trump presidency, at a price well below fair market value (a distressed, "buy it now" type price favoring the buyer).

“And I think that we'll probably find one. And I think that it probably happens under the Trump presidency. And whoever gets their hands on it gets their hands on an incredible asset that they will be able to buy extremely cheaply, because there is no way that there is a fair market value here.” View on YouTube

The trend of newly graduated MBAs raising search-fund-style capital to buy and run traditional businesses will effectively cease; such MBA-led acquisition funds will largely stop being funded going forward.

“Yeah, that's not happening anymore.” View on YouTube

Corporate demand for MBAs, particularly into middle-management roles, will continue to decline over time, with the trend of not hiring MBAs growing stronger in coming years.

“That's why you're not hiring MBAs. And I think that this trend is only going to grow.” View on YouTube

The proposed Adobe acquisition of Figma announced in September 2022 will ultimately receive regulatory approval and successfully close.

“If you ask me if I was a betting man, I think this thing is going to close.” View on YouTube

The U.S. Federal Reserve will raise short‑term interest rates to roughly 4.5–5.0% and keep them elevated longer than market participants expect, causing a noticeable slowdown or recessionary impact in 2023, but by 2024–2025 the economic impact from these high rates will be significantly reduced and no longer “that great.”

“I think that rates are going to go somewhere between four and a half to 5%. I think Stan Druckenmiller is right... So rates are going to go higher than people expect. It'll stay around longer than people want. This will have an impact to the economy. Uh, that that impact in 2024 2025 will not be that great.” View on YouTube

The Russia–Ukraine war, as of September 2022, will continue for a long duration (at least many more months, and likely years), rather than ending quickly through collapse of Russian forces or a near‑term negotiated settlement.

“So until you see that happening, those guys have a long way to go. And I think that this thing is going to drag on for a really long time.” View on YouTube

Financial markets will remain highly volatile and “choppy” for a prolonged period following September 2022, lasting significantly longer than most investors are then expecting (on the order of at least another year).

“So this is going to go on for as long. Uh, for much longer than people think. So, uh, I would just prepare for this inevitable outcome and just kind of, you know, manage.” View on YouTube

The All-In podcast group (Chamath and co-hosts) will host a poker event in Las Vegas during the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix in late November 2025, launching their own poker tournaments.

“We will do a better version. By the way, of the WSOP to announce this. We will be doing an event during the F1 in Las Vegas where we will be launching our poker tournaments... Let us know late November, guys. Book it.” View on YouTube

Over the next 10 to 20 years, there will be a renaissance in custom silicon design, with small teams building custom AI chips able to make fortunes, similar to the early PC hardware wars (Dell vs. Compaq).

“If you look at the trail of breadcrumbs, my belief there's going to be a renaissance in silicon. Young small teams building decode silicon can make a fortune over the next 10 to 20 years.” View on YouTube

California's billionaire asset-seizure tax (BTA) will make the ballot, since sponsor SEIU has the money to gather signatures, and it will likely pass once it does.

“I've never understood why this wouldn't get on the ballot. And I've never understood why once it's on the ballot, it wouldn't pass.” View on YouTube

If California's asset-seizure tax measure makes the ballot around April, there will be a significant rush of wealthy residents, founders, and business leaders leaving the state.

“once it makes the ballot in, let's say, April, I think there's going to be a big freak out and rush for the exits because there's a lot of people...” View on YouTube

If $2,000 is invested at birth into a low-cost S&P 500 index fund and compounds at an annualized 8% nominal return, its value at age 65 will be approximately $297,000.

“Just so you know, the $2,000, by the time you're 65 at at 8%, which is, you know, if you just buy the S&P ETF would be about 300,000 297,000.” View on YouTube

Beginning in late 2021, the US will enter a sustained period (multiple years, not just a few quarters) of elevated inflation driven by persistent labor shortages and rising raw material costs, rather than a short-term post‑Covid blip.

“I put these two things together and I'm like, I think this stuff is here to stay... and now I'm kind of positioning myself to, uh, hedge myself in this situation.” View on YouTube

Inflation in supply-driven economies outside the US will transmit into the US, driving a noticeable increase in US consumer prices over the following 12–18 months (through roughly mid‑2023).

“if you're seeing inflation in those other, you know, supply driven economies, they are going to come on shore. They're going to hit us in the face I think prices are going up.” View on YouTube

From late 2021 through at least the next 2–3 years, the US will experience worsening labor shortages, rising wages, and continued increases in consumer prices, input costs, and energy prices, rather than a reversion to pre‑Covid conditions.

“I just think inflation is here. I think the labor shortage is going to get worse, not better. I think we're going to have to pay people more to get out of it. I think prices are going up. Input costs are going up. Energy costs are going up. Um, so this is it.” View on YouTube

By roughly Q4 2022, both the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank will have begun raising policy interest rates and will be in a significantly tighter monetary policy posture than in October 2021.

“I think I think that probably the fed and the ECB are really raising this time next year. They're probably in a really, really tighter posture.” View on YouTube

As interest rates rise over the next ~12–24 months from October 2021, high‑growth, no‑cash‑flow tech stocks will experience a major drawdown, with valuations falling substantially (“in the toilet”) relative to their 2021 highs.

“Tech stocks in the fucking toilet.” View on YouTube

During the coming rising‑rate cycle (beginning by around late 2022), growth stocks with little or no current cash flow will materially underperform dividend‑paying and yield‑oriented equities.

“No no no bueno for no cash flow growth stocks. Yeah. In rising rates.” View on YouTube

Within roughly the next 1–2 years (by 2023), the US macro environment will evolve into a late‑1970s‑style regime of high inflation and weak real growth, in which owning risk assets (especially high‑beta ones) will be a poor strategy compared to being “risk off.”

“I think it's coming. Um, I don't think it's a short term blip. And I think that we are in a period that will resemble the late 70s. Um, and I think that, you know, you kind of want to be risk off and not own risk assets.” View on YouTube

There will be a significant downturn or correction in risk assets and a clear manifestation of the inflation/stagflation problem within roughly 8–18 months of October 2021 (i.e., by mid‑ to late‑2023), after a window in which investors can still reposition portfolios.

“I mean, look, I think you got a year to 18 months to kind of clean this stuff up... But it's coming. Um, and I hope I'm wrong, but I think we'll look back on this and we'll say we said it probably 8 to 12 months before it really reared its ugly head. But it's coming.” View on YouTube

Over roughly the next 1–3 years from October 2021, US labor markets will tighten: employment rates will rise (unemployment will fall), wages and salaries will increase, and inflation will continue to move higher, all occurring simultaneously.

“I do think that over the next year or 2 or 3, you're going to see, you know, labor rates go back up and employment rates go back down and salaries go back up and inflation go back up. All of these things are going to happen together.” View on YouTube

Over time (over the coming generations as large digital footprints accumulate), cancel culture will fade and effectively disappear due to mutually assured destruction from everyone having embarrassing or problematic historical digital content.

“And so you'll have a choice, which is if you're going to hold me accountable, I'm going to hold you accountable. And so it's mutually assured destruction. And I think that's what causes cancel culture to go away in time.” View on YouTube

Netflix, which had roughly 200 million subscribers at the time of this discussion (October 2021), will grow to approximately 1 billion subscribers within the next 7–8 years (by around 2028–2029), continuing to get larger as the world’s largest media company.

“they're already the largest media company in the world, and they're only going to get bigger. You know, Netflix has, what, 200 million subscribers? They're going to get to a billion subscribers. It's just inevitable. And so for them, I do think it's a very rational business position to take, which is that I have to appeal to a billion people over the next, you know, 7 or 8 years.” View on YouTube

Chamath is implicitly asserting that there is a substantial probability (later quantified by Jason as 60%) that Kyrie Irving will choose to retire from the NBA rather than get vaccinated under the then-current COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

“What do you think the odds are? Kyrie retires?” View on YouTube

At some point during Chamath Palihapitiya’s remaining lifetime, Bitcoin will become an independent asset and a non‑speculative store of value (i.e., it will trade more like a monetary reserve asset than a high‑beta risk asset).

“There will be a point and it's probably in our lifetime, where it is an independent asset and a non speculative store of value. There will be that day, but that day is not now.” View on YouTube

If, by some point in 2025, it appears that President Trump’s policies cannot correct U.S. inflation or deficit problems, then public markets will switch to a “massively risk‑off” posture (significant decline in risk assets such as equities and crypto).

“I think that as long as we see the kind of prognostications that the Trump administration is putting out, I think people are going to be mostly bullish. I think the way that this trade turns around is when something actually breaks in terms of the inflation picture or in terms of the deficit picture. And if those things look like going into 2025, that President Trump's actions are not going to be able to course correct it, then I think you're going to see people go massively risk off, which I think will not be great for markets, obviously.” View on YouTube

If the U.S. runs budget deficits of roughly 8% of GDP for 4–6 consecutive years starting around 2024, then the 10‑year U.S. Treasury yield will rise to approximately 7–8% during that period.

“If you're if you're going to run 8% of GDP level deficits for the next four or 5 or 6 years, you're going to have the ten year at 7 to 8%. That's just mathematical, right?” View on YouTube

In the first half of 2025, U.S. tech-related M&A activity will remain relatively subdued (no large wave of “crazy” mega‑deals), and only a small number of large, well‑known private tech companies (e.g., the commonly cited Stripe/Databricks‑scale names) will complete IPOs.

“I think it's going to still be pretty subdued. I don't... I don't think that you're going to see these crazy M&A deals that I think everybody is expecting. I also don't anticipate a lot of these big companies going public, at least in the first half of the year.” View on YouTube

The Trump administration, guided in part by Vivek Ramaswamy’s plan, will attempt to substantially dismantle major parts of the existing federal government apparatus, with a self-imposed target to accomplish this by the year 2026 (the U.S. 250th anniversary), including implementing “radical transparency” and legal/caselaw-driven rollbacks of agencies or bureaucratic structures by that date.

“Vivek put out a very compelling post on X where he basically said, like, look, when you on the one hand, there's going to be radical transparency, but on the other hand, there's a lot of case law that we can use to kind of try to really dismantle the government apparatus, and they're putting themselves on a shot clock to do it by 2026 for the 250th anniversary.” View on YouTube

Harvard president Claudine Gay will not remain in her role longer than a few years: she will either be removed or resign within about 1 year of this Dec 16, 2023 episode, or else will step down within 2–3 years (by late 2026) under the framing of retiring to "spend more time with her family."

“So I suspect that that's what happens. She probably won't be in that job in a year from now. Or, you know, she kind of muddles along. And in 2 or 3 years, she retires to spend more time with her family.” View on YouTube

Uber’s stock price, at roughly $70 at the time of this Dec 16, 2023 recording, will rise to at least $76 in the foreseeable future (implicitly within the next market cycle, i.e., within 1–2 years).

“So Uber's at 70. ... We're going to 76 puts me in I don't care mode That's for sure.” View on YouTube

The US economy will experience one or two quarters of real GDP contraction starting in late 2022 and/or early 2023, meeting or approaching the technical definition of a recession in that period.

“I think that that we're probably going to have a quarter or two contraction. It's probably going to happen at sort of at the late end of this year, beginning of next year.” View on YouTube

By the time the then-current Federal Reserve rate-hiking cycle progresses (i.e., likely by end of 2022 or early 2023), the federal funds rate will reach approximately 3.0–3.5%.

“you know you could see rates at three 3.5%. And that's going to impact a lot of stuff.” View on YouTube

European economies will enter a significant recession, more severe than that experienced by the US, with this downturn materializing ahead of or around the same time as the US slowdown in late 2022–2023.

“Europe is going to be the canary in the coal mine on all of this, because I think they feel this pretty severely. And I think there's a lot of exhaustion amongst European governments and leaders... they're going to see a pretty meaningful recession, I think. Much more, much more so than we will.” View on YouTube

The US economy will experience one or two quarters of real GDP contraction starting in late 2022 and/or early 2023, meeting or approaching the technical definition of a recession in that period.

“I think that that we're probably going to have a quarter or two contraction. It's probably going to happen at sort of at the late end of this year, beginning of next year.” View on YouTube

By the time the then-current Federal Reserve rate-hiking cycle progresses (i.e., likely by end of 2022 or early 2023), the federal funds rate will reach approximately 3.0–3.5%.

“you know you could see rates at three 3.5%. And that's going to impact a lot of stuff.” View on YouTube

European economies will enter a significant recession, more severe than that experienced by the US, with this downturn materializing ahead of or around the same time as the US slowdown in late 2022–2023.

“Europe is going to be the canary in the coal mine on all of this, because I think they feel this pretty severely. And I think there's a lot of exhaustion amongst European governments and leaders... they're going to see a pretty meaningful recession, I think. Much more, much more so than we will.” View on YouTube

If implemented as described, a future Trump administration tax plan will set the federal income tax rate to 0% for U.S. taxpayers earning $150,000 per year or less.

“you heard this by the way, yesterday from Howard Lutnick. I don't know if you guys saw this, but he said the Trump tax plan is going to cut federal income taxes to zero for anybody making 150 K or less.” View on YouTube

Following the ongoing decline in equity markets, the U.S. housing market will experience a major downward correction, eliminating trillions of dollars of housing wealth in the next phase of the cycle.

“I think there's one big shoe left to drop. I think we've started the process of really, really taking a bunch of heat out of the asset markets like equities. So we've taken trillions and trillions of dollars of wealth away. I think we're going to take trillions more. But the next big market and this is actually where Andrew, to your point, we re-establish some hope, I think for a lot of people is we are going to whack the housing market. It's just going to happen.” View on YouTube

As part of the anticipated housing correction, average U.S. home prices will decline on the order of 30–40% from their pre‑correction peak levels, making home ownership more affordable for tens of millions of people.

“And I do think that that's a really big step in allowing them to feel like they're part of the dream. So you lower asset prices. You can own some stocks. Maybe you own a 401 K, or if you've never had A41K, but your employer offers it for the first time, it may actually make financial sense to put a small amount of it in there. You've never been able to own a home. All of a sudden home prices are whack 30 or 40%.” View on YouTube

Nancy Pelosi will lose her position of power after the 2022 elections (implicitly, Democrats will lose the House majority in November 2022 and she will cease to be Speaker), so President Biden can politically afford to oppose her on issues like an insider trading ban.

“Look, she's going to lose anyway. So he might as well just throw under the bus.” View on YouTube

The United States will implement new, material import tariffs (beyond the status quo as of early 2025) as part of the upcoming federal budget and economic policy process, rather than merely talking about them.

“Well I think the tariffs will be a plug. Are they coming. Absolutely.” View on YouTube

By roughly 6–9 months after February 2025 (i.e., by November 2025), prevailing U.S. interest rates (Fed funds rate or equivalent benchmark) could be around 5.0–5.5%, remaining at or returning to that range despite prior expectations of rate cuts.

“in totality, we have $10 trillion we need to finance in the next 6 to 9 months. So it could be the case that we have rates that are like five, five and a quarter, 5.5%.” View on YouTube

New York City mayor Eric Adams will lift the city’s COVID-19 vaccine restrictions (such as proof-of-vaccination requirements) that apply to activities like attending or playing in NBA games, in the near future (within the NBA 2021–2022 season).

“Eric Adams is going to lift the vaccine restrictions.” View on YouTube

The elevated inflation being observed in late 2021 in the United States (e.g., CPI running above historical norms) will persist and mark the beginning of a longer-lasting inflationary cycle, rather than being a brief, transitory spike.

“I think it's persistent and persistent. I think it's persistent ... this is the beginning of a persistent cycle.” View on YouTube

Chamath predicts that Xi Jinping will remain the top political leader of China (de facto ruler) for the rest of his life, without a peaceful transfer of power to another leader while he is alive.

“it now looks like we'll be living with XI Jinping until, um, until, you know, he he joins the afterworld. So, uh, he's ruler for life of China.” View on YouTube

Due to rising prices of key battery inputs (lithium, nickel, cobalt), Tesla will raise the selling price of its cars by roughly 20–30% in the near term, and this increase will be largely unavoidable for the company.

“the cost of Tesla's are going to go up by 20 or 30%. And there's nothing that there's nothing that Tesla could do.” View on YouTube

The rise of non‑dilutive financing products like Pipe and Clearbanc will materially change how venture capital investing is conducted as an industry over the coming years.

“I just think it's, uh, it's it's going to change the, the way in which venture investing is done.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, the growth of non‑dilutive financing will significantly change venture deal pricing (pre‑ and post‑money valuations), increase the equity share that employees can hold, and reduce the signaling value of traditional brand‑name venture firms like Sequoia relative to individual investors/operators.

“these non-dilutive ways of growing a company will completely impact pricing. You know, Pre-money Post-money the amount of equity that employees can and should own in these businesses, you know, what is the value of brands like you know it like people will know who David Sacks is and who Harry Hirst is. People necessarily don't even care anymore. Like, you know, hey, if I'm calling from Sequoia, what does that mean anymore?” View on YouTube

DEI-based hiring and promotion practices will eventually be rolled back ('cleansed') in Hollywood and in symphony orchestras, after a prior rollback occurs first in high-stakes professions (e.g., pilots, certain doctors/surgeons) where only skill-based criteria are accepted.

“What's much easier if you want to dismantle die, which will eventually come and cleanse Hollywood? And the symphony is if you go to the jobs where it's irrefutable... and then eventually it'll come back in Hollywood and the symphony will also get cleansed.” View on YouTube

If there is any aviation incident or serious near-incident involving commercial pilots after the adoption of DEI-oriented hiring standards, there will be lawsuits that specifically focus on whether DEI-based selection overrode pure skill ranking, demanding disclosure of pilot training records and comparative candidate performance, leading to significant legal and public controversy.

“heaven forbid, if there is an incident or a near incident, you're going to see lawsuits that are going to focus on this issue. Show me the training records of the pilots and show me, show me how they fared relative to alternative folks that you either did hire or didn't hire. And you know, why was this selection? It's going to be a mess.” View on YouTube

From 2021 onwards, overall market volatility will trend higher rather than lower compared to the period leading up to early 2021.

“because there's going to be more market volatility, not less.” View on YouTube

Within the next five years (from December 2025), the New York Times will be sued over a false statement or libel and reach a settlement larger than Fox News's roughly $787 million defamation settlement.

“I think they will in the next five years do something so egregious and over the line akin to some sort of liel or some sort of statement that has turned out to be completely false, they will get sued... the next one, Jason, the next one will go up.” View on YouTube

Following the Mar-a-Lago search, at least 10–15% of the U.S. population will come to believe that any incriminating documents found were planted by authorities; regardless of the legal outcome of the investigation, public reaction will be broadly negative, with neither side satisfied, and the political extremes on both left and right will become more angry and polarized.

“now you're going to have at least a, you know, 10 or 15% of the population that believes, okay, this was planted, it wasn't actually there. And, you know, so whatever the outcome is, um, will not be good. Nobody will be satisfied. And both, both of the extremes in the United States will be even more angry.” View on YouTube

The most likely outcome of the Mar-a-Lago investigation is a "middle path" in which no significant legal consequences ultimately befall Trump from this specific raid, but public trust in the U.S. Department of Justice is further eroded compared to pre-raid levels.

“no, I think there's very likely a middle path where nothing happens. But it will further erode what Freeburg says, which is it's just a little bit less trust in the DOJ.” View on YouTube

If U.S. regulators (SEC and DOJ) seriously pursue the FTT/FTX case, they will subsequently open investigations into other crypto tokens and token sales, including those involving prominent Silicon Valley venture firms, over the following few years.

“if the SEC is really and the DOJ is really going to take this FTT token issue seriously, and what happened to FTX, they're going to start to look at a bunch of other tokens and token sales, and you're going to end up looking at some very well-known venture firms inside of Silicon Valley.” View on YouTube

Because of the FTX scandal, U.S. policy momentum toward broadening ordinary investors’ access to private/crypto markets via new accreditation paths will be delayed by roughly a decade or longer.

“The problem is, when you have guys like this, it sets that desire back by a decade, if not more.” View on YouTube

In response to the FTX collapse, top-level U.S. policymakers and regulators will move quickly (within months) to impose or push for much stricter oversight and enforcement actions in the crypto sector.

“this is going to go to the utmost level and it's going to have the most scrutiny, and they're going to act really quickly. It is going to.” View on YouTube

From late 2022, macro conditions (disinflation, policy gridlock, China reopening, progress in Ukraine, etc.) create upside for risk assets over the subsequent 6–9 months relative to what markets were then pricing in.

“these seven things are macro level things that affect everybody. And I think if you take them together, what it says is that, wow, there's there's the potential for a lot of great positive developments over the next 6 or 9 months. And I don't think that that was adequately priced in the market.” View on YouTube

Startup funding conditions will remain difficult enough that companies should assume they will need sufficient cash runway to survive without new financing until at least Q1 2025.

“I've been telling all of our startups that you need to plan to have money through the first quarter of 2025. You must.” View on YouTube

From November 2022, U.S. inflation will experience a renewed uptick within about six months, prompting the Federal Reserve to raise the federal funds rate to roughly 5.5% and then hold it near that level until around mid-2024.

“Sharpe's think that inflation will come back at some point in the next six months. That will keep the Fed's foot on the gas. Maybe it's 2 or 3 more 50 basis point hikes. The point is Jason, you could be at five and a half. Again we said this last week we're going to get to a point that's probably higher than what people expect. That's probably around five and a half. And we'll stay there longer than people want. That's probably through the middle part of 24.” View on YouTube

Public equity markets, particularly in tech/growth, are likely to begin a sustained rebound in the second half of 2024, with venture investors’ deployment sentiment improving only after roughly six months of demonstrably better macro and market data.

“I think the market can start to rebound in the second half of 24, but if you're a company, you need to balance and plan for the first quarter of 25 because, you know, again, most venture investors are going to want to see six months of data on the ground that things are better before their sentiment changes.” View on YouTube

Of the roughly $1 trillion invested in venture capital from 2018 through 2022, approximately $500 billion from those vintages—and around $600–700 billion including older vintages—will ultimately be lost (i.e., not returned to investors) as the cycle plays out.

“what it basically tells you is about $500 billion of that trillion from 1819, 20, 21 and 22 is going to be destroyed.... we're talking about a 600 or $700 billion destruction of paid in capital.” View on YouTube

Oil and other major energy commodity prices will remain elevated (above their pre‑pandemic levels) for a sustained period following early 2022, rather than quickly reverting back down.

“So we are going to have some sustained energy prices.” View on YouTube

US CPI year‑over‑year inflation will peak around early 2022 (roughly Q1 2022) and will not exceed that peak level in subsequent months of 2022.

“a lot of economists now forecast basically this inflation peaking or already having peaked over the last few weeks.” View on YouTube

The then‑current rally in energy stocks in early 2022 will be a short‑term trade and will not turn into a strong multi‑year investment trend; energy equities will not significantly outperform over a 5–10 year horizon based on that spike.

“I'm not a big buyer of this trade, to be honest with you. I think that it works in the short term. I don't think it's an investment.” View on YouTube

The post‑earnings "big tech spread trade"—being long certain big‑tech names and short others that are funding shorts (e.g., Facebook/Meta)—will evolve into a multi‑year (roughly 3–5+ years) investable trend in which the favored big‑tech names sustainably outperform the disfavored ones.

“I think that there is the potential a small potential that that's going from a trade to an investment, actually a sustainable trend that you can bank on for several years.” View on YouTube

Over the coming several years after early 2022 (roughly a 5–10 year horizon), Microsoft and Google (Alphabet) will materially outperform the other large‑cap tech names discussed (Amazon, Meta/Facebook, Netflix, and Apple) in terms of stock performance and/or business strength.

“I think that Microsoft and Google are far and away the winners, far and away the winners.” View on YouTube

Due to mounting competitive and regulatory pressures around app stores, Apple’s business and stock will underperform relative to Microsoft and Google over the next several years (multi‑year horizon following early 2022), making Apple suitable to be in a short basket versus those peers.

“Jason, back to why I think you can keep Apple in that basket of shorts. The competitive pressures are mounting...very difficult for companies like Apple to copy.” View on YouTube

By the time of the November 2024 U.S. presidential election, the U.S. economy will not be in a recession and will instead be in a "reasonable" (i.e., non-recessionary, soft-landing-type) condition.

“Now, if we were going to go into a November election where we were going to be in a recession, that's very bad for Biden. But sort of the tea leaves, for whatever it's worth, all the predictions, all the predictive markets show that we're going to be in a reasonable place.”

U.S. inflation will continue to decline over the subsequent 6–12 months after November 2023, moving the economy into a materially better ("pretty decent") inflation environment than at the time of this recording.

“We know that inflation is falling. It's going to fall even more. The second thing, Nick, the third chart here is you can see that now validated in these ten year breakevens... what it shows is the ten year break evens are also telling us, okay guys, we're going to be in a pretty decent place.”

As interest rates start to be cut in 2024, U.S. equity markets will perform well, with a broad positive move in equities driven by rate cuts and large cash balances moving out of money market funds.

“So that's a really positive sign, which is that money will need to find a home once rates drop... And then, as you said Friedberg, the last part of this is now you introduce rate cuts, and that's a real accelerant. Now, more than likely, I think what that means is that markets are set up to to do pretty well equity markets specifically.”

By mid-2024, the Federal Reserve will have begun cutting interest rates, U.S. inflation will largely be past its peak and no longer a major problem, and the U.S. economy will achieve a soft landing (i.e., avoid a recession while growth slows).

“I think what it's kind of saying is inflation is very much in the rear view mirror. Rates are going to get cut by the middle part of the year. The economy looks like it's going to be a soft landing.”

Over the coming years, advances in AI tooling will enable a very large number (on the order of millions or more) of one- to two-person teams to create and operate companies, leading to a startup landscape dominated by many very small firms rather than a smaller number of large, labor‑intensive startups.

“If you think about a world where there's a million little companies or 50 million companies or 500 million companies that exist because they're one and two person teams that can build stuff that seems pretty reasonable and logical as the outcome.”

Over the medium to long term, the traditional venture capital role and firm structure will be largely replaced by more automated, algorithmic systems that allocate many small investments (e.g., $100k–$500k) against specified objectives, with only later‑stage large checks remaining as a more conventional process.

“I think there's a reasonable case to make that it doesn't exist. It's more of an automated system of capital against objectives.”

The AI application ecosystem will ultimately resemble the open web rather than a tightly controlled app‑store model, with open and widely accessible models and tools prevailing over a single proprietary platform.

“I think the reality is it's going to end up as the open web.”

Elon Musk will open‑source the Grok AI model, making it freely accessible for broad developer use.

“whether it's Llama or Mistral or even grok, when Elon open sources it, it's going to allow people to have access to these tools, basically for free.”

As AI models and tooling become pervasive, the tech and startup economy will shift toward many more small companies and materially fewer extremely large, dominant companies (“ginormous outcomes”) than in the previous tech cycle.

“So I think what that means economically is there's just going to be a lot more small companies and a lot fewer of these ginormous outcomes.”

By Monday or Tuesday following this March 11, 2023 recording (i.e., March 13–14, 2023), most affected portfolio companies and employees will be on the other side of the immediate SVB crisis with relatively limited damage.

“hopefully everybody ends up on the other side of this by Monday or Tuesday with not a lot of damage.” View on YouTube

In the immediate aftermath of SVB’s failure (around March 10–11, 2023), distressed-debt buyers will be offering SVB depositors approximately 60 cents on the dollar for their uninsured claims.

“a company that had $100 million inside of SVB was offered $0.60 on the dollar today for that claim.” View on YouTube

Between roughly 2020 and 2035–2040, Russia will decline in global importance to the point that it will not "fundamentally matter" in world affairs compared to other major powers.

“every single minute we spend on Russia is just a wasted time. This is a, you know, country that just won't fundamentally matter in the world over the next 15 to 20 years.” View on YouTube

The emerging long‑term conflict between the United States and China ("Cold War II") will primarily take the form of cyber/information operations and economic/financial competition, rather than large-scale conventional ground warfare.

“this war will not be fought on the ground with guns. It'll be fought with computers and it'll be fought with money.” View on YouTube

TikTok will get banned or forced to shut down in the US unless ByteDance sells 20-30% of the company into American hands, resulting in massive destruction of its enterprise value.

“there's a very good chance that they will get shut down in the u.s. ... unless basically have bike dance cell under 20 or 30% of the company” View on YouTube

As the US restricts China's access to advanced chip technology (starting with the Huawei 5G ban), China's most likely path to securing that technology is to invade Taiwan and take control of TSMC.

“the most obvious answer is to invade Taiwan and take over tsmc” View on YouTube

If the United States continues to support and subsidize its own energy independence, Russia and the Middle East will be forced to rapidly monetize their oil, leading to a substantial loss of geopolitical relevance for both. The Middle East will likely fragment into roughly 30 countries, and Russia will become significantly less important internationally due to the erosion of its primary revenue source from oil.

“then what happens is it hastens and accelerates Russia and the Middle East, uh, not becoming relevant anymore because they are forced to monetize their oil sooner. The Middle East probably disintegrates into 30 countries... And Russia becomes less important because they just have to monetize. Otherwise they will lose their only source of revenue.” View on YouTube

Based on a 2020 Georgia primary exit-poll shift showing far more Democratic than Republican turnout, Georgia becoming competitive signals Biden will also win Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Florida; Trump's only path to victory is a massive pre-election stimulus check to voters in swing states.

“if you think that there is an even remote chance that Donald Trump loses Georgia don't even worry about Minnesota and Pennsylvania and Florida because he would have already lost those” View on YouTube

Following these Los Angeles-area wildfires, the State of California will seek a federal government financial bailout or substantial federal assistance to cover wildfire-related insurance and recovery liabilities.

“the liabilities of the insurance claims are going to be so massive that the state's going to look to the federal government to bail them out.” View on YouTube

Waymo and Tesla will emerge as the dominant leaders in the autonomous driving/robotaxi market, which will in turn force significant consolidation among traditional auto manufacturers (OEMs) as they struggle to compete.

“I think that Waymo and Tesla are going to gonna run away with this market, and I think it's going to force a bunch of consolidation in the traditional auto OEMs.” View on YouTube

As Arctic ice continues to melt due to climate change, a commercially viable Northern Passage shipping lane will open for critical goods, and control over Greenland and related agreements with Canada would give the United States near-monopoly strategic control over a route that will become comparable in importance to the Panama Canal.

“Because of climate change and other things, the Arctic ice shelf is melting. And the more and more it melts, it opens up a shipping lane in the northern passage for a lot of critical goods. And so if you had some sort of strategic agreement with Canada and Greenland, you effectively have this monopoly control over something that could become as important as the Panama Canal.” View on YouTube

Over the next few years (roughly the mid‑2020s), advances in specialized silicon and reductions in energy cost will reduce the per-inference cost of large AI models (like ChatGPT-style systems) by about an order of magnitude, so that producing the same output will cost approximately one-tenth of what it did in early 2023.

“The ability to run this at scale is going to happen because we're getting better and better at creating silicon that specializes in doing things in a massively parallelized way. And the cost of energy at the same time is getting cheaper and cheaper along with it. When you multiply these two things together, the effect of it is that you'll be able to run these models. The same output today will cost one one tenth as long as you ride the energy and compute curve for the next few years. So that's just going to naturally happen.” View on YouTube

As large language model–based AI becomes widely deployed in search and adjacent areas, it will exert broad deflationary pressure, driving down aggregate industry revenues and profit pools, including Google’s, unless incumbents proactively cannibalize their own existing business models with AI offerings.

“technology is fundamentally deflationary. Here's the next great example where the minute you make something incredible, costs go down, but also, frankly, revenue and profit dollars go down in the aggregate... which is why I think it's important for Google to take. Google should go and they should cannibalize their own business before it is cannibalized for them.” View on YouTube

If Microsoft gains roughly 5–6 percentage points of search market share from Google via AI search competition, U.S. FTC antitrust actions aimed at breaking up or heavily regulating Google or other big tech firms will effectively die or lose credibility (i.e., no major adverse antitrust remedy will be imposed on them in that environment).

“this is the best thing that could happen for all of the monopolists in technology because Microsoft. Taking 5 or 600 basis points of share is the best way to ensure that the FTC has zero credibility in going after Google or anybody else in tech. Right. Those those all of those things I think are DOA.” View on YouTube

Grid‑scale, highly scalable energy storage sufficient to enable abundant near‑zero‑marginal‑cost renewable energy will be developed and deployed well before alternative fusion technologies (other than solar fusion via photovoltaics) become commercially viable at scale.

“And once we figure that out, which is actually the real technical bottleneck to abundant zero cost energy, we'll have your boundary condition met and we'll have it well before different forms of fusion are commercializable.” View on YouTube

Around 5–6 years after late 2021 (i.e., by approximately 2026–2027), the increased housing leverage enabled by higher conforming mortgage limits and extracted home equity could lead to a severe economic or financial crisis reminiscent of 1929 in the United States.

“and then, you know, to your point, Friedberg they spend it or they invest it or they, you know, it could be a real disaster scenario, um, in 5 or 6 years... No, no, this is more like 1929. Kind of.” View on YouTube

A widely available COVID-19 vaccine will not arrive for approximately 18–24 months from April 2020 (i.e., not before roughly October 2021 at the earliest), and until then (through about spring 2022) the US economy and society will not return to 100% of pre-COVID activity levels and will face sustained difficulty.

“in the absence of a vaccine, which, um, looks like at best 18 to 24 months from now, we will never get to 100% of where we were before, or at least the potential to be at 100%. Um, and so I just think that over the next two years, we're in for a tremendous amount of difficulty.” View on YouTube

From roughly April 2020 through April 2022, the US will experience significant, persistent economic and social disruption related to COVID-19, rather than a quick return to normalcy.

“over the next two years, we're in for a tremendous amount of difficulty.” View on YouTube

California will not lift its COVID-19 lockdown until June 1, 2020 at the earliest, with the actual reopening more likely landing in mid-to-late May if the case curve is decaying by then.

“I don't think we're going to get out of lockdown until June 1st at the earliest” View on YouTube

If the US economy has a V-shaped recovery from the COVID-19 recession before the November 2020 election, Trump will win reelection in a landslide; if the recession is deep or prolonged instead, the race is a toss-up.

“if there is a v-shaped recovery of any kind Trump will win in a landslide” View on YouTube

Total combined U.S. fiscal and monetary COVID-19 support (broadly construed stimulus, backstops, lending facilities, etc.) will ultimately reach on the order of $20 trillion, approximately equal to one year of U.S. GDP, once the programs are fully rolled out.

“But, you know, what is putting $10 trillion or whatever the final number is, it'll probably be 20 trillion, you know, one one times US GDP.” View on YouTube

A U.S. policy mix of very large fiscal plus monetary stimulus in response to COVID-19, similar in scale/approach to China’s 2009–2010 response, will result in significant misallocation of capital (“fake growth”) and high inflation in subsequent years.

“No, I think the best better example is what happened in to China, which is a combination of fiscal and monetary stimulus in 2009 and ten. And the results are basically a lot of fake growth and massive inflation.” View on YouTube

The probability of a dark-horse presidential candidate emerging to replace Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket for the 2020 U.S. election is effectively zero.

“Zero.” View on YouTube

During the Ukraine–Russia war and the associated 2022–2023 European energy crisis, Germany will be the first major European country to effectively capitulate on its hardline position toward Russia, leading the way—together with the United States and other European countries—in negotiating a political settlement with Russia.

“Germany will probably be the first to capitulate, but it'll be a combination of the United States and Europe who negotiate some kind of a settlement.” View on YouTube

As previously stated in July 2022 and reiterated here, during fall and winter 2022–2023 the primary global economic shock point ("tip of the spear") will be a European energy crisis, and if winter 2022–2023 is not mild, global oil markets can rapidly swing from a surplus of about +1 million barrels per day to a deficit of about –2 million barrels per day, amplifying the crisis.

“You may you may want to find the clip, Nick from July, where I said the tip of the spear in the fall was going to be the European energy crisis... we better hope that it's a mild winter, because very quickly you can go from plus 1 million barrels to minus two in a in a heartbeat.” View on YouTube

As of September 2022, Europe is on the verge of at least a recession, with a meaningful possibility of an even worse economic downturn, to unfold over the subsequent year as the energy crisis and Ukraine war impacts play out.

“I just think, like, this is a really good point, to take a step back and realize that... the entire continent of Europe is probably on the precipice of and the minimum of recession. But frankly, there's a lot of scenarios where it could be meaningfully worse.” View on YouTube

Kim Kardashian’s new private equity firm will likely grow into a multibillion-dollar fund in assets under management over time.

“And the fact that she can stand up what will probably be like a multibillion dollar private equity fund.” View on YouTube

The current overprescription of ADHD-related and similar psychotropic drugs, especially to children and adolescents, is likely to result in a future widespread addiction or dependency crisis comparable to the opioid epidemic in scale and societal impact.

“And right now, I think a lot of people are worried that the overprescription of drugs in this kind of condition is going to create a next version of an opioid pandemic or epidemic.” View on YouTube

Following the June 2023 enforcement actions against Binance and Coinbase, the SEC will continue a systematic crackdown on the U.S. crypto sector: first targeting exchanges, then custodial services, then staking services, and ultimately venture firms involved in token-staking schemes, and during this crackdown period the SEC will refuse to approve any crypto ETFs.

“And so they're coming down hard, and they're going to go and systematically dismantle the largest actors, and they're going to go through the value chain. So I think the obvious place that they're looking now are the exchanges. They'll look at the custodial services. They will not approve any ETFs. And then eventually I do think it trickles into all of the staking services. And eventually I think it'll touch the venture community and all of those firms and funds that had a huge, robust business in staking these crypto projects in order to get coins like founding coins and then being able to sell them.” View on YouTube

In the then-current political environment (from mid‑2023 onward), no significant new federal legislation providing a clear regulatory framework for crypto (of the type Brian Armstrong is seeking) will be passed by the U.S. Congress in the near term.

“That said, I just don't think that there's a lot of political support to visit this issue right now. And so unfortunately, I'm pretty skeptical that you're going to see any form of legislation pass.” View on YouTube

From the mid‑2020s until roughly the 2050–2060 timeframe, China will be a poor destination for long‑term growth equity investment ("largely uninvestable"), producing materially worse risk‑adjusted returns than major alternative markets.

“And then when you put all these things together, now that China is contracting and we've said this before, I think China is largely uninvestable for the next 30 or 40 years.” View on YouTube

If separate direct-to-consumer subscriptions existed, a star like Steph Curry would be able to attract on the order of several million paying subscribers globally, whereas a team like the New York Knicks would attract only a few hundred thousand.

“I think. I think you could probably sell a few hundred thousand subscriptions to the Knicks, and I think you'd sell mid millions for Steph.” View on YouTube

Over the next 30–40 years, a majority of the job functions that currently exist in the United States will migrate to lower-cost locations that can leverage AI and related tooling, forcing the U.S. to substantially reinvent its workforce and job mix in order to remain economically relevant.

“I think the reality is that most of the existing jobs that we have in the United States are going to go to lower cost locations that have that tool chain to accelerate their capability. So we're going to have to reinvent the workforce and the things that we do over the next 30 or 40 years to stay relevant.” View on YouTube

Changing the U.S. Constitution to allow non–U.S.-born citizens to become president will not happen within the next few years, but there is a small probability that such a change could occur within roughly 25–30 years from 2023.

“We have to wait. It can't happen in the next few years. I think I do think there's a small probability it could happen in 25 to 30 years” View on YouTube

US GDP growth in 2026 will land between 5% and 6.2%.

“i think the lower bound is five ... the upper bound is 62” View on YouTube

The Monroe Doctrine as a governing foreign-policy framework will be 2026's biggest political loser, replaced by a new 'Trump doctrine' of hemispheric dominance and transactional, selectively interventionist foreign policy.

“the biggest loser of 26 is the monroe doctrine ... there is a clear trump doctrine that trumped the monroe doctrine” View on YouTube

In the near future following December 10, 2022, the United States federal government will formally attempt to revise or rewrite Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (e.g., through proposed legislation or regulatory action).

“We're about to rewrite the government. The United States government is going to make an attempt to rewrite section 230.” View on YouTube

On its current trajectory, China's population will decline to roughly 600 million people by the year 2100 (about half of its earlier peak population).

“The most sensitive country to this is China. I mean, their population get current course and speed. I think the last number is it's going to have by 2100, there'll be about 600 million people in China” View on YouTube

Between roughly 2022 and 2072, the Chinese state will become significantly more actively involved in supporting its aging population (for example via expanded social support and intervention in the economy) compared to its level of involvement as of 2022.

“So the state's going to have to get much, much more actively involved over the next 50 years in China.” View on YouTube

Nigeria and India are at the beginning of a multi-decade economic boom, spanning several decades after 2022, driven by large cohorts of people in their 20s entering the workforce and working for lower wages than older counterparts.

“you look at other countries like Nigeria or India who are in, uh, you know, at the beginning of what could be a multi-decade boom because you have 20 year olds that will be entering the workforce.” View on YouTube

Over the coming decades after 2022, Nigeria and India will experience rising GDP, rising standards of living, and rising expectations for government performance as a consequence of their favorable demographic trends.

“So it's going to have huge impacts because then you have rising GDP. You'll have rising expectations of living quality. You'll have rising expectations of how governments treat those people.” View on YouTube

Following public comments by Jerome Powell and Gary Gensler in early October 2021 that crypto would not be banned, the U.S. SEC will approve one or more crypto-based ETFs (such as Grayscale’s conversion and others) as simpler on-ramps for U.S. investors in the ensuing years.

“Look, we have two, almost $3 trillion of market cap in crypto. It's unrealistic for folks to expect people to be able to be living in discord channels and doing all of this work. I think what that means is that the SEC is going to be asked increasingly more often to approve simpler on ramps for this stuff. And now, in the last week, by the way, we had a pretty important two things happen. Both Jerome Powell and Gary Gensler basically said, crypto is here to stay and we're not going to ban this stuff. And so hopefully what it means is that you get some ETFs passed in the United States. You know, grayscale is one. There could be more. And I think that stuff makes it much easier for folks to own this stuff.” View on YouTube

The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies, which was around $2–3 trillion in October 2021, will grow over time to roughly $6 trillion and then to roughly $10 trillion.

“Look, we have two, almost $3 trillion of market cap in crypto... And so hopefully what it means is that you get some ETFs passed in the United States...” View on YouTube

Cryptocurrencies, having reached roughly $3 trillion in aggregate market value and significant institutional adoption by October 2021, will not be banned out of existence or disappear; the crypto asset class will persist as a lasting part of the global financial system.

“I think that, um, you can't wipe $3 trillion of value out of the world. And so... So it's here to stay. And it's too institutionalized now.” View on YouTube

Over the roughly 20–30 years following 2021, approximately one full year’s worth of current world GDP (on the order of tens of trillions of dollars, referenced as about $70 trillion held by U.S. boomers) will be transferred via inheritance and similar mechanisms to roughly 100 million people in the United States.

“You're going to take one entire turn of the world's GDP and give it to 100 million people in America over the next 20 to 30 years. That is what is actually going to happen.” View on YouTube

As of October 2021, Facebook (now Meta) has a 0% chance of successfully launching a really compelling crypto project in the future, i.e., it will not land a major, successful crypto initiative going forward.

“What do you think the chances are that Facebook now can land a really compelling crypto project? Right. In my opinion... It's zero.” View on YouTube

By approximately 2030, there will be on the order of 30 million electric vehicles in the United States.

“when you take the number of Cars that are going to be in the country. The electric EV's. And then you multiply them. You say there's going to be let's say I think the estimate is in 20, 30, 30 million electric vehicles, let's say.” View on YouTube

From April 2022 onward, the Federal Reserve will implement multiple 50-basis-point interest rate hikes, potentially including at least one 75-basis-point hike, and will increase the pace of quantitative tightening (to around $95B/month) until major US equity indices (e.g., S&P 500, Nasdaq) experience a substantial drawdown described as a market 'crack' or 'bloodletting' rather than continuing to hover near prior highs.

“you're going to probably see, you know, a lot of 50s, maybe even a 75 point hike. You probably are going to see them, you know, even ratchet up quantitative tightening until there is a bit of a bloodletting in the equity market. They need to see that the market's cracked.” View on YouTube

Starting from roughly April 2022, there will be an approximately 18‑month period during which startup founders, especially in Silicon Valley and tech, will generally be unable to raise new funding rounds on founder‑friendly terms and will instead have to accept market‑driven (investor‑friendly) terms.

“I think the worst means that there's an 18 month period where you cannot raise money on your terms. You have to raise money on the market terms.” View on YouTube

Roughly three years after Donald Trump’s January 2021 Twitter ban (around early 2024), Twitter will likely conclude it is acceptable to reinstate his account and allow him to tweet again.

“I think all roads will probably lead to a conclusion that after three years, it's probably okay to let this guy back and be able to tweet.” View on YouTube

CoreWeave’s long‑term outcome hinges on the actual economic useful life of its Nvidia GPUs: if the GPUs’ useful life is around 10 years as assumed in their debt models, CoreWeave will become a highly successful, "killer" business; if the useful life is closer to 5 years, the company will end up in serious financial trouble and be economically underwater. This will become evident over the coming GPU cycle (by roughly 2030).

“As long as that they have that calculated right in their models that they used to borrow all this money to buy all these GPUs from Nvidia. This is going to be a killer business. To the extent that they got that calculation wrong, meaning we thought the useful life was ten years, but it turned out to be five. This business is deeply underwater.” View on YouTube

Over the coming election cycles (late 2020s), Republican/MAGA strategists will increasingly orient policy toward working‑ and middle‑class voters who own few financial assets, leading to a sustained de‑emphasis on supporting the stock market and Wall Street, and a shift to policies explicitly framed as favoring "Main Street" even at the expense of equity prices.

“I really do think we're in a secular shift where I think the mega majority and the base of people that can be a reliable voting bloc in the future, as I've said before, are working in middle class folks that don't necessarily own a ton of stocks, nor do they own homes... when the core strategists inside of MAGA figure this out, one of the big takeaways is that they're not going to care about the stock market and Wall Street. And a lot of the policies will be viewed through the lens of Main Street” View on YouTube

Between early 2025 and roughly nine months thereafter, if the Trump administration deliberately allows or encourages a significant decline in US equity markets, this will (a) materially reduce consumption and inflation, and (b) trigger a flight to safety that lowers 10‑year US Treasury yields into roughly the 3.0–4.0% range, enabling the US to refinance about $10 trillion of debt at those lower rates instead of at 4.5–5.5%, saving on the order of trillions of dollars in interest over time.

“If we are incentivized, if the government of America is incentivized to implement policies that crack the equity markets. It's actually really good in some ways... If you rebase the equity values that people have, what you do is you actually depress the amount of free cash flow that they have to spend on other things. So it's a deflationary tactic... When you buy the bonds the interest rate goes down. Why is that good for America? We have $10 trillion. We need to go out and borrow in the next nine months. And so if we can pay 3%, 3.8%, 4%, we save us ourselves trillions of dollars versus if we had to pay four and a half, five, 5.5%.” View on YouTube

If the volatility of the 10-year Treasury yield continues to slow as it was in early Q1 2022, then a roughly 100 basis point increase in interest rates will flush most inflation through the system, leading to a brief market pullback in Q1 2022 followed by a rapid rebound in risk assets as sidelined capital re-enters markets.

“if that continues to hold that means that people are really saying there's a small amount of real inflation, a reasonable amount of transitory inflation. And we're about to kind of wash most of it through the system with a 100 basis points of rate hikes. And if that's the case, then you may see a quick pullback in Q1. And we're back to the races again because of all this other money. That's going to say I got to get back in.” View on YouTube

If Congress were to stop using omnibus/continuing resolutions and instead only pass the 12 regular annual appropriations bills through the normal process, total federal spending would fall to roughly 50–67% of its then-current level (i.e., a reduction of about one‑third to one‑half) over the ensuing budget cycles.

“If they if they just did that, we would probably spend a third to half of less than we do now.” View on YouTube

If an upcoming government shutdown successfully ends the use of omnibus continuing resolutions and forces a return to regular-order appropriations, the change will reduce federal spending by approximately $500 billion relative to the status quo trajectory over the relevant budget period.

“If it stops the CR process, it'll be effective to the tune of about $500 billion. It'll be half $1 trillion effective.” View on YouTube

Tesla will have a credible Level 4/5 autonomous driving solution (sufficient for fully autonomous operation without human supervision in most conditions) within 4–5 years from 2023, i.e., by roughly 2027–2028.

“Tesla is so close to it, so I do trust that they'll have a credible solution in the next 4 or 5 years.” View on YouTube

In the then-pending Supreme Court case on affirmative action in higher education, the affirmative action policies will be struck down by the Court.

“we mentioned this in the context of this and affirmative action, as you know, two things that were going to get challenged and would probably lose. And unfortunately, it turns out we're right on one and it looks like we you know, we may be right on the other as well because I think the affirmative action case will get will get.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, a spread trade that is long Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG) and short a basket of the other mega-cap "big tech" names (specifically Apple, Facebook/Meta, Amazon, and Netflix) will generate positive returns on a relative basis; MSFT and GOOG will outperform the equal-weighted basket of AAPL, FB/META, AMZN, and NFLX.

“I think the best trade on the best trade on the internet, the most obvious simple money making trade is long. Microsoft, Google short, big tech short. The rest of big tech.” View on YouTube

Following Microsoft's competitive entry against Notion (with an 80%-as-good bundled product), Notion will face persistent, significant growth headwinds in the coming years: Microsoft’s distribution and bundling advantages will materially constrain Notion’s ability to scale into mid-market and enterprise customers and to achieve full, standalone public-market valuation comparable to an unencumbered high-growth productivity SaaS company.

“This past week, Microsoft decided to go after notion, and it's going to be, I think, a very similar story where, you know, once they decide to sort of go after this product experience, they only need to be 80% as good, and then the distribution and bundling and packaging will take care of the other 20%.” View on YouTube

Over the next 4–5 years, a market-neutral spread trade within mega-cap big tech—being long the strongest names (particularly Google and Microsoft) and short the weaker mega-cap tech names (such as Apple, Facebook/Meta, Amazon, and Netflix)—will outperform the overall market by profiting from the relative performance gap between the two baskets, while largely neutralizing general market volatility.

“Here's so obvious is within big tech. Figure out which ones you want to be long. Which ones you want to be short. That's a spread. Trade that over the next 4 or 5 years where if you expect a lot of market volatility, it makes sense to maybe put some of this kind of stuff on” View on YouTube

If Glenn Youngkin serves a successful four-year term as governor of Virginia (2022–2025) and then runs for U.S. president in the subsequent cycle(s), he will be a dominant candidate and win decisively in that presidential race.

“If Youngkin has a good four years in Virginia, he can run for president and crush this thing.” View on YouTube

A means-tested COVID stimulus that heavily weights payments to the poorest Americans and excludes the richest would total on the order of $500–700 billion if implemented expansively (implicit timeframe: in place of the then-proposed $1.9T 2021 package).

“If you added up all of that money, it's probably on the order of 500 or $700 billion if you did it, if you did a really expansive package” View on YouTube

The EU will require a digitally verifiable vaccination passport for individuals to travel freely between EU member states (timeframe implied: during the post‑COVID reopening period beginning 2021).

“I think it was proposed in the EU that you would need to get a, you know, a digitally verified passport stamp that shows that you have been vaccinated in order to travel freely amongst other EU nations.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years after COVID-19, most major cities—at minimum for venues such as sporting events and concerts—will adopt some form of vaccination or biological-status passport system (a "biological Patriot Act").

“I said, it's coming. I'm going to put another marker out there. Um, by the way, because like, you know, there may be something like this in New York. I think most cities will have to have them, I think places, Jason, exactly as you say, for sporting events, for concerts. It'll be very hard...for us to not end up in this place.” View on YouTube

Future legal challenges over business requirements for customer or employee vaccination will reach the U.S. Supreme Court, which will issue a narrow ruling affirming that private businesses may decide to require vaccination as a condition of service or employment.

“I do think that it will get litigated to the Supreme Court. And I think that narrowly, what will come down is that businesses will be able to decide.” View on YouTube

The 2024 US election will mark the beginning of a structural breakdown of the two‑party system, with independent centrist candidates gaining enough traction to be seen as initiating that shift.

“Independent centrists. I think this election starts the breakdown of the two party system.” View on YouTube

In the 2024 US cycle, candidates and causes backed by the Koch political network—such as Nikki Haley—will underperform badly, making the Kochs one of the biggest political losers on a dollar‑spent basis in 2024.

“The Kochs... if you just want to fade a trade, I think you can pretty easily just find where the those old school Republicans are putting their money and just kind of short it... I would probably now short [the Haley] trade in 24. Mostly because of the Kochs.” View on YouTube

In 2024, profitable and especially bootstrapped startups will outperform VC‑dependent peers because rapidly improving and cheaper AI/compute will allow small teams to cheaply clone and disrupt existing businesses within months instead of years.

“I think the biggest business winner in 2024 is going to be the bootstrapped startup and or the profitable startup... we are underestimating how cheap it's going to be to copy an existing business in 2024... you're no longer measuring in decades when a company will be subject to disruption. I think you're measuring it in, frankly, months.” View on YouTube

Professional sports franchise valuations will peak in 2024; after 2024, the rapid appreciation seen over the prior decade will stall or reverse, making 2024 the high‑water mark for pro‑sports franchise enterprise values.

“I am going to say that 24 is the peak in terms of valuations of professional sports... I would say that 2024 is going to be the year of peak pro sports values.” View on YouTube

Starlink (SpaceX’s satellite internet business) will go public via an IPO or spin‑out during 2024.

“I'm going to go with the same thing. I think I was just off by your Starlink will go public.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2024, OpenAI’s implied enterprise value (as measured by secondary transactions or financing rounds) will be lower than the roughly $90B level implied by late‑2023 secondary sales.

“I think the enterprise value of OpenAI goes down... my prediction is that will happen. And as a result, the enterprise values of of those companies and I think OpenAI will be the most obvious will go down.” View on YouTube

Over 2024, public software/tech stock indices will outperform late‑stage private tech software (mostly SaaS) companies, with the latter experiencing a material valuation contraction relative to the former.

“So I'm going to take the public software index, tech stock index, and my short is going to be the private tech software companies. the late stage, mostly SaaS companies... so long. The public tech cycle short the private late stage tech cycle expecting a valuation contraction in the latter.” View on YouTube

Over 2024, public tech/software stock indices will outperform late‑stage private tech/SaaS company valuations, with private late‑stage SaaS experiencing valuation compression (including flat valuations despite revenue growth and dilutive stock‑based comp).

“I'm going to take the public software index, tech stock index, and my short is going to be the private tech software companies. the late stage, mostly SaaS companies... so long the public tech cycle short the private late stage tech cycle expecting a valuation contraction in the latter.” View on YouTube

Over the medium term following 2023 (including 2024), software/tech stock valuations will decline substantially from current levels as their gross margins compress toward roughly 35% and market multiples re‑rate accordingly.

“If you believe that the average best run company is a 35% gross margin business with 20 to 25% free cash flow margins, tech stocks have a long way to go down.” View on YouTube

In early 2024, multiple spot Bitcoin ETFs will be approved in the U.S., and by the end of 2024 Bitcoin will have achieved mainstream adoption to the point that it is widely understood, easily purchasable by retail investors (including older demographics), and commonly treated as part of the traditional financial asset lexicon.

“We are probably days away from a series of ETFs being approved. And so this is the moment for Bitcoin to... really see mainstream adoption... And I think that if all of this comes to pass, Bitcoin will be a part of the traditional financial lexicon by the end of 2024.” View on YouTube

Draymond Green will become the governor of either Michigan or California before he turns 50 years old.

“Guys, I'm gonna I'm gonna make a prediction that our bestie will be the governor of Michigan or the governor of California.” View on YouTube

Nvidia will either decline to exercise its option to invest in OpenAI or will downgrade the size of that investment by 70-80%, reallocating that capital to other AI companies instead.

“I think Nvidia is predicting it now. I think Nvidia is not going to take their option to invest in OpenAI or they're going to really downgrade it 70 80% and they're going to allocate it to other players.” View on YouTube

Over the next few years (roughly 2023–2025), at least half of the ~200 public software companies referenced in the chart (especially the unprofitable ones) will face severe difficulty raising capital and will likely need to either raise money on very punitive terms or go private in private‑equity transactions, resulting in on the order of 100 such companies leaving the public markets via PE-led take‑privates or similar structures.

“I think if you look at the number of them that are unprofitable, at least half of them will have difficulty and about. So I think about two thirds of these companies really have no line of sight to profitability in the next 2 to 3 years. And again, if you if you layer in this cost of capital argument, all of those companies, David, will have to raise money at very egregious terms in order to keep themselves going as a public business, in which case their alternative is to go private in a PE transaction. So it's probably at least half these businesses. I mean, it's a lot.” View on YouTube

Contrary to his earlier expectation that the worst would be over by mid‑2023, Chamath predicts that interest rates will remain elevated and financing conditions will stay tight such that the current tough macro environment for companies and investors persists until roughly early 2025.

“for me, I'm like, wow, I thought that we could get through the worst of this by mid 23. But now you have to plan for the worst, which means, okay, now I'm thinking that man rates could be higher for much longer, which means we could be in this market till early 25.” View on YouTube

In the November 8, 2022 midterm elections, Republicans will win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and there is a material (plurality) chance they will also secure a majority in the U.S. Senate.

“it seems like most scenarios the Republicans will have the majority in the House. And the real question is what happens in the Senate... most scenarios, David, I think you'd agree, is that the Republicans win the House. And then there's a there's a plurality of scenarios where they also win the Senate.” View on YouTube

Around the 2024 U.S. presidential election cycle (roughly 2024), the U.S. economy will likely still be in or just emerging from a recession, characterized by significant economic damage and high unemployment.

“the setup is really interesting for 2024 because it's probably going to be the case that we're in the middle of a recession going into that election cycle. Maybe we'll be sort of like getting ourselves out of it, but there'll be a lot of economic damage, high unemployment.” View on YouTube

Following the large drawdown of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2022, the U.S. will soon have little additional SPR oil available to suppress prices, while Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ will cut oil supply to maintain higher prices, limiting the Biden administration's ability to further reduce gasoline prices through SPR releases or diplomatic pressure.

“we have now depleted our strategic oil reserve by almost 50%... So we are running out of oil that we can introduce into the market at effectively zero cost to bring the price down. And because we've lost our relationships with folks like Saudi Arabia, there's no way to influence them in order to produce more. In fact, they're going to cut supply so that they can control the prices” View on YouTube

In the November 8, 2022 U.S. midterm elections, Republicans will win a majority in the House of Representatives, while control of the Senate is uncertain at the time of this statement.

“I gave up on the House. I think it's clear that the Republicans are going to win, but the Senate is still is still up for grabs.” View on YouTube

Between late 2022 and the 2024 U.S. presidential election, underlying U.S. economic conditions will remain weak or 'bad' even absent major new policy shocks.

“I think that we need to sort of have stasis so that nothing bad happens between now and 2024, because I think the economic conditions on the ground are going to be bad in and of themselves.” View on YouTube

If future economic and energy conditions in the U.S. deteriorate severely (similar to Germany's 2022 energy crisis) and government is not split between parties, there is a realistic possibility that the U.S. federal government could pursue extreme interventions such as nationalizing key assets, analogous to steps taken in Germany.

“I know most people will say it'll never happen in America, but I'm not so sure. And I think that you want to make sure that there's a split government so that these things are never possible.” View on YouTube

The 2024 U.S. presidential election will feature Ron DeSantis as the Republican nominee and Gavin Newsom as the Democratic nominee.

“and I still think it's going to be DeSantis versus Newsom.” View on YouTube

If the Russia/Ukraine-related supply and demand shocks prove globally significant in 2022, the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Canada, and Bank of Japan will intervene in a coordinated fashion to provide market liquidity, cushioning most of the global economy from the worst economic consequences of the sanctions on Russia.

“if these shocks are really, really, really meaningful globally, I think you're going to see the Federal Reserve and the ECB and the Bank of Canada and the Bank of Japan step in, in a very coordinated way to provide liquidity to these markets. And I think what that has the byproduct of doing is blunting the economic consequences to everybody but the person who is sanctioned.” View on YouTube

As a result of the spike in energy prices associated with the Russia/Ukraine crisis, the U.S. (and likely broader developed-world) economy will enter a recessionary contraction, prompting governments/central banks to shift toward more accommodative policies (easier monetary or fiscal stance) within the subsequent 12–18 months (i.e., by late 2023).

“We will contract as an economy. The government will have to become more accommodating.” View on YouTube

Following early March 2022, the United States and its allies will continue to add further rounds of economic sanctions on Russia beyond those already announced on Russian crude and other sectors; the sanctions regime will materially intensify over the ensuing months of 2022.

“And just to speak on this other point, we have only just begun. Meaning just today, as we started the pod, uh, Biden came out with an incremental new set of sanctions on Russian crude. So we're not at the even in the beginning. We're at the beginning of the beginning.” View on YouTube

In response to the economic impact of Russia sanctions and recession risks in 2022, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, the Biden administration, and allied governments will likely shift to a more accommodative stance, effectively resuming monetary expansion ("money printing") to support the economy while maintaining strong economic sanctions on Russia, with the goal of engineering a soft landing instead of a recession.

“I think there could be a real possibility that Powell becomes very accommodative. And, you know, he and Biden and the entire administration come together with Europe and everybody else and say, get the money printer back going, because we are we are going to stand the line on these economic sanctions and we're going to, you know, sort of soft land, the economy here because we think there's recessionary risks afoot.” View on YouTube

The combination of sanctions on Russia and associated commodity/financial shocks will cause materially harmful economic impacts on emerging markets in Asia and Africa, leading to a period of significant economic difficulty there lasting for an extended but unspecified period of time (at least many months to a few years after early 2022).

“what's going to be very, very difficult is the impact that this has on emerging markets in Southeast Asia, Asia, Africa could be really, really deleterious for some amount of time and sad.” View on YouTube

Semiconductor supply constraints affecting companies like Apple and Tesla will ease substantially by Q4 2022 and into Q1 2023, reducing chip-related supply chain pressure for these large manufacturers in that timeframe.

“Apple and Tesla basically said, ah, it's kind of reasonably well managed particularly on the chip side. And we see the whole thing easing Q4, Q1 of next year.” View on YouTube

If many companies end up with large amounts of excess inventory and have difficulty securing working capital (as implied by ongoing supply chain disruptions), this will contribute to a significant economic downturn or recession in the subsequent period (late 2022–2023).

“So like the next step beyond all of the supply chain issues could be and I think Sachs has been talking about this a lot like a pretty bad recession. If these companies have all this inventory and they don't know how to get working capital.” View on YouTube

Over the course of the current Trump term (beginning 2025), the administration will maintain its new tariff regime in substantial form and will not execute a broad, sudden reversal or "grand capitulation" on tariffs despite market volatility.

“So I think it's pretty clear one, Trump has had a 40 year view on tariffs. They're going to go through with this and they're going to see it through I don't think you're going to see this grand capitulation.” View on YouTube

For upcoming U.S. 10‑year Treasury auctions over the near term following the tariff announcement in 2025, the clearing yield will be around 4%, providing materially lower financing costs than if the 10‑year had risen toward 5%.

“Governments will now... know that ten years and the auctions will clear at around 4%.” View on YouTube

If there is a major corporate default event in 2025 that triggers large payouts on the credit default swaps he describes, then that specific CDS protection position will have the highest return of any major investable asset class or trade in 2025 (on a percentage return basis).

“I hope that this trade loses money, but if it hits, it will be the best performing asset of 2025.” View on YouTube

MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) will become a multi-billionaire (net worth in the multiple billions of US dollars) in the future.

“This guy is clearly on track to being an enormous figure in culture. Oh, he's gonna be a fucking multi multi-billionaire.” View on YouTube

Incidents of startup founders stretching the truth or committing fraud in order to secure venture funding will increase meaningfully in the coming years relative to the situation as of 2021, driven by growing capital inflows and reduced diligence.

“This is this is only going to get meaningfully worse.” View on YouTube

The US Supreme Court may decline to rule on the underlying abortion issue in the Texas SB8 case and instead treat it as a states’ rights matter, allowing the Texas law to stand so long as it is confined to Texas.

“we now have an activist Supreme Court who may actually not opine on this on the validity of the issue, but say this is a states right issue. If this stays in Texas and doesn't get outside of Texas, you will have this specific thing hold and stand.” View on YouTube

Over time following Apple’s South Korea concession and reader-app payment changes, mobile app stores (especially Apple’s) will become increasingly deconstructed and open to alternative payment and distribution models.

“it's the beginning of the beginning for, you know, the app stores to be deconstructed and opened.” View on YouTube

As climate change progresses, suburban and far‑flung communities will suffer disproportionate damage and loss of viability because insurers will increasingly refuse to underwrite the climate risks needed for people to live there safely.

“climate change is going to ravage, um, uh, suburbs and it's going to ravage these sort of like far flung communities because, um, nobody's going to want to step in there and insure the parametric risk that allows people to live there safely.” View on YouTube

Over the next 20–30 years, climate impacts will escalate, with hot regions becoming hotter, dry regions drier, and wet regions experiencing more extreme rainfall, producing increasingly severe swings between heat/drought and flooding.

“we're just going to get buffeted back and forth between these two extremes. And this is only going to escalate over the next 20 years or 30 years, because we have so much embedded pollution that we have to work our way through.” View on YouTube

In 2025, fiscal conservatives in the U.S. will gain significantly increased political influence, with austerity and restrained government spending becoming a dominant theme in federal and state politics.

“My biggest political winner for 2025 are fiscal conservatives... I think that the fiscal conservatives that have been clamoring for a more restrained approach to spending will have their day in 2025.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2025, a string of right‑leaning electoral outcomes will occur: (1) Justin Trudeau will lose the Canadian federal election to Pierre Poilievre; (2) AfD will win national power in Germany; (3) Marine Le Pen will win the French presidency if an early election is triggered from a deadlock; and (4) the UK Labour government will fall and Nigel Farage will win national leadership, collectively marking a major setback for progressive, identity‑politics‑oriented parties in the G8.

“The biggest political loser of 2025 is going to be progressivism... in Canada, Justin Trudeau is going to lose massively to Pierre Poilievre... in Germany. AfD looks like they will win in France if there's a deadlock and it goes into an election. More than likely Marine Le Pen is going to win. And then in the U.K.... if all of that comes to pass in the U.K., I think you're going to see the Labour government fall. And I think you're going to see Nigel Farage win... by the end of 25? It's very much a repudiation of this class based identity politics.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2025, U.S. dollar‑denominated stablecoins will see their aggregate transaction volume increase by roughly 4–5x versus 2024 levels and will begin materially eroding the market share and economics of the Visa/Mastercard card‑payments duopoly.

“I think the biggest business winner of 2025 are going to be dollar denominated stablecoins... I think we're going to finally attack the duopoly of Visa and Mastercard... I think stablecoins could quadruple or quintuple by the end of 25. I think it's just going to be an enormous market.” View on YouTube

Measured over full‑year 2025, dollar‑denominated stablecoins will process transaction volumes that significantly exceed Visa’s global payment volume, continuing or widening the gap observed in Q2 2024.

“Stablecoin usage at the end of the second quarter of 2024 was about 1.1 billion transactions. That summed up to $8.5 trillion of transaction volume... it was more than double Visa's transaction volume... I would say that the big trend in 25 is stablecoin usage.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2025, the combined market capitalization of the top 7–8 mega‑cap U.S. tech stocks (“Magnificent Seven/Eight”) will have declined by at least US$2 trillion from their peak 2024 values, even if the percentage decline is on the order of only ~10%.

“I think when we look back, the absolute dollar drawdown of the Mag seven will be in the trillions of dollars... it could even be 10%, but 10% in the Mag eight will be a couple trillion bucks.” View on YouTube

During 2025, multiple large legacy auto manufacturers (traditional OEMs) will announce or complete major consolidation transactions (mergers or acquisitions) in response to competitive pressure from Tesla and Chinese EV makers, amounting to a visible industry wave of auto mega‑mergers.

“I think that this is the year that we will see the collapse of the traditional auto OEMs... I think the result of that will be a wave of auto mega-mergers.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2025, at least one major US "mainline" bank will experience a banking crisis driven by reserve and balance‑sheet stress (mark‑to‑market or credit‑default related).

“I think that you're going to see a banking crisis in one of the major mainline banks.” View on YouTube

If severe credit stress or a banking crisis occurs in 2025, long positions in selected credit default swaps (CDS) on vulnerable credits will become the best‑performing assets of 2025 in return terms; otherwise those CDS positions will likely lose money.

“this is a loser trade. Okay. But I would be long CDs... I hope it loses money, but if it hits, it will be the best performing asset of 2025.” View on YouTube

In 2025, large incumbent enterprise software vendors ("software industrial complex") will begin to show clear signs of business deterioration—such as slowing growth, margin pressure, or notable customer churn—relative to AI‑native competitors.

“the software industrial complex, these old mainline traditional enterprise software companies... I think you're going to start to see fissures in those businesses in 2025.” View on YouTube

In 2025, the US will refrain from major rule changes such as easing supplemental leverage ratio treatment of Treasuries to prop up banks; if those goal‑post‑moving regulatory tweaks do not occur, it will indicate that elected officials rather than the "deep state" are driving policy.

“Small, arcane regulatory changes that allow us to kick the can down the road stop in its tracks. This is an example.” View on YouTube

During Trump’s new term beginning 2025, the administration will declassify and publicly release large volumes of previously secret files (including on topics like JFK, Epstein, and other long‑standing controversies).

“It is the enormity of the files that are going to get declassified and released by the Trump administration.” View on YouTube

In the 30 to 90 days following this Feb 2023 episode, equity markets will rise significantly (a 'pain trade' move up), resembling the end-2018/early-2019 head-fake rally after a Fed capitulation.

“So I think we're about to replay a little bit of that, at least in the next 30 to 90 days. The pain trade is to go up. So that's probably where we're going.” View on YouTube

By the end of calendar year 2025, Apple Inc. will have cumulatively returned more than $1 trillion to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks.

“By 2025, Apple will have exceeded $1 trillion of cash distributions.” View on YouTube

Between roughly 2023 and 2028, Meta Platforms (Facebook) will return on the order of several hundred billion dollars to shareholders through a combination of share repurchases and (if any) dividends.

“Facebook now you can credibly see a path where Facebook could chunk out hundreds of billions of dollars of of total shareholder value returned over the next 4 or 5 years.” View on YouTube

Across the current startup cohort funded during the recent bubble period, the eventual failure (mortality) rate will revert to roughly 50–60%, similar to the post‑dot‑com bust era.

“We have to go through what's called mean reversion right. We have to go back to the historic statistical average, which means that a 50 to 60% mortality rate seems pretty reasonable.” View on YouTube

Outside of a scenario where interest rates return to roughly zero and capital is again forced into risk assets, public tech/ growth-equity valuation multiples of the magnitude seen in 2021 will not reoccur; the lower multiple environment observed in early 2023 is likely the new normal for an extended period.

“I think the reliable way that we can look at this for the future is that we're never going to see these kinds of multiples again, unless rates are zero and all kinds of tourist capital. Need to find a home to escape? 0% returns in every other asset class.” View on YouTube

The Omicron variant will not prove to be significantly more dangerous than prior variants in terms of disease severity or health-system impact; it will not materially worsen the COVID-19 crisis relative to the Delta wave.

“I think this whole thing is a complete fucking nothing burger” View on YouTube

Omicron specifically will not be the variant that causes a major new step-change in COVID-19 severity or societal disruption beyond what has already been experienced with earlier variants.

“There may be a variant that matters, but this is not it” View on YouTube

The elevated inflation that began in 2021 in the United States will prove persistent, remaining significantly above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target for several years and contributing to a multi-year period of economic difficulty ("a few years of pain").

“Inflation is now here. I think it's here to last. I've been pretty consistent about this, and this is the real reason why we're going to have a few years of pain” View on YouTube

Beginning in 2021 and for the foreseeable future (multi‑year period), the U.S. will experience persistent, structurally higher inflation levels (i.e., not merely a short, transitory spike), with a sustained upward trend in prices driven by underinvestment and distorted work incentives.

“You put these two things together. Structural inflation is here. We've underinvested underinvested at the macro level, and we've completely distorted people's incentives to work at the micro level. Prices go up.” View on YouTube

Trump’s COVID-19 case will soon produce highly transparent data on effective treatments; once he receives the most effective available therapy and recovers, public demand and access for similar treatments will rapidly increase, leading over the following months to some de‑escalation in emphasis on masks, testing, and uncertainty about the right course of care.

“it's now basically 100% guaranteed that we will have all of the most transparent data about coronavirus, um, soon... it's probably likely that he's going to get the thing that folks know to work, and then it'll be hard for everybody else to not want to ask for that. And then it's going to be even harder for everybody to then not get some version of it. And so I think probably we're going to de-escalate a little bit of mask stuff, of testing stuff of, you know, what the right course of care is.” View on YouTube

A Biden election win will lead to a meaningful de-escalation of political division in the US during 2021, as it rewards civility and could open a path for Biden to bring Republicans back into the conversation.

“i think honestly like the election of biden um will go such a long way to just um you know just showing what is rewarded” View on YouTube

As of early October 2020, the speaker assesses Joe Biden’s probability of winning the November 2020 U.S. presidential election at roughly 65–70%, versus 35–30% for Donald Trump.

“Biden 6535, approaching 7030.” View on YouTube

The All-In podcast audience will grow from about 1 million weekly listeners to roughly 10 million weekly listeners in the future, allowing the hosts to effectively control direct distribution of their ideas to a very large audience.

“We're at a million fucking people a week. We could be at 10 million people a fucking week, and we could fucking own the distribution of our ideas to millions and millions of people.” View on YouTube

Joe Biden will serve only one term as U.S. president and will not run for re‑election in 2024.

“Both of these two guys are one term presidents. I think that is abundantly clear. I think the question is, what is Biden's transition plan? you know, does he actually only stay two years and transitions it to Kamala? I don't know, but there's no way that he's running for a second term either.” View on YouTube

Donald Trump will remain a one‑term U.S. president and will never again serve a subsequent term in the White House.

“Both of these two guys are one term presidents. I think that is abundantly clear.” View on YouTube

If Nikki Haley chooses to run for U.S. president as a Republican in 2024, she will be a serious contender with substantial credibility in the race.

“I think the person who has enough credibility to take a shot. It's not clear that she will, but if she did, she would be really serious and she could actually get people to be relatively normal as Nikki Haley on the right.” View on YouTube

Because mainstream media outlets protect ideological and class in‑group figures and resist admitting errors, similar large-scale frauds or grifts exploiting this bias will continue to occur in the future in the United States media/financial landscape.

“And so if you don't kiss the ring and bow down to them. They will try to destroy you or run you out of town. But if you are one of them, they will give you a hall pass. And when it's time for them to change their mind in order to tell the truth, they won't do it. And so these types of grifts will continue.” View on YouTube

During 2022, Xi Jinping will be the biggest political winner globally, effectively becoming ruler for life of China, and his expanded power will begin to play out domestically and internationally.

“My worldwide, uh, biggest political winner for 20 2022 is XI Jinping... 2022 marks the first year where he's essentially really ruler for life. And so I don't think we really know what he's capable of and what he's going to do. And so that's just going to play out.” View on YouTube

In 2023, Xi Jinping will exercise dominant, aggressive influence both within China and internationally, leveraging China’s control over critical supply chains.

“For next year? I think it's going to be a he's going to run roughshod, not just domestically but also internationally, because you have to remember, he controls so much of the critical supply chain that the Western world needs to be.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, many traditional enterprise SaaS applications will be incrementally replaced by "models as a service" (MaaS), where specialized ML models provide the core functionality instead of conventional software, leading to a broad shift from SaaS to MaaS.

“I think we're going to replace SaaS with what I call mass, which is models as a service. And so, you know, a lot of what software will be, particularly in the enterprise, will get replaced with a single use model that allows you to solve a function... So I think SaaS will get replaced over time with these models incrementally. That's phase one.” View on YouTube

The next major advance in AI, likely within the next several years, will be the emergence of powerful multimodal models (combining video, audio, text, and other data) from a big tech company or OpenAI, enabling solutions to more substantive, complex problems than current single-mode models.

“The next big leap, and I think it will come from one of the big tech companies or from OpenAI is... a multimodal model, which then allows you to actually bring together and join video voice data in a unique way to answer real, substantive problems.” View on YouTube

For at least the near to medium term, current large language models will continue to struggle with the last 1–2% of highly precise, high‑consequence use cases, and reaching that reliability threshold will remain exceptionally hard.

“When this stuff becomes very valuable, is that when you really need a precise answer and you can guarantee that to be overwhelmingly right, that's the last 1 to 2%. That is exceptionally hard. And I don't think that we're at a place yet where these models can do that.” View on YouTube

Achieving the final 1–2 percentage points of reliability/accuracy in complex AI systems (e.g., self‑driving or high‑stakes inference) will take multiple decades of progress.

“These last these last hundred or 200 basis points literally takes decades.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, general-purpose AI models (e.g., large language models) will become commoditized, and competitive advantage will primarily come from access to proprietary training data rather than from the models themselves.

“This is why I think the hunt for proprietary data actually becomes the hunt that matters. All of this other stuff, I think, is a lot less important, because I think you have to assume that all of these models will eventually just get commoditized.” View on YouTube

AI models in regulated healthcare domains such as tumor detection, if trained on very large proprietary datasets (e.g., breast cancer images), will be able to gain FDA approval relatively quickly using existing regulatory pathways.

“So, for example, if you use a healthcare example, let's say that you had the largest corpus of breast cancer image data, and you could actually build an AI that was a much better classifier for tumors versus other things. The FDA actually has a pathway to get that approved very quickly.” View on YouTube

In the near term, the U.S. government and ultra‑high‑frequency trading firms will remain the largest purchasers of machine learning hardware.

“They are, I can tell you, as somebody who sells, we sell a lot of machine learning hardware into this market. The biggest buyers are the US government and these ultra high frequency trading organizations.” View on YouTube

Employee political activism and internal petition campaigns at Apple will, at some future point (no specific date given), negatively impact Apple's operating results (e.g., growth, margins, or other key financial performance metrics).

“eventually that'll show up in the operating results of the business. It's just a matter of time, right?” View on YouTube

Once Covid vaccines are widely available and an effective oral antiviral treatment for Covid (like molnupiravir, a Tamiflu-equivalent) is also widely available, Covid-19 will effectively be reduced to a flu-like disease in its economic impact in the subsequent period: worker absenteeism due to Covid will materially decline and most of the economy will return to normal levels of on-site work and activity.

“I think that the combination of vaccines and what is equivalently Tamiflu for Covid, which is effectively what this is, is the one two punch we need so that this basically is rendered... like a flu, which means that there'll be less ability for folks to not show up to work, which means that most of the economy will get back going.” View on YouTube

Approximately 18 months after October 2021 (around early 2023), inflation will be the dominant economic and political issue in the United States, particularly around the midterm election period.

“I'm pretty excited by what I read today, but now my mindset is going to 18 months from now. Midterm inflation. I think that's going to be what it's all about.” View on YouTube

As of early October 2022, public equity markets are in a bottoming and consolidation process, are closer to their ultimate cycle lows than to the highs, and the remaining downside from that point is only on the order of 3–5% before the market puts in its low.

“It's another data point that again, I said it last week. I'll go out on a limb and predict my equivalent November fall predictions. Last fall it was that the markets were going to poop the bed. My prediction now is that I think the markets are bottoming and consolidating... I think that, um, when when companies like Facebook really do this... it's yet another indication to me that I think, broadly speaking, the markets are now starting to stabilize... I'll go I'll go out on a limb. I think, you know, we could be 3 to 5% from the lows, but we're more near the lows than the highs.” View on YouTube

In 2023 there will be a hard‑landing recession in the U.S. (or global) economy in which a major part of the financial or economic system "breaks" or experiences a serious crisis.

“So I think we're forming a bottom. I do think that Stan is right. We are going to see a hard landing recession. Something will break in 2023. I hope it doesn't. I hope it doesn't affect a lot of normal people, but it's likely.” View on YouTube

During the coming hard‑landing recession (expected around 2023), the U.S. unemployment rate will rise to roughly 5–6%, and many companies will significantly reduce spending in response to weakening demand.

“If I had to predict I think what David said is absolutely right. You're going to see unemployment get to an awkward and uncomfortable number five, 6%, I think could be something that we see. And I think you're going to see a lot more companies pull way back on their spend, because demand is going to really modulate.” View on YouTube

Beginning with the reset of roughly 40% of UK mortgage balances that are interest‑only adjustable‑rate loans to around a 4% rate in January 2023, UK households’ mortgage payments will rise by a factor of roughly 3–4, causing significant financial distress and leaving the UK economy in a severely strained or "upside down" condition in 2023.

“In the UK, 40% of all mortgage dollars are interest only arms. That will reset in January to around 4% 40%. Can you imagine how upside down the UK economy is going to be, when people have to spend three and four times more to keep their homes?” View on YouTube

From the point of this October 2022 discussion, the Federal Reserve will rapidly hike its policy rate to around 4.5% within months; after reaching roughly that level, a major breakage in the economy or financial system will occur within the following 6–9 months, prompting the Fed to reintroduce an effective "Fed put" by intervening (via easing or backstops) similarly to how the Bank of England intervened in UK gilts in 2022, which will then cause U.S. equity markets to surge.

“Mark my words, the Federal Reserve will intervene. This is why I think we're in a bottoming process. I think the the bleeding edge of the smart financial actors are actually on Sachs's side and Friedberg side, but then they're taking that next intellectual leap and saying, okay, well, what happens when Apple basically says, hey guys, I'm going to have to fire 15% of my employees? I think what happens is the fed intervenes... they're gonna they're gonna get to four and a half very quickly. And then this something's going to break. Like all these guys are saying I think they're right. And then the fed put comes back on the table and we'll have this. We'll have the UK. You know, the UK thing happened in, what, six days. Hours will play out over 6 or 9 months, but it's going to play out the exact same way.” View on YouTube

If a nuclear incident related to the Russia–Ukraine conflict were to occur around three months after this October 2022 discussion (i.e., roughly by January 2023), global equity markets would react less negatively than they would have three months before October 2022, and less negatively than most observers would expect at that future time.

“I think that the markets would have reacted much, much more negatively to a nuclear incident three months ago than now and may not even react as much as we may think it would three months from now.” View on YouTube

Over the roughly 30 years following 2021, the existing high level of economic globalism will be substantially reversed ("undone"), leading to significant geopolitical and economic changes.

“we have really overrotated up to this crazy form of globalism that is going to get undone over the next 30 years, and that's going to have a lot of implications.” View on YouTube

Over roughly the coming decade, China's aging demographics and past one‑child policy will erode its low‑cost manufacturing advantage and "solve" the China over‑dependence issue by themselves, which will in turn drive higher global inflation and commodity prices while enabling a significant reindustrialization and rejuvenation of the U.S. Rust Belt manufacturing base.

“so that whole China situation, in fact, demographically is going to solve itself. But the implications for America are not good. Meaning I think inflation goes up, commodity prices go up, prices of everything go up. But it allows us to actually reestablish and rejuvenate the, uh, the industrialized rust belt of America.” View on YouTube

By the end of the 2020s (by December 31, 2029), the four major U.S. tech monopolies being discussed (the core FAANG‑type platforms) will have been structurally broken up so that they no longer exist in their then‑current integrated forms, primarily as a result of antitrust or regulatory action.

“we have four enormous monopolies on our hands. And if I was a betting man. End of decade, these four monopolies will not exist.” View on YouTube

Within roughly ten years of when he originally made that 2019 statement (by around 2029), governments will enact significant legislation or regulatory action against large tech platforms in order to protect political incumbents’ power, thereby undermining the long‑term durability of those platforms’ current earnings trajectories.

“the market doesn't believe that their earnings potential is durable, because the market is sure that in the next ten or so years, governments will start to act because they care about their own self-preservation. So if you get very reductionist, at the end of the day, that's what governments care about. And so they're going to legislate to protect their monopoly, which is the ability to have power.” View on YouTube

General‑purpose humanoid robots like Figure’s shown in the demo will not be "super functional" for common household tasks for at least the next couple of years from this March 2025 episode; meaningful, broadly useful functionality will only arrive after that period once actuator/dexterity issues are solved.

“And I think that that doesn't allow these robots to be super functional in the next couple of years. But when they get that figured out, then I think it could be really useful.” View on YouTube

Within six months of this March 2025 episode, as approximately $10 trillion of U.S. debt is refinanced, the U.S. 10‑year Treasury yield could fall below 4% if incoming macro data are reasonably favorable.

“we got to go in and refinance $10 trillion in the next six months. So you could see this thing, maybe even get under 4% if we get a good string of data.” View on YouTube

Within a few months after the Trump $5 million "gold card"/golden visa program is formally announced, there will be startup founders (non‑U.S. citizens) who sell at least $5 million of secondary equity in funding rounds specifically to finance the purchase of such visas, and these cases will become publicly known.

“I will predict that within the next few months after this gets announced, you are going to hear about founders taking $5 million of secondary in a round to make sure that if they are non-Americans to get their visas 100%.” View on YouTube

If Trump's proposed $5M "golden visa"/green card product includes an effective workaround of KYC/AML/OFAC rules that allows gray money to be regularized, global demand could reach on the order of 2,000,000 buyers over the life of the program.

“Honestly, Freeburg, you could sell 2 million of these things.” View on YouTube

If Trump's proposed $5M "golden visa"/green card product is constrained by current OFAC/AML/KYC frameworks, the total number of buyers over the life of the program will be on the order of the 'tens of thousands' (i.e., roughly 10,000–99,999 buyers), not millions.

“If you literally have to go through the existing set of frameworks on like OFAC, AML, KYC, all that stuff, it's probably in the tens of thousands.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, U.S. accredited‑investor and related securities rules governing who can invest in private companies will largely remain unchanged, despite current debates about loosening them for broader retail participation.

“I think what's going to happen is not much of anything. I think the rules are going to stay exactly where they are.” View on YouTube

Following the June 2023 Supreme Court decision striking down race-based affirmative action in college admissions, U.S. colleges and universities that receive federal funding will, over time, be forced—via subsequent lawsuits and legal pressure—to significantly curtail or eliminate both athletic-based and legacy-based admissions preferences.

“The next step is probably going to be around athletics based and legacy based admissions… his thought on this is that those things Will go away. Because if you can’t use race based admissions to kind of balance the scales, then it’ll become pretty quick where somebody launches a legacy based lawsuit or an athletic based bias lawsuit and wins that as well.” View on YouTube

In the wake of the June 2023 Supreme Court affirmative action ruling, major U.S. corporations (e.g., large public companies like Apple, Meta/Facebook, Exxon) that operate race-based hiring, recruiting, or advancement programs will face legal challenges that will force them to materially modify or end those explicitly race-based programs; as a result, some existing DEI- and ESG-related practices and metrics that rely on explicit racial preferences will become legally impermissible in the U.S.

“The really important question after that will be what happens to companies like Apple or Facebook or Exxon, who have race based programs to try to attract African American engineers or Hispanic chemists… Will those get challenged and will those companies have to change? And my friend’s thoughts on that were that, yes, that those would also change. And that’s going to have a really important impact on private enterprise and how they approach this stuff and how DEI stuff works and frankly, downstream, how ESG works, because all these ESG check boxes now, some of them will actually become illegal.” View on YouTube

The practical effects of the June 2023 Supreme Court decision ending race-based affirmative action in college admissions will initially manifest gradually in U.S. higher education institutions, and then accelerate, and in a subsequent phase similar legal and policy changes will spread from higher education into U.S. private enterprises’ policies and programs.

“The importance of this decision can’t be really understated. It’s going to the changes will be slow and then they’ll be fast. They’ll first touch higher ed, but then I think they’ll touch private enterprise.” View on YouTube

For the cohort of roughly 1,400 "unicorn" startups existing as of mid‑2023, approximately 60% will ultimately go to zero; of the remaining 40%, about half will merely return invested capital, and about half of the remainder will return around 1.5x, yielding an overall blended multiple on invested capital for that unicorn cohort of roughly 1.1x once all outcomes are realized.

“I think 60% go to zero. Of the remaining 40%, half of them probably return money. And then of the remaining half, half of those maybe get one and a half x. And then you get a geometric distribution from there, which means the blended return of that entire stream of unicorns will be about 1.1 x, but it will be very massively distributed.” View on YouTube

From 2021 onward, the prior era of highly globalized, just‑in‑time supply chains will not return; instead, there will be a sustained global shift toward onshoring and resiliency, creating new business opportunities whose aggregate market value will reach into the trillions of dollars over the coming years.

“this is the most important macro investing theme that I've seen in my lifetime, which is that globalization as we know it is over. And what you just said is what I really believe, which is that you have to onshore and you have to move to a place where you value resiliency over just in time. And if you look at the businesses that get that need to get built in order to enable resiliency, you will see trillions of dollars of opportunity” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, the cost of producing video and entertainment content will continue to decline, leading to structurally lower margins across the professional content industry and making most individual pieces of content effectively commoditized in economic terms.

“the point of all of that is that content costs are going to continue to go down, which means the economics are going to go down. The margins are not that good. Um, and so it's all just a commodity that almost doesn't matter” View on YouTube

People younger than the speakers’ generation (i.e., current kids/teens as of 2021 and later cohorts) will, as they age, not care about traditional movies and tentpole film releases in the way prior generations did, leading to a long-term decline in cultural centrality of movies and Monday-morning "water cooler" discussions about them.

“I just think like it was our generation was the last one that actually even cared about movies, that cared about these tentpole productions, that cared about water cooler type conversations on a Monday morning.” View on YouTube

Within the speakers’ lifetimes (i.e., over the coming decades from 2021), technology and business models will be developed that allow content creators, social media personalities, and influencers to own their own distribution and directly monetize their audience relationships, rather than relying on centralized platforms.

“the thing that I think content creators haven't yet realized, and social media personalities and influencers haven't yet realized, is how can I own my own distribution and monetize my relationship. That feature of the web will get figured out in our lifetime.” View on YouTube

Within roughly 10–20 years from 2021, a new generation (today’s teens and upcoming 20‑somethings) will develop ways for large creators (e.g., Charli D’Amelio–scale influencers) to communicate with and monetize their audiences without relying on intermediary platforms like TikTok, making intermediary-controlled access to followers obsolete for top creators.

“What I'm saying is there are going to be people who are teenagers today, right? Or kids who will be teenagers in a decade, 20 somethings who will figure this out, for whom the idea that if you're a Charli D'Amelio, right, your TikTok's top biggest star with 120 odd million followers, that to go through an intermediary to talk to your people will not in the future make any sense.” View on YouTube

A significant number of large social media and platform-native creators will, in the future, build their audience on major centralized platforms and then spin out to their own independent, direct-to-fan distribution and monetization channels (analogous to journalists leaving legacy media for Substack).

“It's no different than building a name on the New York Times and then starting your own Substack. It's going to happen.” View on YouTube

At some future point (within roughly the coming decades from 2021), the problem of enabling creators to own distribution and monetize their reputation/value will be solved via crypto/blockchain-based systems that put a measure of individual reputation and social value "on chain" and tie it to payments and stored value.

“I think this solution will get figured out through the crypto community. And the reason is because that is, by definition, to your point, Jason, fundamentally distributed and tied to a payment and a store of value, because that's what effectively this is. It's like where is the value of somebody's reputation? And right now we don't have a way of measuring it. And you can you can put that on chain in some way. I don't claim to know how, but I think.” View on YouTube

As of mid-2021, big tech companies are near the late stage ("August") of their period of uncontested supremacy, implying that within the next several years their dominance will begin to wane due to regulatory, competitive, and technological pressures.

“I'll go out on a limb and say, um, we're we're we're in the sort of the, the August of their, um, supremacy.” View on YouTube

For the then-upcoming Biden tax legislation (2021–2022): (1) U.S. federal capital gains tax rates will not be increased; (2) the U.S. federal corporate tax rate will be raised to 25% but not to 28%; and (3) U.S. tax law will be changed to significantly tighten IP-related tax loopholes, making it effectively impossible for American companies to shift intellectual property to low-tax jurisdictions such as Ireland or to execute tax inversions for the purpose of reducing U.S. tax liability.

“They're not going to at best, they're going to get the cap gains. Uh, sorry, no movement on cap gains. They don't think it can happen at all. So that's not going to move. Oh, good. Uh, number one, number two is that corporate will go to 25 but not to 28. And then number three they're going to really tighten the IP loophole, um, which will prevent American companies from shipping IP to places like Ireland to not pay tax. They're going to make it impossible to do things like inversions, all this kind of stuff, and then scope that down.” View on YouTube

If Congress were to stop using omnibus/continuing resolutions and instead only pass the 12 regular annual appropriations bills through the normal process, total federal spending would fall to roughly 50–67% of its then-current level (i.e., a reduction of about one‑third to one‑half) over the ensuing budget cycles.

“If they if they just did that, we would probably spend a third to half of less than we do now.” View on YouTube

If an upcoming government shutdown successfully ends the use of omnibus continuing resolutions and forces a return to regular-order appropriations, the change will reduce federal spending by approximately $500 billion relative to the status quo trajectory over the relevant budget period.

“If it stops the CR process, it'll be effective to the tune of about $500 billion. It'll be half $1 trillion effective.” View on YouTube

Tesla will have a credible Level 4/5 autonomous driving solution (sufficient for fully autonomous operation without human supervision in most conditions) within 4–5 years from 2023, i.e., by roughly 2027–2028.

“Tesla is so close to it, so I do trust that they'll have a credible solution in the next 4 or 5 years.” View on YouTube

Donald Trump will eventually be convicted of crimes related to his conduct in office or around the 2020 election and will go to jail (i.e., serve time in prison), with this outcome expected to occur in the coming years following January 2021.

“He's not going to get off scot free. He's not going. E [00:13:41.250]: To I mean, do you think he's going to jail? And do you think the people who broke into the do you think do you think Trump's going to jail? B [00:13:46.370]: Yes.” View on YouTube

Over the weeks immediately following January 11, 2021, the U.S. political and institutional response to the Capitol attack and Trump will involve a very messy process characterized by numerous poor decisions, overreaches, and dramatic public complaining from both political sides.

“and so it's probably important to look at what's happened in the last few days through that lens, which is, you know, it's it's almost like people first were shocked. And then now we're in the midst of that reflexive reaction to what is a simple choice, which is you can basically forgive the guy, or you can re affirm the institution, which means to sacrifice the guy. And I think that's the thing that's happening in real time. And it's going to be, I think, over the next few weeks, a super messy conversation because you're going to have a bunch of dumb decisions, you're going to have a bunch of overreaching, you know, you're going to have a bunch of, um, dramatic sort of bellyaching on both sides.” View on YouTube

If Bitcoin continues to appreciate along the pattern of prior post‑halving cycles, it will eventually completely replace gold as a store‑of‑value asset and will come to be used transactionally for purchasing hard assets (no specific date, but framed as the logical outcome of the current halving+ETF cycle).

“if this thing starts to get to these levels of appreciation, it is going to completely replace gold and start to become something that has transactional utility for hard assets.” View on YouTube

In the 2024 U.S. election, if approximately 50 million American crypto holders feel their holdings are threatened by regulation, up to 80% of them could turn out to vote, and the vast majority would vote for Donald Trump as the perceived pro‑crypto candidate, potentially swinging the election by up to 5 percentage points.

“If young people show up, it'll be it'll be. It could be 500 basis points... there are 50 million people that own crypto... Yeah, I could see how 80% of those folks show up to the ballot box and say, all right, which one of you will just leave me alone? And if the answer is President Trump, then they're all going to vote for President Trump.” View on YouTube

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs ("apes") will not recover to being significantly valuable again in the future; their price will not return to prior bubble highs and will effectively remain near worthless.

“When is my ape going to be worth money again? When will my ape go back up? ... Never.” View on YouTube

If large tech companies continue to spend tens of billions of dollars per quarter on AI infrastructure without generating commensurate new revenue, Nvidia’s market capitalization will prove unjustified and both Nvidia and its hyperscaler customers will experience significant share‑price punishment within the next few years.

“You cannot spend this kind of money and show no incremental revenue potential... the chicken is coming home to roost... if you do not start seeing revenue flow to the bottom line of these companies that are spending $26 billion a quarter, the market cap of Nvidia is not what the market cap Nvidia should be. And all of these other companies are going to get punished for spending this kind of money.” View on YouTube

Joe Manchin will enter the 2024 United States presidential race as a candidate for president.

“Joe Manchin is running for president.” View on YouTube

Among white‑collar sectors, large IT services and coding‑for‑hire firms such as Accenture, Tata Consultancy Services, and Cognizant will be the first to adopt AI at scale specifically to displace human labor in coding jobs, ahead of sectors like law and accounting.

“They will be the first people to figure out how to use these tools at scale before the law firms or the accounting firms or any of those folks even sort of try to figure out how to displace white collar labor, I think is going to be the coding jobs, and it's going to be the coding for higher jobs that companies like Accenture and TCS.” View on YouTube

Over time (within the coming years to couple of decades), AI systems will eliminate the need for humans to perform most forms of software coding work, beyond the already-ongoing elimination of manual unit testing.

“Look, I think that AI is going to eliminate unit testing. It has already done so. It's going to eliminate most forms of coding.” View on YouTube

Given the state of US antitrust law as of mid‑2020, large tech platforms (Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon) will not be broken up under existing antitrust statutes; instead, over the coming years they will primarily face new regulatory regimes (rules, oversight, taxation) rather than structural antitrust breakups.

“I really think that the antitrust legislative framework that exists today isn't enough to touch any of these guys. Instead, I think what really happens is more regulatory.” View on YouTube

Among the big four US tech companies, Amazon will face the least antitrust/competition enforcement risk in the ensuing years compared with Facebook (highest risk), then Google, then Apple.

“In many ways Amazon is the most inoculated simply because the end market that they operate in is so massive.” View on YouTube

Starting from around 2020 and for the foreseeable future, the four largest US tech companies (Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon) will be effectively unable to complete large acquisitions of other tech companies due to antitrust and regulatory scrutiny, causing a de facto halt to major M&A by these firms.

“So I think large acquisition and M&A, uh, by the big four, uh, it's impossible.” View on YouTube

If large‑cap tech M&A becomes effectively unavailable as an exit (as expected from 2020 onward), US public capital markets will respond over the following years by more actively funding and listing emerging growth tech companies, increasing IPO/going‑public activity compared with the 2000–2020 period.

“the idea that there isn't an M&A on ramp anymore means that more capital and the capital markets will become more fluid, and we will support emerging growth companies in the public markets, is my suspicion.” View on YouTube

If, as expected from 2020 onward, large‑cap tech companies are effectively prevented from acquiring startups, late‑stage private tech company valuations will decline significantly (relative to 2010s levels) because investors can no longer underwrite a 2x markup via strategic M&A exits.

“If big tech M&A is off the table, the single biggest thing that'll change is valuations by late stage by late stage privates. Because if you know that you can't get A2X mark to market from the last post, guess what will happen to your post money? It'll go way down.” View on YouTube

Regulators will increasingly act (from the early 2020s onward) to prevent already‑large internet/tech companies from further compounding their advantage through acquisitions that strengthen their core businesses, leading to more blocked or heavily conditioned deals as those firms grow.

“there is a fear that there is going to be a compounding advantage that regulators have a responsibility to stop.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, governments will come to treat core internet services as critical infrastructure, subjecting major internet companies to regulatory regimes analogous to those applied historically to aviation, agriculture, radio/TV, and transportation (i.e., sector‑specific regulators and rules rather than pure antitrust enforcement).

“we have to admit that now the internet.” View on YouTube

In the 2020s, news and journalism will increasingly be rebuilt from the bottom up on subscription platforms like Substack, where individual writers monetize directly via paid subscribers; over time, additional aggregation tools will emerge on top of these newsletters, enabling bundles of multiple creator subscriptions that function as "next‑generation magazines" or content bundles.

“the first place where I think that goes is places like Substack, which is going to rebuild it bottoms up, where people will vote with their subscription dollars, what to believe and what not to believe. And then on top of that, people will overlay aggregation tools so that you can actually have multiple subscriptions and create sort of like next generation magazines and content subscriptions or whatever. I think that's where the that's where the world is going in terms of information and content.” View on YouTube

Governments will implement new regulatory frameworks on major internet and social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Google, Twitter) in the years following 2020, going beyond existing laws to more directly govern their operations and societal impact.

“I think that governments are going to regulate these companies. Let's just be clear.” View on YouTube

Amazon will escape the current round of antitrust hearings largely unscathed, but within 5 to 10 years it will face the same antitrust scrutiny currently aimed at Facebook and Google.

“within 5 or 10 years, um it definitely will be looked at through the same lens as Facebook and Google” View on YouTube

Trump will win the November 2020 election, betting his own assessment against the prevailing consensus that Biden is the clear favorite.

“I'd go Trump” View on YouTube

Chamath predicts that once Congress and the administration agree on a new federal unemployment insurance extension in 2020, it will take U.S. state agencies approximately 4–8 weeks to technically implement and restart payments under the revised program.

“So my point is, uh, it's going to take 4 to 8 weeks to reimplement unemployment insurance once we decide what we're going to do.” View on YouTube

When forced to stake his “entire net worth” as of July 31, 2020, Chamath predicts that Joe Biden will win the November 2020 U.S. presidential election.

“No, Biden, it's it's a languishing campaign as of today. David is right. He's a salesman without a pitch.” View on YouTube

Chamath predicts that the 2020 U.S. presidential election outcome will be decisively resolved in the Electoral College, without a Bush v. Gore–style recount or “hanging chad” controversy, and that the margin will not be razor-thin in electoral votes.

“I do not think there will be a hanging Chad issue in this election. This is going to be one way or the other, incredibly decisive on an electoral college level.” View on YouTube

By the time DOGE’s program of forensic analysis and cuts is fully implemented (i.e., by the end of Trump’s second term), the total annualized federal spending reduction or waste eliminated identified by DOGE will exceed $2 trillion per year.

“And I think when you start to uncover through forensic analysis where these dollars are going and how it's spent, that's probably how you're going to close the gap from a trillion to. And I suspect, to be honest, it could be more than $2 trillion. When it's all said and done, that is an enormous amount of waste and it's unproductive.” View on YouTube

In the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, the Democratic Party will retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Right now, I think that... I think the Democrats are going to keep the House.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, the Chinese government will increasingly move to de facto or de jure nationalize major parts of its technology sector, asserting direct state control or ownership over large Chinese internet and tech companies.

“I think that what we're what we're starting to see is the beginning of Nationalizations. And I think it's going to start in technology universe, because those are the critical assets that the Chinese need to own for the future.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, global trade policy will increasingly adopt carbon tariffs, where importing countries assess duties based on the lifecycle carbon emissions of products (e.g., a British carbon tariff on a German Volkswagen), and this shift will create large redistributions of economic value (both gains and losses) across companies and sectors.

“I think that that's where the world is going, and that's probably David, to your point, it's going to be a really big value unlock because the amount of money that'll get both made but also destroyed in that process will be incredible.” View on YouTube

Within 20–30 years from July 2021 (i.e., by July 2041–2051), there will be a practical breakthrough in room‑temperature superconductors, enabling superconductivity at or near ambient conditions and causing a major shift in how energy transmission and storage problems are addressed.

“People have been innovating in bringing that up to room temperature in that breakthrough, which I think you will see in the next 20 to 30 years. It's just a complete sea change of how we think about this whole problem.” View on YouTube

At least one immigrant currently living in the United States (as of 2021) will be responsible for a breakthrough that enables practical zero‑resistance electrical conduction (a commercially relevant superconducting technology) that materially transforms global energy and power systems, occurring within the next few decades.

“There is an immigrant in in the United States right now that will figure out how to conduct electricity without resistance. It will transform the world.” View on YouTube

Combining next-generation decode-optimized silicon with open-source AI models will cut the overall cost of running AI by about 90%, driving individual usage costs down to roughly $10 a day.

“post Grock what I think will happen is you're going to see an explosion of decode silicon. If you take these next generation systems and you marry them to open source you're going to cut the cost of AI by 90%. And when you do that you know Jason your bill is going to be 10 bucks a day.” View on YouTube

Major AI model makers will launch a revenue-sharing program that pays users to license back their prompt-and-response data, potentially covering the full cost of hosting and running AI models.

“It's a matter of time until the big model makers create an incremental revenue stream for guys like you, Jason, to license back all your prompt and response data. And you'll probably make enough to pay for the all the costs of hosting and running these models.” View on YouTube

California will face a roughly $1 trillion fiscal cliff from unfunded, legally locked-in public pension obligations that can only be resolved via a state constitutional amendment or a new state bankruptcy mechanism.

“California has a trillion dollar fiscal cliff coming up because of the pension obligations... there are two ways that California can be saved. Number one, you pass an amendment to the Constitution to fix this pension liability problem. And number two is the state has the ability to declare bankruptcy.” View on YouTube

Within 5-10 years of late 2025, human taxi driving will be widely regarded as unnecessary and unsafe due to self-driving vehicles (following Waymo's expansion), and humanoid robots (e.g., Optimus) will eliminate warehouse package-sorting jobs such as those at Amazon.

“We will be sitting here in but 5 10 years and the idea of somebody driving a taxi is going to seem silly and dangerous. We will see the same exact thing happen with Optimist... All those sorting jobs at Amazon factories are going away.” View on YouTube

Following large tech layoffs, there will be a boom ("Cambrian explosion") of small AI-enabled startups of roughly five to ten people founded by laid-off tech workers, many of whom will end up earning more than they did at their previous large-company jobs.

“I believe we'll have a Cambrian explosion in startups and all these this talent if they embrace the tools to Bill Gurley's point are going to be able to solve more problems and create small companies of five or 10 people who are laid off from Amazon or Meta and make double their salary.” View on YouTube

Within the next 10 years (by approximately 2035), the large majority of cab drivers, truck drivers, and package-sorting workers in the US will lose their jobs to automation (self-driving vehicles and robotics).

“Every cab driver is losing their job. Every truck driver is losing their job in the next 10 years. Anybody sorting packages losing a job.” View on YouTube

In the coming years, multiple other celebrity- or influencer-centric companies will go public with valuations primarily driven by the goodwill and personal brand of the individual (similar to Trump’s DJT), rather than by traditional revenue and profit fundamentals.

“I'm also predicting that many other individuals will go public and have enterprise values that are levered in the same way as DJT. And that is a modern version of the boy band from 1997.” View on YouTube

By approximately the year 2100, the population of the United States will be around 400 million people, while the populations of other Western countries will be roughly half of their current levels.

“by the end of this century, we'll be around 400, odd million individuals and other countries will have been cut in half.” View on YouTube

The current U.S. fiscal and political pattern of high federal spending and rising debt (the present status quo discussed in the episode) will persist for many years without a sudden crisis or collapse forcing rapid change.

“this is probably why the status quo will go on for a very long time.” View on YouTube

The Federal Reserve will largely finish raising interest rates by the end of 2022 and will likely begin cutting rates in the second half of 2023.

“So what he effectively did in one speech is basically put a pin at the end of this year and is telling the markets I'm mostly going to be done. And if anything, I'm probably going to be cutting in the back half of 23.” View on YouTube

Having crossed roughly 5% of new car sales, electric vehicle adoption in the U.S. has passed the critical tipping point and will continue transitioning from early adopters to broad mass‑market adoption from 2022 onward (i.e., EV share of new car sales will keep rising materially rather than stalling or reversing).

“There was a lot of, um, analysis that's been done on consumer adoption patterns. And typically for a new good or service, the tipping point is around 5% mass market adoption from when it goes from early adopters to the mass market, and EVs just crossed 5%. So to his point, the historical data would tell you that we're now past the critical point where it's no longer questionable. Now it's just going to happen.” View on YouTube

If the Democratic Republic of the Congo proceeds with auctioning oil rights and uses the resulting fossil-fuel revenue without large-scale pilfering, then within roughly one generation (~20–30 years) the country’s economic situation will be dramatically improved, with significantly higher national productivity enabled by investments in health care and education.

“But the reality is in one generation, what will happen is they will feed the world's desire for fossil fuels that will generate a lot of revenue. Hopefully it doesn't get pilfered. And so it gets invested in health care and education. And within a generation, this country could be in a completely different situation, allowing the productivity of that entire population of that country to do what they think is right.” View on YouTube

Donald Trump will decisively win ("run away with") the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, with the Colorado Supreme Court ballot-removal decision helping to seal that outcome.

“I think that this move by the Colorado Supreme Court basically sealed the deal. I think he is going to run away with the Republican nomination.” View on YouTube

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running as an independent in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, will attract an unusually large share of the vote by building a plurality among centrist and protest voters, exceeding the type of ceiling that existed for Ross Perot in 1992.

“Because the country is much more fragmented today. There's a lot more protest votes today. There's just a lot of reasons where RFK can garner a lot of support and build a plurality among centrists.” View on YouTube

In the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running as an independent will surpass Ross Perot’s 19% popular vote share from 1992, due to greater voter fragmentation and protest sentiment.

“Because the country is much more fragmented today. There's a lot more protest votes today. There's just a lot of reasons where RFK can garner a lot of support and build a plurality among centrists. That wasn't possible when Perot was running, because when he ran, you have to you have to remember, like the country was in a very different place psychologically than it is right now.” View on YouTube

In a 2024 Biden-vs.-Trump general election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent candidacy will draw more support from Joe Biden than from Donald Trump, hurting Biden more electorally.

“It hurts Biden the most.” View on YouTube

In 2024, U.S. equity markets will experience a "melt‑up" (strong upward move) up to the point of the Federal Reserve’s first interest rate cut, after which there will likely be a significant market sell‑off.

“I think now what the setup is for 2024 is basically we will melt up. Up until the first cut, and then there'll probably be some real selling.” View on YouTube

From 2024 onward, Ivy League universities overall will experience: (1) a continued, material decline in applications (the downward trend in applications will persist and deepen beyond the ~17% decline already reported for Harvard), (2) a decline in private contributions/donations to these institutions, (3) reductions in government funding or spending directed to these schools, and (4) at least one organized political or legal attempt to remove or challenge their nonprofit status.

“I think Harvard applications were down 17% already. I expect that trend across the Ivies to go way up. I expect contributions to go down. I expect governments to ratchet down their spending in those schools, and I expect some folks to try to take away their nonprofit status.” View on YouTube

Compared to the 2010–2024 period, the number of large corporate bankruptcies in the United States will increase over the next several years (post-2025), rather than decline, as the effects of the zero-interest-rate era and renewed competitive pressures work through the economy.

“So if you put these two things together, I think you're going to see more, not less bankruptcies.” View on YouTube

Within 3–4 years of 2025 (by roughly 2028–2029), some form of medical tourism will emerge in countries with looser regulation (e.g., Costa Rica or similar) offering Yamanaka-factor-style rejuvenation protein therapies to individuals, outside of standard U.S. clinical-trial channels.

“You think there's a version where people fly to Costa Rica? I'm making Costa Rica up. I'm just saying and can do something for themselves in the next 3 to 4 years.” View on YouTube

Within 5–10 years of September 27, 2024 (i.e., by 2029–2034), AI/agent-based alternatives to traditional enterprise 'system of record' SaaS products (e.g., large CRM/ERP/HRIS suites sold on expensive seat-based licenses) will become so much cheaper that most enterprises will no longer be able to economically justify paying legacy-level prices for those traditional systems.

“when you confront the total cost of that versus what the alternative that is clearly going to happen in the next 5 or 10 years, irrespective of whether any of us build it or not, it'll... you will not be able to just you just won't be able to justify it because it's going to cost you a fraction of the price.” View on YouTube

Meta’s AR glasses line will be commercially successful in the near to medium term, but when people look back 25–30 years from now, the dominant, iconic "killer" AI hardware device will not resemble today’s familiar form factors (phones, current AR glasses, pins, etc.).

“I want to be clear. I, I think these glasses are are going to be successful. My only comment is that I think that when you look back 25 and 30 years from now and say that was the killer AI device, I don't think it's going to look like something we know today.” View on YouTube

AirPods‑style earbuds will evolve into effective hearing aids and, as that capability rolls out, will become socially acceptable for people to wear almost continuously (effectively 24/7) in everyday life.

“The other subtle thing that's happening, which I don't think we should sleep on, is that the AirPods are probably going to become much more socially acceptable to wear on a 24 by seven basis because of this feature that allows it to become a useful hearing aid.” View on YouTube

Over the ensuing months after October 27, 2023, the Israel‑Hamas conflict and the Russia‑Ukraine war will tend to remain in a "slow and simmering" state without rapid military escalation to a much larger regional or world war, with de‑escalatory actions coexisting with heightened rhetoric.

“So I don't know what to say, except that it does not seem to be escalating. And the reason it isn't escalating is that there is enough emotional impact that's causing people to understand that the stakes are high. And so when the actual actions are relatively de-escalatory, I find that the rhetoric ratchets up right. It's almost inversely proportional.” View on YouTube

The U.S. economy will enter a recession over the 2–3 quarters following Q3 2023 (i.e., sometime between Q4 2023 and Q2 2024), which will in turn lead the Federal Reserve to begin cutting interest rates around mid‑2024.

“we are betting on increasingly is that consumer demand has basically stopped. So you can see here Adyen is down 50% since the beginning of the year...So so that's one thing, which is this is a big bet that consumption is slowing and shrinking. The economy will be in a recession over these next 2 or 3 quarters, which will give the fed the motivation and the justification to lower rates starting in the middle of next year.” View on YouTube

When Stripe next prices a large liquidity event in the public or late‑stage private markets after October 2023 (e.g., IPO or major secondary), its equity valuation will clear in roughly the $25–30 billion range, implying about a 50% markdown from its prior $55 billion round valuation.

“the problem now for stripe is that the public comps dollar for dollar are off 50%, which from the beginning of the year, which then says that if you apply that ratably to its valuation, they did around at 55 billion, then the market clearing trade may be 25 to 30 billion now.” View on YouTube

In the period following October 2023, the venture and growth equity ecosystem will undergo a substantial valuation reset, with many private tech company valuations (from seed through late stage) being marked down significantly from 2020–2021 levels rather than reverting to those peak prices.

“I almost think that maybe none of the hard work has actually yet started. So I don't know. I'm just putting that out there. Guys, do you think that we've all just kind of been hoping maybe that all of this would pass, and now we're getting more and more signals that we actually have to do a pretty hard valuation reset.” View on YouTube

A true, market‑wide reset of late‑stage private tech valuations will not fully occur until after Stripe completes an IPO; Stripe’s IPO pricing will act as the key reference point that forces down valuations of other private tech companies in its cohort.

“I don't think the reset can happen until stripe goes public. I'll be very specific. I think that is the company that sets the cascading valuation framework for every other company.” View on YouTube

At some future point, the Florida state reinsurance backstop will prove effectively insolvent after major climate/insurance losses, leading to federal intervention on the order of roughly $1 trillion to support or backstop coastal real‑estate–linked insurance obligations in the U.S.

“So the federal government's going to be asked to step in and cover that thing at some point, and then someone's got to write $1 trillion check. I mean, you know, you want to complain about sending 100 billion to Ukraine and Israel. Wait until most of the country has to underwrite coastal communities real estate values.” View on YouTube

If the inflation data released on the Friday following this recording shows moderating inflation and moderate growth, the Federal Reserve will signal a less aggressive tightening path and equity markets will experience a significant short‑term rally immediately afterward.

“So right now we're in a moment of pause. And there is the potential If this data comes back as reasonably good, which means prices are not escalating as much as we thought, inflation is not going to be as bad. Growth is going to be moderate. That that gives a lot of ammo for the fed to kind of take their foot off the off the gas here. In that case the markets will go boom.” View on YouTube

If a macro slowdown forces significant downward revisions to corporate earnings forecasts, U.S. equity markets will likely make their cycle low at the point when those revisions occur, expected within the next 2–3 quarters from this May 2022 discussion (i.e., by roughly Q1 2023).

“And that's the risk now that's left in the market in my opinion that could take it much, much lower is if that, you know, all of this slowdown really contracts spend and the earnings are actually not accurate. The forecasted earnings will need to be revised over the next 2 or 3 quarters. And that's where we will probably see the low.” View on YouTube

The U.S. Department of Justice’s 2023 antitrust lawsuit seeking to break up Google’s digital advertising business will ultimately fail in court and will not result in Google being broken up in ad-tech.

“So for example, if you went back to the big, big, big monopolist case in the 1980s, which is when we broke up Ma Bell. Well, what that circle would have shown is that they basically had effectively 100% share. And what this shows is that there's a huge diversity of people in this market. The second thing is that if you had done this chart many years ago, Amazon would not have really even been there. And over the last five years, they represent almost 12% of the entire market. And it means that if you forecast it forward, they could be at 15 to 20% in a few years as well. So while the pie is growing and definitely Google takes a lot of the profit dollars, the distribution is so much more than what anything looks like in a monopoly. And so I just think it means that the DOJ is more focused on trying to punish these great American companies than it is in trying to be logical and reasoned. And so I don't think this is going to work. The last thing I'll say about this is that if you think about what you should have done, if I were the US government, I would have actually focused on search, because search is a monopoly for Google.” View on YouTube

Amazon's share of the digital advertising market will grow from roughly 12% in early 2023 to approximately 15–20% within a few years (by around 2026–2028).

“over the last five years, they represent almost 12% of the entire market. And it means that if you forecast it forward, they could be at 15 to 20% in a few years as well.” View on YouTube

In the context of the 2023 debt ceiling standoff, President Joe Biden will invoke the 14th Amendment and unilaterally pass a budget via executive order to avoid default.

“So what Biden could do is he could say the 14th amendment gives me the right I'm going to pass a budget via executive order.” View on YouTube

By around 2028, the U.S. federal fiscal situation will remain structurally similar to 2023, with continued large deficits and a higher debt-to-GDP ratio, and no major reform having been implemented to change the debt trajectory.

“nothing will change and you guys will still be crying wolf in five years. It'll still be the same. It'll just be a different debt to GDP number that gives you anxiety.” View on YouTube

In the AI cycle starting circa 2023, the majority of long-term economic value will accrue 5–7 years later (around 2028–2030) to software and services companies built on top of AI, rather than to the AI chip hardware makers.

“where the real value gets accrued is five, six, seven years later when the software and services companies show up and create a huge moat. And those are the Googles and the Facebook's and the apples of the world.” View on YouTube

The current market hype and outsized investor focus on Nvidia and AI chips will persist for at least several quarters and likely a few years, after which institutional 'smart money' investors will rotate their capital into the next segment of the AI value chain (away from Nvidia/chipmakers).

“So we're gonna we're gonna have a few years. We're gonna have a few quarters for sure of this hype. And then the smart money will probably figure out where the next lily pad is, and then they'll go to the next.” View on YouTube

The Tesla Model Y will become the best-selling car in the United States (measured by unit sales) in an upcoming full year following this May 2023 conversation.

“that model Y is going to be the best selling car. It's going to be the best selling car in America.” View on YouTube

Canada, the UK, and Australia will see increased political stability and predictability as a result of their under-16 social media bans, driven by a less radicalized youth electorate.

“I suspect if you start to see political stability and predictability in Canada, the UK, and Australia, you can put your finger right on this ban as the reason why.” View on YouTube

The share of proposed data center projects that face community/regulatory contestation, roughly 40% since 2021, will continue to increase.

“since 2021 about 40% of all data centers get contested, right? I think that number is going to go up.” View on YouTube

By fall 2024 (roughly September–November 2024), there will be a broad-based pattern of corporate revenue misses in earnings reports, indicating significant consumer weakness and a deteriorating consumer credit cycle in the U.S., making the economic environment during that period notably more difficult than in mid-2024.

“I think that when you see a broad based set of revenue misses that that will kind of mean that the consumer is really under pressure. I still think that that's more in the fall, but we're headed in that direction... And then the whole consumer cycle, the consumer credit cycle, that doesn't look good to be honest. And so I think the fall is going to be complicated.” View on YouTube

From late January 2024 through roughly July–October 2024, consumer discretionary spending will weaken, leading many companies to either cut prices or guide investors to lower revenue/earnings expectations compared to the prior period.

“I think that the next probably 6 to 9 months are more of these kinds of things where folks realize that the amount of discretionary income that people had is less. They will either lower prices or lower expectations.” View on YouTube

By 18–24 months after January 26, 2024 (i.e., between late July 2025 and late January 2026), broad equity indices (e.g., S&P 500) will be materially higher than on January 26, 2024, reflecting a continued market "melt up" driven by sidelined capital re-entering risk assets.

“when we look back 18 to 24 months from now, the market will probably be materially higher because there's just so much money on the sidelines and that just continues to grow and grow and grow.” View on YouTube

Equity markets are in a "melt up" phase that will continue for the next 18–24 months from January 26, 2024, resulting in substantially higher index levels by mid-2025 to early 2026 compared with January 2024.

“when we look back 18 to 24 months from now, the market will probably be materially higher... I think that all roads lead to a continued melt up” View on YouTube

Before the Delaware Chancery Court fully adjudicates the case, the Elon Musk–Twitter dispute will most likely be resolved via a settlement in which (a) Musk pays roughly the economic difference between Twitter’s then‑trading price and $54.20 per share (on the order of $7–10 billion), or (b) the deal closes at a renegotiated price around $51 per share, rather than at $54.20.

“this kind of, again, builds more and more momentum in my mind that the most likely outcome here is a settlement where you have to pay the economic difference between where the stock is now and 54, 20, which is more than $1 billion, or you close at some number below $54.20 a share. And I think that that is like, you know, if you had to be a betting person, that's probably. And if you look at the the way the stock is traded, and if you also look at the way the options market trades, that's what people are assuming that there's a 7 to $10 billion swing. And if you impute that into the stock price. You kind of get into the $51 a share, kind of an acquisition price.” View on YouTube

Following the Twitter whistleblower’s allegations about foreign government agents inside Twitter, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee will hold at least one closed‑door session with Twitter representatives, and may subsequently call in additional large tech companies for similar briefings, within the ensuing legislative term.

“I think it's fair to say that the the the the Senate Intelligence Committee is going to haul Twitter and have like a closed door meeting. And then the question is, you know, will they haul everybody else in?” View on YouTube

As awareness of privacy risks grows, a meaningful portion of consumers will shift spending away from discretionary items like restaurant meals and toward paid privacy‑protecting services (e.g., VPNs, private browsers, secure storage) over the coming years.

“I do think that the pendulum starts to swing in the other direction where we say, okay, you know what, I'll eat out at Chipotle one night a week less, and instead I'm going to reallocate that money to making sure that I have, you know, some amount of privacy.” View on YouTube

The Biden administration’s 2022 student loan forgiveness initiative will not materially increase voter turnout or be a top‑tier motivating issue for most voters in the 2022 midterm elections.

“I don't think this is what gets people out to vote, and I don't think it's what people care about. Ultimately, at the polls, which if there was a political calculation to make, that's important.” View on YouTube

The 25% unrealized gains ‘wealth tax’ and the roughly 45% top long‑term capital gains rate proposed in Biden’s FY2025 budget will not be enacted into U.S. law during the 2025 budget cycle.

“These things will never pass.” View on YouTube

Financial markets are correctly pricing in an overwhelming likelihood that Donald Trump wins the November 2024 U.S. presidential election, and if he wins by a sizable margin then over the following months gold prices, Bitcoin prices, and major equity indices will rise further while long‑term U.S. interest rates (e.g., 10‑year Treasury yields) move higher.

“I think that the short term takeaway that I have just looking at all of this data is that in the economic distribution of outcomes, this is now tilted overwhelmingly to a Trump win… And if Trump wins, which it looks like he's increasingly going to do, and if he wins by the margins that it looks like it's going to do, you're going to see a lot of these things exacerbate. Gold's going to go up more probably Bitcoin will probably go up. The short term economic upside for the economy will probably get reflected in higher equity prices, but it'll also push out long term rates.” View on YouTube

If Trump wins the November 2024 U.S. presidential election and his economic program is implemented, U.S. inflation will increase in the medium term (roughly 1–3 years after inauguration), and both Bitcoin and gold will appreciate as hedges against that inflation.

“in the medium term inflation goes up. And so you want to hedge right… So Bitcoin and gold I think will trade that way.” View on YouTube

Over the long term (on the order of the next 50–100 years), Bitcoin will emerge as the dominant global inflation‑hedging asset, displacing gold, such that gold’s role as a primary rational economic insurance policy against inflation structurally declines from here.

“at the beginning of the year, I said the breakout asset Was going to be Bitcoin. I think it looks like it's going to be the resounding inflation hedge asset for the next 50 or 100 years. So that die has been cast. I think you're seeing the last vestiges of people using gold as a rational economic insurance policy. But I think the future is specifically Bitcoin on that dimension.” View on YouTube

If Kamala Harris were to win the November 2024 U.S. presidential election, then within the following 1–2 months many of the asset price trends observed in the prior 1.5 months (rising long‑term yields, strong dollar, moves into gold/Bitcoin/equities that were driven by expectations of a Trump win) would largely reverse.

“in my scenarios, what happens if Kamala Harris wins? What the markets do. And I actually think it would reverse a lot of these trends over, like the last month and a half.” View on YouTube

Given the current extreme level of the Buffett Indicator, at some point in the foreseeable future U.S. equities will undergo a material correction such that broad equity valuations become lower than they are now before they can move substantially higher again.

“we've actually set an absolute new high in this thing, which again, to the extent that you believe in indicators like this, what kind of tell you that at some point here, equities are probably going to be cheaper before they're going to get more expensive.” View on YouTube

Over the next decade, the fair or market‑clearing yield on U.S. government debt (such as the 10‑year Treasury) is likely to rise significantly above 4%, and could end up in the 6–8% range for a sustained period.

“is it reasonable that the market clearing price for government issued debt over the next decade is 4%? I mean, my gosh, it could easily be 6%. It could easily be 7 or 8%.” View on YouTube

Chamath Palihapitiya predicts that, going forward, as GLP-1 weight‑loss drug adoption increases across the U.S. (particularly among Starbucks customers), Starbucks will experience a continuing decline in same‑store sales, with GLP‑1 adoption and Starbucks same‑store sales moving in opposite directions over time.

“And this in a nutshell, is not something that Starbucks can fix with their current product mix. And so I think that they're fighting into a headwind. And these other companies are deeply incentivized to get American taste buds to be different. And so, Jason, the things that you talked about are exactly the things that I think start to fall off the menu or just don't sell as much, because whatever the population of Americans are that are on GLP one, let's say it's single digits. The real question is what percentage of Starbucks customers are on these things? And I think it's probably much more than single digits. And this is why I think you see the continuous decline in same store sales. And I think if you start to graph the adoption of GLP one pervasively in America to the drop in same store sales, I think as GLP one adoption goes up. Same store sales will continue to go down.” View on YouTube

In the fall of 2021 there will be additional notable SARS‑CoV‑2 variants beyond Delta, leading to a difficult winter 2021–2022 in terms of COVID impact.

“we hear about the Delta variant. Now we're going to hear about other variants in the fall. It's going to be a tough winter. We cannot shut down.” View on YouTube

Over the next 10–15 years from 2021, Amazon, Apple, Shopify, and Stripe will all remain successful and continue to be major winners in their respective markets, rather than any one of them being displaced or substantially diminished by the others.

“I'll give you a different take. I think that all four companies are going to win. ... Yeah, they're going to continue to win.” View on YouTube

Within the next several years (by ~2026–2027), competitive entry in AI accelerators (custom chips from hyperscalers, Tesla Dojo, RISC‑V, etc.) will materially erode Nvidia’s profit margins and reduce its upside earnings growth relative to the levels implied by its 2023 results.

“so it probably just motivates them even more and accelerates the path where you see competition... and I think we're going to have to figure out when the market prices that in, because I think that that probably decays the Nvidia margin and upside over time.” View on YouTube

Over the next 4–5 years (by roughly 2028), large tech companies’ AI platforms and models (e.g., Llama 2, Tesla Dojo/FSD, other foundational models) will be made available on an open‑source or quasi‑free basis, and this will enable the creation of hundreds of new startups, including at least one major breakout company built on top of these freely available AI tools.

“all of that stuff will be given away essentially, I think open source, quasi free to the ecosystem over the next few years. And I think that will be a really important moment, which will create hundreds of new companies doing really clever and cool things. So we haven't yet seen the big breakout company yet. And so I think that right now most of this CapEx is going to the big guys. But the dividends of all the work that these big guys are doing will be seen over the next few years in the startups that get started in the next 4 or 5 years.” View on YouTube

In the coming years (by around 2028), most major AI models and platforms will be open‑sourced or have open equivalents, and this trend will extend to AI hardware, with open reference designs for AI servers/chip systems becoming widely available and used, analogous to Facebook’s Open Compute in Web2.

“I think it makes logical sense that you can expect the same things to happen in the AI world. The AI models and the AI platforms and all of that stuff will first get open source because it's a data integrity security issue, and then the hardware will get an open source as well, because you just want simple reference designs you can use and plug and play.” View on YouTube

Arm’s intrinsic public‑market equity value, once it trades in a normal post‑IPO environment (e.g., after initial lockups and hype have cleared), will settle around $15–20 billion, substantially below the $60–70 billion valuation SoftBank is targeting for the IPO.

“Trying to stretch to a 60 or 70 billion dollar print, I think is really tough. This is a honestly a 15 to 20 billion dollar company.” View on YouTube

A Starlink IPO, if it occurs in roughly the next year or so after this August 2023 discussion (by end of 2024), would be the single offering capable of broadly re‑opening and catalyzing the U.S. tech IPO market, bringing many investors “off the sidelines.”

“I made this prediction earlier. But I think the only company that can really catalyze things would be if people are ready to do Starlink. I mean, it's the most obvious, natural, logical thing that would just get everybody excited and off the sidelines and into the arena. But that may take another year, may not, but it may.” View on YouTube

Over the weeks following the first GOP debate in August 2023 and into fall 2023, Vivek Ramaswamy will build significant momentum among Republican voters, particularly Trump loyalists, by positioning himself as offering Trump-like policies without Trump's baggage.

“I'm fascinated to see what the Republican Reaction over the next few weeks will be to Vivek...If he is able to thread that needle, which is what I think his effective strategy has been. He could really build momentum going into the fall.” View on YouTube

By the later stages of the 2024 Republican primary (when only three or four candidates remain meaningfully competitive), the non-Trump field will consist of Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and either Tim Scott or Nikki Haley.

“I think it'll be DeSantis, Vivek, and it'll be either Tim Scott or Nikki Haley.” View on YouTube

Vivek Ramaswamy has a strong chance to win, and may in fact win, the Republican presidential nomination for the 2024 election.

“I think that Vivek has a really good chance of winning this Republican nomination. That's what I saw. I saw... No no no no. I really do think he's he can win this thing.” View on YouTube

Absent Vivek Ramaswamy successfully overtaking Donald Trump within the GOP electorate, Donald Trump will win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

“If Vivek doesn't figure out a way to slipstream past Trump, that Trump will win the nomination.” View on YouTube

If California voters approve the billionaire wealth tax and courts later overturn it, California legislators will subsequently enact a new, legally compliant progressive tax package aimed at high-wealth individuals, using the popular vote as justification.

“The reality is that this sets it up to go through the legislature, because if it goes through the will of the people and it gets overturned, as you say, Friberg, then if you're legislatively smart, then you'll actually push it through the state Senate... So I think that you'll have some kind of progressive taxation system that conforms to the law.”

If California’s billionaire wealth tax framework is implemented and sustained, over time the wealth threshold will be lowered so that individuals with less than $1 billion in assets are also subject to similar wealth-based taxation.

“By the way, they get away with this. And it's not just going to be billionaires. Eventually the line will... Get pushed down.”

In light of the rise of platforms like Polymarket, DraftKings and FanDuel will suffer severe long-term business deterioration, with their equities materially underperforming and their competitive position in online betting largely eroding.

“And you can see, by the way, the way that DraftKings and FanDuel stock have reacted to this. Those companies are toast. Toast.”

Within the next several years, a major unified trading platform will emerge that allows users, from a single account with shared margin and KYC/AML, to trade across asset classes including cryptocurrencies, prediction/betting markets, equities, and options.

“Somebody needs to build the app that makes all of these things fungible and buy all what I mean are cryptocurrencies betting markets equities and options... That's where it's going.”

In the mature, non‑AI public cloud infrastructure market, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform will each end up with roughly one‑third market share, converging toward an approximate 33/33/33 split over time.

“So there's all these reasons why eventually all these three big companies will converge effectively. Roughly a third, a third, a third. We're going to debate the path to get there. But that's where they'll end up.”

At the upcoming Tesla shareholder vote on Elon Musk's new 'trillion dollar' pay package (resolution #6 referenced in the episode), there is a meaningful chance that shareholders will reject (vote down) the compensation package.

“So I think there's a risk that this that this package gets voted down.”

For Tesla/Optimus (or similar Elon Musk humanoid robots), the first million units produced will primarily be deployed on Mars rather than on Earth (e.g., in factories or other terrestrial settings).

“If I had to bet, I think a very fun Polly market is where do the first million robots go? I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that these robots go to Mars. I don't think they're going to.”

Within 5–10 years from May 2024, OpenAI’s internal security and operational protocols will resemble those of a highly classified U.S. "three-letter" agency (e.g., strict access controls, compartmentalization, heavy security procedures) more than the open, campus-like culture historically associated with Google’s Googleplex.

“in order to be this incredible bastion of like AGI and innovation, I suspect that it's going to look more like a three letter agency in terms of security and protocols in the next 5 or 10 years, than it is going to look like the Googleplex.”

Over the next several years (through roughly 2027), venture and growth investors in Silicon Valley will significantly increase capital allocation into semiconductor and hardware startups (especially AI chips and related infrastructure), compared with the pre-2023 period when such investments were relatively rare.

“what you're seeing and what you'll see even more now is this incentive for Silicon Valley, who has been really reticent to put money into chips, really reticent to put money into hardware. They're going to get pulled into investing in this space because there's no choice.”

Within the next several years, Nvidia’s market share in AI compute (GPUs/AI accelerators used for training and inference) will decline due to competition from new entrants, even as Nvidia’s total revenue from AI-related products continues to grow year over year.

“At some point the spread trade will be that Nvidia loses share even though revenues keep compounding to these upstarts.”

Within the next several years (by around 2030), Nvidia will expand beyond selling GPUs/servers into offering its own large-scale cloud or data-center compute service that competes directly with major hyperscalers such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure (i.e., customers will be able to rent Nvidia-operated GPU compute capacity as an alternative to those hyperscalers).

“I think Nvidia this is to build on Sachs's point is going to get pulled into competing directly with the hyperscalers. So if you were just selling chips, you probably wouldn't. But Sachs is right. Like these are these big, bulky actual machines. Then all of a sudden you're like, well, why don't I just create my own physical plant and just stack these things and create racks and racks of these machines and go head to head with AWS instead of selling to them?... I think it's it's likely that Nvidia goes on a full frontal assault against GCP and Amazon and Microsoft.”

The U.S. federal funds rate will remain at an elevated level (relative to market expectations and recent history) for an extended period, staying higher for longer than most market participants desire or anticipate, rather than quickly reverting to near‑zero rates.

“Look, I've maintained now for nine months that rates are going to be long higher than we like and longer than we want.” View on YouTube

To break U.S. inflation, the Federal Reserve will ultimately have to raise the federal funds rate to at least 5.5–5.75%, implying further rate hikes above the then-current 4.75–5.0% range.

“we've known since Volcker era what we need to do to do that, which is you need to get interest rates to be greater than terminal inflation, which means that if 5% fed funds rate is insufficient. So we're going to need to see a print of five and a half, 5.75%.” View on YouTube

By early May 2023, the U.S. Federal Reserve will publicly release its investigation report covering both Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

“In early May, the fed will release their investigation into signature Bank and SVB.” View on YouTube

The U.S. government will ultimately choose to shut down TikTok’s operations in the United States rather than allow a divestiture, because legislators will not be satisfied that the codebase and infrastructure can be cleanly separated from Chinese control in a provable way.

“So it's a pretty bad tell. I don't think divestitures are a real option, because when you think about the details of that, how will the government be satisfied that the code base was separated elegantly, that there was no malware surreptitiously planted? How will you actually prove all of this to a degree that satisfies a legislator? So I think the pound of flesh that they want is more easily and more salaciously satisfied by shutting this thing down. So if I had to bet on what happens. I bet more on that.” View on YouTube

Following the March 2023 congressional hearing with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, TikTok will be forced to cease operating in the United States (be shut down) rather than remain under ByteDance ownership with conditions.

“As soon as that was in my mind, I was like, this thing is getting shut down because I don't think it's gonna.” View on YouTube

Starting from mid-2022, the process of withdrawing excess liquidity (tightening/quantitative tightening) will take roughly three years in total, with the bottom of the equity bear market not occurring for approximately another 18 months (around late 2023).

“it's it's it's almost half of an entire year's worth of global GDP. It's going to take three years probably of the slow, meticulous, you know, running off of money, you know, not reintroducing new money. So it seems like we're at the beginning of the beginning of something that's going to be long and drawn out... That may mean the bottom doesn't happen for another 18 months.” View on YouTube

Over the 3–5 months following late June 2022 (approximately July–November 2022), U.S. CPI inflation prints will remain very high, in the roughly 7–9% year-over-year range.

“you need to buckle your seatbelt, because the next three, four, five months of CPI will probably be very, very bad seven eight 9%.” View on YouTube

During this inflation and energy-price cycle beginning mid-2022, average retail gasoline prices in the United States could reach approximately $7 per gallon nationwide.

“We could have $7 gas... Broadly, broadly, we could have $7 gas all throughout the country.” View on YouTube

As the Federal Reserve removes roughly $3–5 trillion of liquidity from mid-2022 onward, U.S. equity markets will lose at least $3–5 trillion in aggregate market capitalization, with an additional repricing from lower earnings likely causing a further 20–30% decline in equity valuations.

“it stands to reason that if the fed is going to take 3 to $5 trillion of value out, then we have to rewrite the equity markets by 3 to $5 trillion at a minimum. And then you have to rerate and Rebaseline for earnings. And so that's probably another 20 or 30%.” View on YouTube

The bear-market and macroeconomic adjustment process that began before June 2022 is only at its start and will take multiple years—on the order of several years similar to the 2000–2003 downturn—to work through excess liquidity, a recession, and the Russia–Ukraine war, rather than being resolved by just a few rate hikes and months of volatility.

“we're at the beginning of the beginning. Okay. For all of us that lived through 2000, this was four years of sheer hell and a grind. Now we have $30 trillion that we have to work through the economy, a recession. We have to overcome, a war we need to end. And people all of a sudden assume that 2 or 3 rate hikes and 5 or 6 months of headlines are enough... it's just an observation that we're at the beginning of something that just fundamentally has to take some amount of time to work its way through the system.” View on YouTube

The post-2021 downturn (driven by excess debt, a recession, and war) will resemble the 2000 dot-com bust in duration, taking on the order of several years (around four years) to work its way through the system rather than resolving within a few quarters.

“we're at the beginning of the beginning. Okay. For all of us that lived through 2000, this was four years of sheer hell and a grind. Now we have $30 trillion that we have to work through the economy, a recession. We have to overcome, a war we need to end... it's just an observation that we're at the beginning of something that just fundamentally has to take some amount of time to work its way through the system.” View on YouTube

Ron DeSantis will run for president in 2024 and will win the general election by a large margin (a “landslide”).

“He's gonna run. He's gonna win a landslide.” View on YouTube

Cheap open-source model competition (e.g., Kimi K3, GLM) will cause margin compression that derails or significantly slows down the Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs.

“I believe that this is going to derail their IPOs. I'm taking it from the top. It's going to derail their IPOs. It's going to be headwinds against it because I think that they're going to have massive margin compression.” View on YouTube

If New York City enacts the Mamdani-backed tenant protections (banning credit checks, restricting evictions), landlords will respond by raising asking rents sharply rather than lowering them.

“So rents will not go down. Rents will go up. So run the experiment and let's just observe what happens.” View on YouTube

The roughly $1 trillion of venture capital raised in the recent boom (around 2021–2022), currently marked at about $5.5 trillion in paper value, will ultimately realize only about $1.6 trillion in distributions to LPs as returns revert to the historical industry average of roughly 1.6x paid-in capital, implying that approximately $3.9 trillion of current paper valuation will be lost over the full realization cycle (about 10+ years).

“over many cycles where we've had high rates and low rates and medium rates, our industry typically returns $1.60 for every dollar it raises. And that's over many cycles. And so if you believe that we're going to revert to the mean out of the trillion dollars we've raised, maybe we'll return 1.6 trillion. Now that sounds good. Except the problem is that 1.6 trillion is marked at 5.5 trillion. So you're going to have to give back... you're going to have to give back a lot of paper profits in order to get back to that 1.6 and be okay with it.” View on YouTube

Venture capital funds whose main investing vintages are 2023–2025 will, in aggregate, produce unusually strong, power-law-type returns relative to surrounding years, because short-term interest rates will remain around 5.5% for an extended period starting in 2023.

“Those vintage years 2023 is the is the first vintage year where we're actually starting to see high enough rates that have historically generated that kind of return. And so I do agree with you, David. I just think it's shifted out by a couple of years. 23 2425 those can be some real power law years, I, I think because we're going to have just based on what the fed is saying. 5.5% interest rates for the foreseeable future, which is it's a huge it's a huge number.” View on YouTube

Advances in AI and robotic surgery will eventually reduce the error rate in breast cancer surgeries from around 30% to effectively zero (or near-zero) by enabling precise tumor characterization and complete removal.

“So, for example, breast cancer surgeries, the dirty secret of our healthcare industry is that has a 30% error rate. You know, that can and should go to zero.” View on YouTube

The SpaceX acquisition of Cursor will close on the previously negotiated terms without requiring SpaceX's IPO S-1 filing to be revised.

“The acquisition was essentially negotiated and the way that it's structured is so that the S1 doesn't go stale... So I think what you're going to see is that this will get done. In fact, the deal is effectively done.” View on YouTube

From roughly late Sep 2022 through about Feb–Mar 2023, holding cash in a SPAC trust and getting $10 back will outperform being invested in the broad equity market on a risk‑adjusted basis.

“I think that's actually better over the next 5 or 6 months than what it'll otherwise do if you're invested in the market.” View on YouTube

Of the several hundred tech-focused SPACs still searching for targets as of Sep 2022, more than 50% will fail to complete a business combination and will instead liquidate and return capital to investors at or before their deadlines.

“The overwhelming majority of the tech SPACs, I think, probably will just wind up.” View on YouTube

From late 2022 through at least the end of 2023 and possibly into early 2024, US consumers will face deteriorating conditions: unemployment will rise from then‑current levels, inflation will remain elevated and persistent, real wages will decline, consumption growth will weaken, and corporate earnings will be generally poor.

“It's going to be a really tough, sticky time for the US consumer probably over the next 18 months. And so I tend to think that, you know, through the course of this year and through 2023 and possibly even a little bit of 24, it's going to be a grind. Unemployment will go back up. Inflation will be sticky. Real earnings will shrink. Consumption will ebb and earnings will not be that great.” View on YouTube

US equity markets will complete their bottoming process by roughly the end of 2022 or the early part of 2023, after which they will begin forming a base rather than making substantially lower lows.

“I think that we are starting a bottoming process for the equity markets. And I think that by the end of this year or the early part of next year, most of that will be done.” View on YouTube

By approximately Dec 31, 2022 to Mar 31, 2023, major US equity indices (e.g., S&P 500, Nasdaq) will have put in a cyclical bottom and will be in a base‑building phase rather than continuing a pronounced downtrend.

“By the end of this year, beginning of next year. I think that we will have kind of bottomed and will start to build the base.” View on YouTube

The US federal funds rate will reach or exceed 5.0% during this tightening cycle associated with the 2021–2023 inflation surge.

“This inflation, as I've said for a long time, is going to be sticky and persistent. I think you're going to see fed funds at or breaching 5%.” View on YouTube