David Friedberg

During 2026, a 'great uncovering' will occur in which trillions of dollars of government fraud, waste, and misallocated spending across the US economy (federal, state, and local) will be revealed.

“I think that's going to be the great uncovering of 2026 is we're going to see on the order of trillions of dollars of this sort of behavior happening across the economy.” View on YouTube

Once the bond market recognizes how overstated California's fiscal position and pension system are, California municipal bonds will sell off sharply ('run').

“Chimmoff, mark my words, wait until the bond market sniffs out how fake and propped up the California economy and balance sheet and pension system is... You're going to see these bonds run because those folks don't care about anything other than the ones and zeros of their own financial survival.” View on YouTube

Over the course of 2022, Vladimir Putin will increase Russia’s geopolitical leverage, especially in relation to NATO, benefitting from rising tensions between the US and China and becoming a stronger global player than in the prior few years.

“Vladimir Putin um, I think Putin's going to benefit from the rising conflict between the US and China...And I think Putin will become a stronger player on the global stage, uh, particularly as it relates to his relationship with NATO. Uh, over the next year.” View on YouTube

During 2022, the United States’ influence on the global geopolitical stage (socially, politically, and economically) will materially decline from its prior level.

“I'm honestly a little bit worried about the United States influence on kind of a global stage...I kind of have the US and its and its role on the global geopolitical stage.” View on YouTube

Over the course of 2022, populist sentiment (anti-elitist politics) in the U.S. and globally will intensify and become more prominent, not fade, influencing both left- and right-wing politics.

“I think the voice of populism is only going to swell over the next year...and I think that's going to shift very quickly” View on YouTube

If Stripe goes public in 2022 (via IPO or direct listing), it will debut at a valuation exceeding Alibaba’s ~$230 billion IPO valuation, making it the highest-valued tech IPO/listing in history.

“I am actually going to go with stripe...We are hearing rumors that stripe might, you know, kind of or think that they bankers think that they might be able to break that. And so stripes IPO could be the biggest tech IPO ever...And we could see that become the highest valuation tech IPO ever.” View on YouTube

In 2022, the crypto bubble will effectively burst: roughly 90% of existing crypto projects/tokens will collapse or experience major declines in value, especially as rising interest rates force deleveraging, while a small minority of projects will endure and appreciate long term.

“I said, crypto bubble will burst. There's a lot of scammy nonsense going on. 90% of these projects are not going to yield value and fundamentals...I'd say 90% of them are probably going to start to blow up next year.” View on YouTube

In 2022, the world will see the beginning of a period of major global conflict, likely manifesting in new or escalated proxy wars or military confrontations, potentially involving Ukraine and/or Taiwan.

“The first one is, I think...we'll see the start of, um, great global conflict...you could see proxy wars, uh, and proxy conflicts that arise, sort of like what we're seeing, you know, maybe something in the Ukraine, maybe something related to Taiwan.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2022, China will have taken enough visible action (e.g., nuclear build-out, policy commitments) that it will be widely perceived internationally as a leading nation in climate change mitigation, rather than primarily as the main climate ‘foe’.

“China may solidify its position next year...as a leader in climate change mitigation...Imagine if over the next year, some of what they're doing pays off. And everyone says, my gosh, China is leading the world in climate change mitigation.” View on YouTube

There is a meaningful (though low-probability) chance that in 2022 the world will experience a major natural catastrophe (e.g., extreme weather, geologic or astronomical event) that is large enough to significantly impact markets and/or global affairs.

“my third is very random, which is some sort of natural catastrophe...We haven't had one in a while...maybe we will” View on YouTube

In 2022, global geopolitical conflict will increase, and in that environment energy commodities, energy stocks, and defense stocks will significantly outperform broader markets; Bitcoin may also gain a role as a defensive asset in portfolios.

“I tried to highlight, uh, and continue my, uh, kind of contrarian bet that we're going to see increased global conflict next year, again, driven by, you know, incumbents trying to hold on to political office and increase inflation and fueling economic growth and the American response to China. So in a world of increased global conflict, I think assets that do really well are energy, commodities and energy stocks. I recently made a big bet on energy stocks. Defense stocks. And it used to be a gold. It could be the case that bitcoin uh you know sees a role as being a defensive position in portfolios in a world of, uh, of war and conflict.” View on YouTube

In 2022, there will be a major “gold rush” into biotech focused on Yamanaka factor–based cellular reprogramming and longevity; high-profile breakthroughs and discoveries in this area will begin to be published, leading to magazine covers and mainstream media (e.g., 60 Minutes) declaring it a “fountain of youth,” and 2022 will be widely characterized as the year of Yamanaka-based reprogramming, comparable in hype/importance to the recombinant-DNA boom around Genentech.

“My biggest, uh, anticipated trend for 2022 is going to be a gold rush in biotech into, um, what I think will become the cover story on magazines throughout the year that humans have discovered the fountain of youth. ... there will be magazine covers and, you know, uh, 60 minutes articles, stories and all sorts of stuff will start to happen in 2022 saying, oh my gosh, as because the amount of money that's gone in in this year is going to cause breakthroughs and discoveries to start to get published about next year. And when that starts to happen and the media and the PR cycles start to kick up, you'll see this become the year of Yamanaka factor based reprogramming. And everyone's saying it's going to be the biggest gold rush, um, in biotech since recombinant DNA was used by Genentech in the in the 80s and 90s.” View on YouTube

1) By the end of 2022, it will be possible (at least in some venues) to taste cell-based chicken meat, though it will be very expensive and not yet mass-market. 2) Within three years (by end of 2024), cell-based sushi products will be available for tasting. 3) Within 5–10 years (by 2027–2032), cell-based meat will be available at commercial scale, produced in labs without killing animals, and comparable in look and taste to conventional meat.

“But there is a tremendous amount of money going into this area, and we will devise artificially produced meat that will not be made by killing an animal, but will be made in a lab that looks and tastes identical. ... Just give us a year over. ... You'll have a piece of sushi in three years. You will have. You will be able to go taste chicken next year. It'll be very, very expensive. Okay, but cell based meat will be available at a commercial scale within the next 5 to 10 years.” View on YouTube

As per-mile and dynamically priced auto insurance gains adoption, low-mileage and good drivers will migrate to such services, which will in turn force incumbent auto insurers to raise their rates on remaining customers, strengthening the competitive moat of per-mile insurers over the coming years.

“So they'll start using our service, and that'll force the other guys to raise their rates. And it creates this huge kind of market moat. Um, and we're in the we're in the, we're in the very early days.” View on YouTube

By May 2021, approximately 70% of the U.S. population will have been immunized with a COVID-19 vaccine.

“they do think they can get 70% of Americans immunized by May. So, um, my May.” View on YouTube

Within a couple of months from late November 2020 (i.e., by roughly January–February 2021), the United States will be in a relatively comfortable position with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic due to combined natural immunity and vaccine rollout.

“you combine that with these vaccines starting to roll out. And we get, you know, a pretty kind of comfortable position in terms of the pandemic and hopefully a couple of months here.” View on YouTube

Even after COVID‑19 vaccines and cheap testing are widely available, U.S. society will not fully return to pre‑2020 norms; for many years (effectively permanently relative to pre‑COVID life), large venues will continue measures such as temperature checks and mask requirements, and K‑12 schools will routinely test students for infection.

“Yeah, I don't think you ever get there...there will be a lot about the way we live that's going to be, you know, kind of permanently scarred and permanently changed here for a while, whether it is taking people's temperatures at football games, uh, wearing masks and, you know, farmer's markets, who knows?...kids are going to go to school and get tested regularly, and they're going to do all sorts of stuff that we would have never dreamed imaginable in a free country a year ago. Um, and I think that's permanent.” View on YouTube

The January 5, 2021 Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs will become the most expensive Senate runoff elections in U.S. history, with total spending on the races exceeding $100 million (and potentially reaching $100–200 million), especially on political advertising in Georgia.

“I think we're going to see literally the biggest, the biggest funding for a Senate runoff race in history, by far. Don't you think? Zach's, like, probably north of $100 million being spent, maybe 100 to $200 million being spent on advertisements in Georgia to try and get people to go vote one way or the other.” View on YouTube

Conditional on Democrats winning both Georgia Senate runoff races on January 5, 2021 and thereby securing effective control of the U.S. Senate (50–50 with Vice President as tiebreaker), U.S. equity markets could decline by approximately 30–40% within the following six months (by mid‑2021).

“if the Democrats look like they're getting much more money into the state and they're actually going to, you know, get people to the polls and to the voting booths and actually get into this runoff on January 5th and actually flip, um, get both of those seats to be, uh, um, uh, to be blue. Uh, it's going to be a very different market environment. I mean, you could see the market drop by 30, 40% in the next six months.” View on YouTube

After leaving office, Donald Trump will be based in New York, will effectively acquire or own a law firm to defend himself, and his post‑presidency activities will generate on the order of $100 million per month in income.

“He's going to be in New York. He's gonna buy a law firm because he's going to need a law firm to keep everyone at bay. And he's going to be probably printing 100 million bucks a month” View on YouTube

No new federal gun control legislation will pass in the US for a generation (roughly 25-30 years from 2020), because record gun and ammunition sales driven by 2020's unrest have swelled the ranks of gun owners and the NRA's base of support.

“let me make a prediction right now there's not going to be any new gun control legislation for a generation” View on YouTube

David Friedberg predicts that the current “awkward phase” of U.S. democracy—characterized by tensions over inequality and system legitimacy—will culminate in a major structural transition away from its current democratic form within his and his co‑hosts’ lifetimes, but not within the single four‑year presidential term following the 2020 election.

“I don't I don't think democracies end up with a bang. I think they end with a whimper... and I don't think that awkward phase is realized in the next presidential term, but it is going to be realized in our lifetimes” View on YouTube

B predicts that Donald Trump will win the 2020 U.S. presidential election, as implied by Treasury markets and S&P futures on election night 2020.

“the Treasury markets and the S&P futures are telling me that Donald Trump's going to win.” View on YouTube

If international shipping delays between China and the U.S. remain at their 2022 levels, an increasing number of brands will shift production or sourcing to locations closer to their end markets (e.g., nearshoring to countries like Mexico) over the subsequent years.

“brands are going to respond to shipping closer to home. So that is a trend that you're going to see more and more of. Uh, if the delays stay the way they are.” View on YouTube

By around 2031, most traditional news outlets will have disappeared, with The Economist remaining as one of the few surviving fact-focused publications, while most other media consumption will be dominated by highly partisan or chaotic "mob rule" environments in virtual/metaverse-like platforms.

“I have a feeling the only thing that's going to be left in like ten years is The Economist and then like the mob rule in the metaverse.” View on YouTube

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) will demonstrate a working tokamak-based fusion system that produces net energy (a demonstrable fusion power system) roughly within 4–5 years of this September 2021 conversation, i.e., by around 2025–2026.

“there was an announcement from a group this past week, CFS...now they think that they're, you know, call it 4 or 5 years away, you know, by the way, everything in nuclear is always 4 or 5 years away. So. 4 or 5 years away with a grain of salt from kind of having a demonstrable kind of. System.” View on YouTube

Sometime before the year 2100, one or more technological breakthroughs of extremely large impact (on the order of 100x–10,000x improvements) will occur that will resolve many of the major challenges faced by humanity on Earth (such as in energy, climate, health, or resources).

“I do think there will be 100 x 1000 x 10,000 x breakthrough that will resolve a lot of the challenges we face as a species on planet Earth over this century.” View on YouTube

Following China’s ban on crypto, most or all major countries’ governments will eventually adopt similar anti-crypto stances (e.g., effectively saying “no more crypto” through bans or highly restrictive regulation).

“That's the big battle. And by the way, everyone's going to end up saying that.” View on YouTube

Within 20 years from September 14, 2021, the decentralized finance (DeFi) movement will catalyze a political and regulatory movement against the open internet, as state actors compete with private actors over control of financial systems; this conflict will significantly threaten the openness of the internet and become a primary social battleground.

“I'll make a prediction. My prediction is in the next 20 years, the DeFi movement will catalyze, um, a movement against the open internet. And it is because state actors will compete with private actors for this battle between centralized institutional, state based control systems... and the open internet will start to get threatened... and I do think that that is going to be kind of the big pushing force socially.” View on YouTube

Rising floating-rate consumer debt (auto loans, buy-now-pay-later) combined with job losses could trigger a cascading consumer credit crisis over the next couple of quarters (into 2023).

“If we're going to have a recession, we're going to see job loss, you're going to see these um and by the way, these auto loan portfolios have like crazy outperformed over the last few years... You could see a bunch of these things start to create a bit of a cascading effect over the next couple quarters depending on how this all goes.” View on YouTube

Longer-term technological solutions yielding unlimited, free, scalable energy production could begin arriving within the next decade.

“And some of that could be coming in the next decade.” View on YouTube

Over the ten years following mid‑2023, the combined public market capitalization of the top large tech companies (described here as having grown from about $1T to $10T over the prior period) will increase from roughly $10 trillion to about $25 trillion, with about 30% of total tech value creation accruing to private markets and 70% to public markets in that period.

“Now he was telling me his model shows that over the next ten years it'll be roughly 70 over 30. So it'll be about 30% will accrue. And they think over the next ten years it's going to go from 10 trillion to 25 trillion, which is still a great return.” View on YouTube

As generative AI tools for scripting, directing, and rendering become widely adopted in film and video production, the industry will reach a point where the number of films produced is on the order of 100 times higher than today, while the average production cost per film falls to roughly 1/100 of current typical studio film costs.

“we could see 100 times more films come out, each of which costs 1/100 the cost.” View on YouTube

As of late February 2022, U.S. public opinion will remain strongly opposed to direct U.S. battlefield (kinetic) entry into the Russia‑Ukraine war, and instead the United States will confront Russia primarily via cyber operations, with U.S.–Russia cyberattacks beginning immediately (around February 24, 2022) and intensifying in the ensuing days and weeks, rather than through deployment of U.S. combat troops into Ukraine.

“My prediction is, as of right now, it would be very unpopular to go to war, or for the US to enter the war in a on the battlefield, I do think, and I don't know if we're going to hear more about this today, but I do think that the cyber war is beginning today... And so we may see the US kind of confront Russia, uh, on another battle stage, not on the, uh, you know, on the field, on the physical field.” View on YouTube

China will proceed with its plan over roughly the next 30 years to build about 140 new nuclear power stations (around $3B per plant), increasing its total power‑generation capacity by roughly 15–20% and enabling it to retire a significant portion of coal‑fired generation. As a result, over approximately the next decade, China’s industrial electricity prices will fall from roughly $0.07–0.08 per kWh to approximately $0.04–0.05 per kWh, widening China’s energy‑cost advantage over the United States for industrial users.

“China, as I've mentioned in the past, is over the next 30 years committed to building. Check this number out. I think we talked about this 140 nuclear power stations. Um, their estimated cost, I believe, is on the $3 billion per station range. They are, um, going to increase their total, uh, energy production capacity with these nuclear power stations. Um, on the order of 15 to 20%. So they will take coal offline as they bring those online. Um, or they will kind of start to have a cleaner mix of energy rather than building a next gen infrastructure. So, um, you know, if we, as the United States intend to be an economic challenge to China this century. If we intend to compete effectively with them, we are going to have a really hard time with energy prices being what they are here in this country. China is already 30 to 40% cheaper than us on an industrial scale basis with their current energy infrastructure, and when their nuclear comes online over the next decade, their prices are going to drop even further. Nuclear should be in the 4 to $0.05 per kilowatt hour range. Today, China's in the kind of, you know, 7 to $0.08 per kilowatt hour range.” View on YouTube

At the March 2022 FOMC meeting, the Federal Reserve will not raise the federal funds rate by 0.5 percentage points; instead, it will either raise by only 0.25 percentage points or defer a rate hike altogether.

“as of today, my guess is that the probability of that is below 5%. And you're probably assuming, you know, um, a quarter point rate hike or maybe even a deferral, uh, at this point... And so this is not a great time to do a half point rate hike. And so it's almost certain at this point that they're not going to do a half point rate hike.” View on YouTube

After the WarnerMedia merger closes (i.e., the Discovery–WarnerMedia combination announced in 2021), the combined company’s equity will become a top-performing, highly attractive media stock, powered by an extremely competitive streaming content library versus Disney.

“When that WarnerMedia deal gets done. I think that's the juggernaut stock you want to own. It's gonna have an incredible library to compete with Disney.” View on YouTube

Within the next 100 years (by roughly 2121), mainstream human society will widely regard industrial animal agriculture as morally worse than human slavery.

“I think one day the human race will look back and identify animal agriculture as, uh, worse than human slavery. Um, I do think that that will be a profound realization over the next century for our species.” View on YouTube

Commercially viable fusion power that produces net positive energy is still approximately 10–15 years away as of 2021 (i.e., expected sometime between ~2031 and ~2036), continuing the historical pattern of being ‘10 years out.’

“When will we have it online?... Still, as everyone's been saying for decades, ten, 15 years. So every year, every ten years, we say ten years.” View on YouTube

In the years following 2021, public dissatisfaction with rising authoritarianism will drive more people to seek and adopt alternative governance models (e.g., decentralized or non-traditional political/organizational structures), accelerating related sociopolitical trends.

“I think to your point, Sachs, it's one of the reasons why we will see, uh, people in general looking for alternative ways to govern themselves. Um, and it will only catalyze and accelerate some of these other trends that, that I think we've been talking about.” View on YouTube

No US city will experience a second-wave COVID-19 outbreak as severe as New York's (around 1,500-2,000 daily deaths in the region), because behavior has changed and no other US city has New York's subway-driven population density.

“I wouldn't expect us to have a New York style second wave” View on YouTube

Within approximately 20 years from 2020 (by around 2040), humanity could effectively eradicate all infectious diseases, with the primary obstacle being regulatory barriers rather than scientific or engineering limitations.

“One of the things that you know, I have a strong belief in is like, I think in 20 years we could kind of eradicate all infectious disease. The only thing holding that up is regulation. Because the science is known, the engineering is basically there” View on YouTube

By roughly two years after May 2020 (around May 2022), scientists will still not have a detailed, reliable mapping from individual human genotype and health status to predicted clinical outcome for SARS-CoV-2 infection; i.e., precision predictions of how this coronavirus affects a specific person based on their genes and health will still not exist.

“We are very like like with any virus, we know very little about how it affects a specific human based on their genotype. Meaning based on your health and your your genes. Here's what this virus is going to do to your body. And we're not going to know that in two years.” View on YouTube

As of June 2024, David Friedberg believes Donald Trump is likely to win the 2024 U.S. presidential election and serve a second term.

“it looks like you're going to win a second term here.” View on YouTube

If Donald Trump attempts to implement his proposed tariff policy in a future term, his economic advisers will push for changes such that any eventual tariff measures will be significantly scaled back and limited to narrower parts of the economy compared to his current broad proposals.

“Once the economic advisers get together and look at the analysis and what this will do to costs of things, inflation will go up, etc., you know, maybe there's a rethink ultimately on how that's implemented and on what particular slices of the economy it's implemented. So I'm sure, as you point out, it probably gets toned down for this to, you know, to even become a reality.” View on YouTube

David reports and implicitly endorses Steve Mnuchin’s prediction that if the then-current level of economic shutdown continues, 20–30% of the U.S. workforce will be unemployed by the summer of 2020.

“you can quickly see why Steve Mnuchin, the US Treasury secretary, was saying that we should expect 20 to 30% of the workforce to be unemployed by this summer if we keep this up.” View on YouTube

David predicts that if global food production, processing, and distribution were halted at that point in time, existing stocks would only sustain the world’s population for about 30 days before food shortages create a serious societal crisis.

“The world lives on a 30 day food supply. So if you stop food production today, there would only be 30 days of food for the whole world to eat based on our calorie consumption per day... or else we are going to have problems.” View on YouTube

The true COVID-19 fatality rate in the US will turn out to be between 0.15% and 1.8%, roughly 1-10x worse than seasonal flu, once true infection prevalence (including asymptomatic cases) is accounted for.

“I'd say it's probably somewhere between 0.15 and then call it 1.8%” View on YouTube

With a mass population antibody-testing and zone-based reopening strategy, the COVID-19 outbreak in the US could be brought under control within 4-6 weeks.

“we can really you know nip this thing in the bud in a you know four or five six week time frame” View on YouTube

David implicitly predicts that the COVID-19-driven downturn and funding constraints will last long enough that startups without at least ~18 months of cash runway from early 2020 will be at serious risk of failure.

“if you can get your cash back, your cash to get you to an 18 month runway... you should be doing everything you can to number one, kind of give yourself that breathing room.” View on YouTube

David predicts that (1) the immediate backlog and scaling issues around RT‑PCR COVID-19 testing in the U.S. will largely be resolved within about 7–10 days from March 18–19, 2020, and (2) broad distribution of general‑population antibody tests in the U.S. will begin roughly 30–45 days after that, about 45 days from the recording date.

“we got to get over this first hump. I think once we get over this first hump, then you're going to see people distribute and work on this. And I think getting over the first hump is happening in the next. Call it 7 to 10 days. And so then it's probably another 30 to 45 days before we get these tests for general population testing more broadly distributed. So call it 45 days out.” View on YouTube

Within a few years after the COVID-19 crisis (from 2020 onward), the United States will significantly relax federal healthcare regulation so that (a) right‑to‑try laws are effectively federalized, giving states broad discretion and allowing doctors and patients to use experimental drugs without standard FDA oversight, and (b) a similar loosening will occur for diagnostics and testing, enabling much faster deployment of new tests.

“I think we're going to maybe see a big shift in policy and allow right to try laws that are going to be federalized so states can make decisions about right to try laws. And doctors and patients can try drugs on their own discretion without having a federal oversight body. Perhaps the same will happen with diagnostics and testing.” View on YouTube

By April 7–8, 2020, the San Francisco Bay Area and broader US West Coast will have started to reopen for business, including allowing people to go out (e.g., to restaurants), ending the strict shelter‑in‑place phase in that region.

“I'm taking the under. I'm taking, um, April 7th or eighth.” View on YouTube

By early April 2020, COVID‑19 metrics on the US West Coast (e.g., ICU utilization, ER wait times, new cases) will show a dramatic decline and an infection fatality rate materially lower than then‑prevailing public projections, enabling West Coast reopening around April 7–8, while New York will remain under severe strain roughly two weeks longer.

“New York is about two weeks behind us. New York is going to be fucked for a little while, but I do think that the West Coast and with some travel restrictions is going to be able to reopen for business probably around April 7th or eighth, because we're going to see a dramatic decline at that point, and we're going to see a lower fatality rate than everyone is predicting.” View on YouTube

In the following years after mid‑2022, in frontier and emerging markets that become destabilized, China will more often than not act as the primary external financial and political supporter, especially in countries where it already has infrastructure investments.

“China will likely end up becoming the savior and supporter, particularly where they have infrastructure investments and interests.” View on YouTube

During the current calendar quarter following this July 14, 2022 episode (i.e., Q3 2022), significant institutional market participants will begin re-engaging, with overall capital deployment and transaction activity in public and private markets starting to increase compared to the prior quarters in 2022 when they were largely on the sidelines.

“significant market participants, I think, are going to start to perk their head up this quarter and start to think about doing new things...I do think that capital activity is going to start to come back this quarter, where people are going to start to think about what to do rather than pull everything out because of the massive shift that's happened in the past couple of quarters.” View on YouTube

Over the near term following July 14, 2022 (at least the next several months), most investors and portfolio managers will not rapidly move large amounts of capital back into equities; instead they will largely remain cautious and underweight equities while they wait to see how major tail risks (e.g., consumer credit issues, Taiwan risk, emerging market crises) develop.

“I think that's the reason people, investors, portfolio managers are not going to kind of rush back in to putting more money into equities is just, you know, sitting around waiting to see how a few of these things resolve.” View on YouTube

The Zymergen and Ginkgo Bioworks IPOs/SPAC (around early 2021) mark a "Netscape moment" for synthetic biology, leading to a surge of activity—many more companies, technologies, and applications—in synthetic biology over the next few years (roughly 2–5 years after 2021).

“Synthetic biology is this kind of ESG, you know, moment. Um, and and I think these two IPOs happening at the valuations that they're happening at and the capital that's going in, I think these are kind of like the Netscape moments for synthetic biology. And we're going to see a tremendous amount happen over the next couple of years.” View on YouTube

Over the course of the 21st century, synthetic biology will come to fruition as a general-purpose technology that completely reinvents industrial production (materials, food, chemicals, plastics), substantially improves environmental sustainability, and serves as a primary enabler for long-term human sustainability on Earth.

“the premise that everyone believes is going to come to fruition in the century, and it will completely reinvent industry, will improve sustainability. I think it is going to be the great savior for this planet and for our ability to sustain on this planet.” View on YouTube

In the coming years (on roughly a 5–15 year timescale from 2021), advances in engineering nitrogen-fixing microbes will move far beyond early products like Pivot Bio, enabling broad microbial nitrogen fixation that can significantly reduce or potentially eliminate synthetic fertilizer use and materially reduce agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions.

“the ability for us to engineer microbes opens up this universe of possibility, where pivot is kind of like, you know, kindergarten level of what's going to happen over the next couple of years where we can now engineer all these microbes to pull nitrogen out of the atmosphere and maybe reduce all fertilizer use and have a huge effect on greenhouse gas resulting from, from, from, from agriculture.” View on YouTube

Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)–based stem cell therapies will see very rapid growth and breakthroughs, making stem cell therapy a major, highly active biomedical field over the next couple of decades (approximately 2020s–2040s).

“So IPS now forms the basis for a lot of these stem cell therapy kind of um programs that are underway. And so this is going to be an insane field over the next couple decades.” View on YouTube

By the end of calendar year 2025, total U.S. federal debt will be approximately $40 trillion, and at an average interest rate of about 4% this will imply on the order of $1.6 trillion per year in federal interest expense.

“which means that by the end of 2025, we could be staring at $40 trillion of federal debt. And if you do the math on that, at 4% interest, it's 1.6 trillion a year of interest expense a year just on interest expense on the outstanding debt”

David Friedberg predicts that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in a health-policy leadership role, will challenge entrenched status-quo power structures (e.g., food and pharmaceutical industries), and that this will generate significant conflict and reconfiguration within those systems.

“I think he is going to challenge status quo power and I think that's going to create a lot of conflict and a lot of reconfigurations” View on YouTube

Climate-change-driven extreme weather (such as droughts and heat waves) will continue to cause significant disruptions to the global food supply chain over the next several quarters and years following September 2022.

“I would say there's a critical impact in, um, and will continue to be a critical impact in the food supply chain in the quarters and years ahead because of what we're seeing.” View on YouTube

From early 2021 until roughly the 2022 midterm elections (about 1.5 years), the Democratic Party will continue to be able to pass large spending bills with relatively little constraint due to holding unified control of the federal government.

“before the midterms, we've got another year and a half of this 100%” View on YouTube

If current emergency-level federal deficit spending continues as the new normal, the US dollar will lose significant purchasing power such that within 10 years (by approximately 2035) a dollar will be worth around 30 cents in today's terms.

“That same level of decline in value of a dollar... will continue and it will only accelerate. And I think the worry is that in 10 years, you know, a dollar is worth 30 cents.” View on YouTube

The true number of COVID-19 infections in the US as of March 2020 is at least 10x higher than the confirmed case count, due to inadequate testing capacity.

“I do still believe that we're probably at least one maybe more orders of magnitude off in our infected population count” View on YouTube

Tom Hanks and NBA players who tested positive for COVID‑19 in early March 2020, being generally healthy and well‑cared‑for, are very likely to recover and be out of acute illness within about 10 days from March 14, 2020 (i.e., by roughly March 24, 2020). Tom Hanks is expected to publicly characterize the illness as feeling like a bad cold rather than a severe, lasting condition.

“it's very likely that Tom Hanks and these NBA players who are in fantastic health are gonna they're low comorbidity and they're getting great care, and they're going to come out of this thing in the next ten days. And, you know, when Tom Hanks goes back on Instagram and says, like, hey, look like I had a bad cold.” View on YouTube

Business shutdowns in March 2020 in the US will likely continue for another 2–4 weeks, and the full economic impact of losing 2–4 weeks of revenue for small, low-cash businesses will become clear over the following few months, culminating in visible, materially negative effects by Q3 2020, and those effects will be severe (“ugly”).

“I do think it's non-linear in terms of that second order and third order effects that we've been talking about. We even if we got back to business as usual in a month, we don't yet know how losing 2 to 4 weeks of cash flow is going to affect every salon... So we won't know for a couple of months... we're talking about Q3 when this all finally kind of comes to bear... what the shutdown that we're in right now and are going to continue to be in probably for another 2 to 4 weeks is going to do, and we're going to find that out over the next couple of months. But it's going to be ugly.” View on YouTube

The United States federal government will ultimately implement on the order of a $3 trillion support program, structured largely as loans or similar financial support that small businesses and unemployed individuals can access, to backstop the economic damage from the COVID‑19 shutdowns.

“Unless the federal government shows up with a $3 trillion loan package that any small business can access and any unemployed person can access, and it really fills the gap... I think that's where we have to end up.” View on YouTube

Within a couple of years of June 2021 (i.e., by mid-2023), there will be many Alzheimer’s drugs approved and on the market, leading to widespread use such that effectively everyone with Alzheimer’s is taking some Alzheimer’s drug; only about 10% of patients will actually be cured by these treatments while 90% will not, and the per‑patient cost of these Alzheimer’s treatments will reach on the order of millions of dollars over the course of treatment, creating very high system-wide healthcare spending.

“Now companies are going to rush in. They're going to try and get ten things approved. Everyone's going to be taking an Alzheimer's drug in a couple of years, because there's going to be so many available on the market, and none of them may actually be curing Alzheimer's. Maybe 10% of people get cured, 90% don't. But the cost is going to be millions of dollars per person for these treatments, and everyone pays that.” View on YouTube

After his July 20, 2021 Blue Origin flight and transition to Amazon executive chairman, Jeff Bezos will return and publicly announce that he is becoming the CEO of Blue Origin and will work on it full time for the rest of his career.

“My prediction is Bezos is going to come back and he's going to announce that he's going to be the CEO of Blue Origin. I think this is what he wants to do with the rest of his life.” View on YouTube

Before the Federal Reserve implements its first interest-rate cut of the current hiking cycle (i.e., before the initial Fed rate reduction that follows the July 2023 stance), the U.S. federal government will roll out a TARP-like structured lending or support program specifically aimed at monetizing or backstopping distressed commercial real estate debt.

“I'll make a prediction. Right now, my prediction is the federal government is going to help to monetize that debt, and they're going to help to support that commercial real estate sector through some sort of structured lending program.” View on YouTube

By the year 2032, the U.S. Social Security system will reach a point of functional insolvency (i.e., trust fund depletion or equivalent), triggering either higher taxes and/or inflationary policies that shift the cost burden onto younger generations.

“we have until 2032, when Social Security will be functionally bankrupt and everyone's going to get overtaxed and kids are going to end up having to pay through inflation for the benefits of retirees of the last generation.” View on YouTube

Despite current intra-party conflict, Democrats will ultimately unify and pass at least one substantial spending bill from the Biden agenda prior to the 2022 midterm elections.

“Well, this is why something will will get done. But, you know, I think the political realities are that at the end of the day, the Democrats will come together and pass something.” View on YouTube

The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill will be passed, and in addition, a roughly $1.75 trillion social spending bill will also be enacted.

“Well, it's going to along with this now 1.75 million, sorry, 1.75 trillion of this new social spending bill” View on YouTube

The U.S. will not experience hyperinflation, but if the Federal Reserve does not raise interest rates, the annual inflation rate could exceed 5.1% in the following year (2022).

“Now, I don't think we're going to have hyperinflation here, but we're at 5.1% now. And if people think it's going to be worse next year and the Fed's not going to raise rates, it could even be higher next year.” View on YouTube

Rising consumer prices for items like holiday food and gasoline over the coming months will cause widespread public dissatisfaction in the United States.

“I think you could see a lot of unhappiness out there.” View on YouTube

Google’s vertically integrated infrastructure and technical moat in search and related services is so large that no competitor will ever be able to fully catch up and match it.

“literally the most vertically integrated business in history with a moat that no one will ever be able to catch up on.” View on YouTube

During the 2020s decade, there will be a broad societal shift toward decentralized systems, including new decentralized ways of trading, communicating, and building, driven in part by backlash against centralized platforms shutting down services (e.g., Parler and Robinhood-style shutdowns).

“and it will force people to decentralize, and it will enable new ways of trading, new ways of communicating, new ways of building. Um, and that's the profound change that I think this decade is going to realize. And we're just seeing it start now.” View on YouTube

The Gavin Newsom recall effort in California will succeed in gathering enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, resulting in a recall election being held.

“I will tell you, it seems pretty likely that this recall effort is going to get the signatures it needs. So we can kind of put that in the sand, that it's very likely we're going to end up seeing a recall election.” View on YouTube

If the Biden administration forgives the first $10,000 of student loans (approximately $0.5T across 43M people), it will act as stimulus that causes people to spend more and leads to higher U.S. economic growth in the near term.

“there is a very, um, important economic incentive here to do this, which is if we do it, it will be stimulating to the economy and people will spend more and the economy will grow.” View on YouTube

As the currently pending court cases over officials' use of private/ephermal communications (email, Signal, etc.) progress, and in light of this Signal incident, U.S. law and policy will develop significantly clearer rules and consequences over the next few years about which categories of government communications must be preserved as records and which can remain off the record.

“And I think from these cases and this particular incident, there's going to become much greater kind of call it clarity and also a better understanding of the consequences of what communication do you need to preserve records of, and what communication are you allowed to have off the record that you can?” View on YouTube

During 2022, given the then-current (early 2022) U.S. economic conditions, the United States will be more likely than not to enter into some form of external military conflict if an opportunity arises, using conflict as a tool for political and economic cohesion.

“I did say, you know, at the end of the year, I do think that we're in this kind of economic status right now, that if there were an opportunity for conflict, we're probably more likely to want to engage in conflict than not, because it does create something that we all get behind. It creates, you know, kind of a political unity. It creates economic unity. It creates driving forces that maybe might help us through what is clearly a very volatile and difficult time at home. So let's see what happens.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2022, the United States will enter into some form of significant external conflict (military or quasi-military) driven in part by economic conditions.

“I think the economic seed is planted for us to be in some sort of conflict this year.” View on YouTube

In Q1 and Q2 of 2022, multiple established companies that previously appeared stable will issue earnings results or guidance showing revenue shortfalls on the order of 20–30% versus expectations, explicitly attributing the miss to unexpected supply-chain disruptions (e.g., lack of components or inventory to sell).

“What will happen is this quarter and next quarter, businesses that you didn't realize and didn't expect are going to get hit with supply chain problems are suddenly going to say, guess what? Our revenue is off by 2,030% because we couldn't sell this product because half our shelves are empty, because product didn't show up or whatever the narrative might be.” View on YouTube

In 2022, cellular reprogramming/Yamanaka-factor-based age reversal and the Altos Labs effort to commercialize it will receive major mainstream media attention, including being featured on the front cover of multiple high-profile magazines within that year.

“What I what will be the new frontier in biotech and will completely rewrite Like, you know, the course of humanity is if we can take drugs and for a short period of time, completely reverse the age of our cells. And it sounds so crazy and so wacky, but it's being now proven in a single week. We've now had an amazing paper published, and we've seen the startup announced their $3 billion of funding to pursue commercialization of this technology. And this is going to be the year, I think this will be the front cover of a lot of magazines this year, as people realize that this is real and that it's getting commercialized.” View on YouTube

Following the June 2025 U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, Israel (including Mossad/IDF) will continue conducting operations aimed at destabilizing the current Iranian regime, i.e., there will be further Israeli covert or overt actions against key Iranian regime figures or assets rather than a quiet, peaceful de-escalation.

“I've got to imagine that there's going to continue to be effort to destabilize whatever regime remains in Iran by Israel, Mossad. And this isn't going to be kind of a quiet, peaceful transition... I think that they've taken their first shot and I don't think it's their last.” View on YouTube

Beginning with the June 2025 New York City mayoral primary, there will be a growing wave over the next several election cycles of democratic socialist or similarly left-populist candidates winning major municipal offices in U.S. cities.

“For me, it feels like actually a little bit of a beginning of a wave that's going to continue to sweep over this country, starting in cities.” View on YouTube

Within the next few U.S. election cycles, the policy positions and rhetoric of leading national Democratic figures such as Kamala Harris will be perceived as relatively moderate or even conservative compared to the increasingly socialist platform adopted by the party’s rising urban and youth wing.

“I jokingly say that Kamala Harris is going to look like a conservative candidate pretty soon.” View on YouTube

The electoral success of Zoran Mamdani in New York in 2025 marks the start of a broader national shift in which socialist-style policies (e.g., aggressive redistribution, rent freezes, large minimum wage hikes) gain majority political support across much of the United States over the next decade.

“that is the beginning of a wave that will sweep over America.” View on YouTube

By around 2027, there will be human clinical trials underway testing stem‑cell/exosome‑based FOXO3 age‑reversal therapies similar to the reported monkey study, with the goal of observing comparable age‑reversal effects in humans.

“I think that we should expect over the next couple of years these sorts of trials to kind of begin to see if we can see similar results.” View on YouTube

Within roughly 10 years from 2025 (by about 2035), there will be an injectable or infusion‑based age‑reversal therapy (based on stem cells/Yamanaka‑style or related mechanisms) available on the market for average consumers that can address aging‑related problems or extend healthy lifespan.

“Yes, there are clinicals underway right now, And I know of the clinical trials that are underway... very early... So maybe a decade from now.” View on YouTube

Over the course of the 21st century, China will likely become the dominant global economic power, reducing the relative global influence of the American people.

“and, you know, that may be kind of the inevitability of the 21st century.” View on YouTube

The Ever Given container ship blocking the Suez Canal will remain stuck for approximately 1–2 more weeks from the time of this conversation (late March 2021) before being freed via digging around the sand and tugboats.

“and now they think it's going to take another week or two before they'll be able to kind of dig all around the sand and tugboat the thing out of there.” View on YouTube

From late March 2021, it will take approximately 1–2 weeks to free the Ever Given container ship from the Suez Canal by digging out sand and using tugboats to move it.

“and now they think it's going to take another week or two before they'll be able to kind of dig all around the sand and tugboat the thing out of there.” View on YouTube

Traditional movie theater businesses (e.g., large U.S. cinema chains) will not disappear entirely; the movie theater industry will continue to exist rather than going completely out of business in the coming years despite pandemic-related disruption.

“there's no way movie theaters go out of business.” View on YouTube

The 2021 Facebook whistleblower who provided documents to Congress and the SEC will ultimately receive whistleblower compensation on the order of billions of dollars, exceeding the individual Facebook-related earnings of the podcast participants.

“So that's that's that's my one observation is I actually think this whistleblower may make billions of dollars. So more than any of us made at Facebook, which I think is hilarious.”

Because a large majority of US voters now favor checking Big Tech’s power, the US federal government will enact significant new regulatory or enforcement actions against major tech platforms (e.g., Facebook/Google) in the coming years, and these actions will be clumsy or overreaching, producing substantial unintended negative consequences (“collateral damage”).

“I think now that there's a plurality, um, something's going to happen. I don't think it's going to be right. I don't think it's going to be just it's kind of like trying to perform surgery with a rusty knife. There's going to be all kinds of collateral damage.”

Large-scale expansion of AI data center and chip infrastructure in the United States will proceed regardless of whether the U.S. federal government is formally involved or supportive, over the next several years.

“this data center and chip infrastructure effort, which is obviously going to happen with or without government involvement,” View on YouTube

If the United States does not, within a few months of January 2025, stand up the industrial and regulatory 'engine' needed to start deploying advanced nuclear (e.g., pebble-bed) reactors at scale, then over the coming decade the U.S. will be severely disadvantaged relative to China in electricity costs and in its ability to competitively deploy AI technology.

“these new systems, which we highlighted on the show a couple of months ago, like the pebble bed reactor that's been in production, making electricity in China are incredible new technology architectures. And they're here and they're running and China's rolling out dozens or hundreds of these. And the United States is rolling out zero. And that needs to change. And I think we only have a couple of months to get the engine stood up that will allow us to make the material that will allow us to make the production technology needed to actually deploy these stations, to try and have a shot at catching up. And if we don't, we're going to be hugely disadvantaged on an energy cost basis. We're going to be hugely disadvantaged on an ability to actually deploy AI technology competitively.” View on YouTube

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

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

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

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

If the DWAC–Trump Media & Technology Group merger completes at roughly the then-implied ~$20B equity valuation, Donald Trump will not run for U.S. president again (i.e., he will not be a presidential candidate in future cycles after that de-SPAC).

“I'm rooting for the Spac because if this actually does de-spac at this valuation, Donald Trump is not running for president again because he's now got a $20 billion media business or $20 billion of equity value in this new media business that he's going to keep running.” View on YouTube

Donald Trump will choose to run his media company (Trump Media & Technology Group) rather than run for U.S. president again, and if Joe Biden does not run in 2024, the Democratic nominee will be a close Biden-aligned proxy rather than a significantly different ideological choice.

“Look, I mean, I think Trump's gonna run this $20 billion media empire and he's gonna be happy doing that. And I think if it's not Biden, it's gonna be a proxy.” View on YouTube

From roughly 2021 through at least the early 2030s (and possibly into the early 2040s), the disruption of large, old‑line industrial public companies by new technology-driven firms (software, automation, ESG-focused investing, life sciences, etc.) will continue and likely accelerate, rather than this period representing a peak bubble.

“it may kind of be the beginning of a continuing disruption cycle that we're going to see kind of persist for the next decade or two, especially as more of the old school industrial businesses, which make up a bulk of that market cap, start to get disrupted not just by software, but also by automation, by ESG angle investing, by, um, life sciences and all these other kind of technologies that and these interests, these market interests that are going to disrupt those industries. I think we could even see an acceleration from here.” View on YouTube

The All-In podcast will do a live show in Los Angeles in January 2022.

“But we're gonna do a, we're gonna do an LA show in January.” View on YouTube

If Republican leaders repudiate Trump and he responds by creating a new Patriot Party that draws roughly 20 million supporters away from the GOP, then over the subsequent 2–3 years (2021–2024) the Republican Party will be forced to move left to regain balance, and the Democratic Party will in turn move further left, leading to a significantly more polarized American political landscape.

“if Trump does actually if they do actually kick Trump out of the party and he does set up a fringe party, you will likely see the Democrats move further left, creating a much more, um, kind of conflicting story for some of the centrists than what they're telling today of what's going to happen in the future. And that's a very different America in the next 2 to 3 years. That could be created if they took that risk.” View on YouTube

At some point in the future (implied within the coming years), major big tech platforms will be regulated in a manner similar to public utilities in the United States.

“Yeah, they're going to become utilities, right? They're getting they're going to get regulated like utilities at some point.” View on YouTube

Despite possible declines in signature verification rates to as low as 65–75%, the Gavin Newsom recall campaign will still collect enough valid signatures to meet the required threshold by the March 17, 2021 deadline.

“even if the verification rate drops to 75 or 65%, you're still on track at this rate to hit the recall target by March 17th, which is the deadline. And so it appears highly likely they're going to get there. Am I right on all that?” View on YouTube

Following the Missouri real-estate commission class-action case and related settlements (around 2023–2024), the U.S. residential real-estate industry will structurally shift in a way that lowers or restructures commissions to the benefit of consumers, while materially reducing income and/or employment for a significant number of real-estate agents who currently depend on traditional brokerage fees.

“And I think that this lawsuit and the settlement ultimately leads to a change, a shift in the industry that would certainly benefit consumers but could have a negative economic impact because of the number of people that depend on brokerage fees as their as their job.” View on YouTube

The legal challenges over using the 14th Amendment to bar Trump from the ballot will be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, which will issue a substantive ruling clarifying how the 14th Amendment applies in this context.

“So you think he'll. Certainly. This will certainly go to the Supreme Court and they'll adjudicate what the 14th amendment really means, because it's never been tried.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, social-media-style 'town square' platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) will continue to face viable alternative competitors (such as Parler, Rumble, etc.), demonstrating that no single company will maintain an unchallenged monopoly in this category.

“it's really clear. I think it's a really clear, supporting fact that there are going to be alternatives and that these what we thought were monopolies and what kind of became digital town squares and almost infrastructure are really just application layers. They're editorialized and there are going to be competitors.” View on YouTube

Over the next few years (starting in 2022), publicly traded small- and mid-cap companies across sectors (SaaS, consumer, B2C, hardware, etc.) that cannot demonstrate a credible path to positive earnings and cash generation will see their stocks severely punished and will trade at very depressed valuations ('end up in the shitter').

“what a lot of people are watching, is how many of the small and mid-cap guys can actually do that, and those that can't will. It will become pretty evident pretty fast, and they're going to end up in the shitter.” View on YouTube

Total capital managed in venture funds is near its cyclical peak as of 2022 and will generally decline (rather than grow) over the subsequent decade (approximately 2022–2032).

“I think ultimately this market is probably going to end up being a multi-decade cycle of capital in and capital out. We're probably at peak capital being managed in venture funds right now, and it'll likely decline for the next decade.” View on YouTube

At some point within roughly the next 15–20 years from 2022, the top marginal federal income tax rate on the wealthiest Americans will exceed 60%.

“I don't see a world where we don't have over 60% tax rates on the wealthiest people in this country at a federal level.” View on YouTube

For the United States to maintain economic stability and growth over the next 15–20 years (roughly through 2040), federal tax rates on high earners will be increased to levels that, as of 2022, would be considered exorbitantly high (significantly above contemporary rates).

“I don't see how the United States continues to thrive over the next 15 to 20 years. Without tax rates that will today seem exorbitant.” View on YouTube

Within 10–15 years from 2022 (by roughly 2032–2037), the majority of retail milk sold in stores will be produced via biotechnological methods (e.g., precision fermentation) and will be compositionally identical to conventional cow’s milk in protein composition.

“In the next 10 to 15 years. Most of the milk you buy at the store will be identical to cow's milk. Same protein composition.” View on YouTube

Biotechnological methods such as precision fermentation will become the primary means of producing animal proteins for human consumption in the future, displacing traditional livestock-based production as the dominant source.

“Precision fermentation is the future of making animal proteins. And it is how we're going to.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2026, Huawei (using non‑publicly discussed Chinese lithography technology deployed in new mainland China fabs) will publicly announce and begin producing AI/accelerator chips at high volume and relatively low cost that are competitive with leading Western chips (e.g., Nvidia-class accelerators) for at least some defined market applications (such as specific AI workloads).

“my early prediction for 2026 is Huawei ... where I think that there's a lithography technology that exists in China that is not publicly discussed, that is going to be deployed in Huawei and all these fabs that they're building in mainland China. And Huawei can create at a very low cost, probably very high volume, and probably in reasonably short order chips that can start to rival for certain market applications, chips that might be expensive and long.” View on YouTube

The Callin app, then in TestFlight, will be ready for public launch within a few weeks of May 22, 2021.

“But the apps on Testflight I think we'll be ready to launch in a few weeks.” View on YouTube

The Bitcoin price decline from the mid-$60,000s to the mid-$30,000s in May 2021 is a good buying opportunity; after this crash, Bitcoin will eventually rally again and surpass its previous all-time high price.

“This is probably a pretty good buying opportunity. We've seen these crashes in Bitcoin many, many times over the years. It plummets down and then it goes back up and it eventually goes back up, reaches a new peak. So this is probably a pretty good entry point for the next rally. We don't know when that's going to be” View on YouTube

Within roughly 15 years of 2021 (by around 2036), the U.S. dollar will cease to be the sole global reserve currency, and a plausible positive scenario is that Bitcoin becomes either the primary or an unofficial global reserve currency.

“Stanley Druckenmiller thinks that the next 15 years the US dollar will no longer be the world's reserve currency. Well what's going to replace it. The positive black swan would be that Bitcoin becomes, if not the a world reserve currency, an unofficial world reserve currency.” View on YouTube

Progressive, decarceration-focused district attorneys will increasingly be elected in major U.S. cities, creating a national trend that will result in significantly increased crime, including deaths and destruction, until public opinion shifts and there is a political backlash against this decarceration movement.

“this is not just San Francisco. This whole idea of these radical decarceration, they are running for Da in every major city. This is going to be a national trend, and they're going to cause a lot of carnage, a lot of death and destruction until the people realize and there will inevitably be a backlash to this” View on YouTube

Within the first 100 days of the new U.S. administration (early 2025), observable data on employment, inflation, and GDP will clearly reveal the directional impact of the administration’s spending cuts and tariff policies, allowing markets to better forecast their future effects.

“So I think the first 100 days of this presidency and this administration's actions are going to be pretty telling on what's going to happen going forward in terms of the effect on employment, on inflation and on GDP contraction or growth.” View on YouTube

Over the next few years (through roughly 2027), the dominant narrative in space exploration and heavy-lift launch will be a technological and launch-capacity competition between SpaceX’s Starship system and China’s Long March 9 system.

“This is basically what I think is going to end up being the story over the next couple of years. Is the space race between effectively SpaceX's platform and technology versus China” View on YouTube

Over the next several years (through the mid‑2020s), the primary strategic competition in space launch will be between the U.S. (via SpaceX’s Starship) and China (via Long March 9), with these two systems forming the core of the new space race.

“So this will end up being kind of, I think, the big race over the next couple of years” View on YouTube

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander program will fly Mission 2 to the Moon in 2026 and Mission 3 to the Moon in 2028.

“They are launching two additional missions mission two and mission three. Mission two is going to launch in 2026. Back to the moon 28 for mission three” View on YouTube

In the near term (within a few years from June 2025), China will develop advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes that create a significant competitive threat to Nvidia’s current dominance in AI chips.

“So I do think that there's going to be an emergent competitive threat coming out of China to Nvidia. And just like we were knocked over by deepfake, I think we will be knocked over by some semiconductor manufacturing processes, um, coming out of China in the near term.” View on YouTube

CoreWeave, Circle, Chime, and similar newly public high‑growth tech companies will emerge as the next generation of compounders, with many of them able to grow revenues at roughly 25% per year over the next 5–10 years.

“over the next 5 to 10 years, what are the companies that can compound and maybe 25% per year over that time frame? And I think companies like Core Weave and Circle and Chime, by the way, and others are going to kind of fill that gap.” View on YouTube

Over roughly the next decade, within the S&P 493 (S&P 500 ex‑‘Mag 7’), there will be very large performance dispersion between companies that aggressively adopt AI to rebuild their business software and workflows and those that lag, creating some of the largest relative-return opportunities for public‑equity investors in decades.

“do you think that we enter an era where there is a similar dispersion, as we're talking about seeing in the Mag seven with the S&P 493, where there are going to be probably the biggest money making opportunities for investors that we've seen in decades between those that do adopt and do rebuild using AI and those that don't or are lagging.” View on YouTube

In the next five years, public equity markets—starting with the Mag 7 and extending to the broader S&P 500—will exhibit unusually high dispersion between winning and losing stocks driven by AI adoption, making it an exceptionally attractive period for active stock pickers.

“for me as a stock picker, right. I think over the next five years, I couldn't think of a more interesting time where we're actually going to see dispersion between winners and losers.” View on YouTube

Over the next 1–2 years, the US IPO market will remain open for high‑quality growth tech companies (e.g., Figma and peers), with multiple ‘fantastic’ assets successfully going public and being well‑received by investors.

“I think we're going to see fantastic assets coming out. And I think the market is saying we're open for business...So bring on the new cohort.” View on YouTube

In the coming years of the AI transition, a strategy of shorting the broad S&P 500 while going long a small number of emerging ‘category killer’ AI beneficiaries will be unusually attractive and likely to outperform passive S&P 500 exposure.

“I think it's the first time you could probably argue that you could go short the S&P and pick a couple of winners...you could start to see category killers emerge out of the S&P.” View on YouTube

Within about five years, Microsoft’s total employee headcount will be lower than its recent peak of roughly 250,000, as revenue growth slows and AI and competitive pressures reduce the need for staff.

“I think shrink.” View on YouTube

Friedberg concurs that over the next five years, a portfolio effectively owning just the three major public‑cloud businesses (AWS, Azure, GCP) would outperform owning the rest of the market.

“100% own anything.” View on YouTube

Non‑US (ex‑US) crypto investments will lead the development and adoption of DAOs and related crypto structures, causing the United States to fall behind other jurisdictions in this area over the subsequent years after 2021.

“it'll be crypto X, US crypto investments that are going to drive this. And that's why the US is going to be left behind.” View on YouTube

Following the ConstitutionDAO episode (late 2021), additional DAOs and similar crypto schemes will emerge that defraud or significantly harm investors, which will in turn trigger increased U.S. regulatory attention and a regulatory clamp‑down on such structures.

“there are going to be more of these things that are going to show up that will rip people off, and that will heighten regulatory interest, and people will come along and they'll start to clamp down on this stuff.” View on YouTube

Ken Griffin will resell the purchased copy of the U.S. Constitution within approximately one year of this November 2021 auction, and the resale price will be about double what he paid for it.

“He's gonna buy it now, and in one year, he'll sell it for twice as much.” View on YouTube

At least one person who was alive as of March 2021 will live to an age greater than 200 years.

“So arguably, someone is alive on planet Earth today that could live past the age of 200.” View on YouTube

According to the view endorsed by Friedberg, there is under a 5% probability that a quantum computer capable of breaking RSA-2048 via ~4011 logical qubits will exist before 2040, and such a machine is most likely to emerge sometime between 2040 and 2060, at which point RSA-2048–based cryptosystems (including those used for cryptocurrencies) will be practically breakable.

“there is an estimate that the number of logical qubits needed to crack RSA 2048, which is the big kind of encryption standard, um, which could kind of break the whole cryptocurrency model. Um, it would require about 4011 logical qubits.... And by some estimates, and some people have tried to estimate when this would happen. And the estimate currently by some researchers is that there's a less than 5% chance this happens before the year 2040. So we're talking somewhere between the year 2040 and the 2060, when we get a quantum computer that has enough logical qubits to be able to crack a problem like RSA 2048 and basically make all crypto fail.” View on YouTube

Between roughly 2021 and 2031, noisy, low-fidelity quantum computers will generate practical breakthroughs in simulating quantum states of materials, atoms, and molecules—leading to advances such as improved enzymes (e.g., for nitrogen fixation, drug discovery, or targeted proteins)—and this application area will be actively and broadly pursued during the 2020s using the quantum compute power already available.

“Now, what's more interesting is that over the next, next ten years or so, the current super noisy, super low fidelity quantum computers can be used to simulate quantum states... That's where the breakthroughs will happen in the next decade.... This decade, we are already going to start to see quantum computers have breakthroughs in how material, how atoms and molecules interact with each other, for example, finding proteins that can do a better job of having an enzymatic reaction in the physical world... And that's going to be chased really hard this decade. Everyone's going to be going after it, and we already have enough compute power.” View on YouTube

A staged release of COVID-19 vaccines will begin in Q4 2020, with doses available for distribution to healthcare workers and frontline personnel by the end of the year, based on production being ramped up in parallel with clinical testing.

“there's gonna be a staged release of vaccines that'll probably believe it or not starting q4 of this year” View on YouTube

The COVID-19 vaccine will inevitably become politicized in the US, leading to significant vaccine hesitancy similar to the measles vaccine (where roughly 30% of some populations opt out), undermining uptake once available.

“what are the odds that somebody politicizes the vaccine and America doesn't get it... a 100%” View on YouTube

Trump has roughly a 70% chance of winning reelection in November 2020, because blue-collar and rural voters who feel left behind will again respond to his message of being an agent of change against the establishment.

“I still think Chrome's gonna win I'd say 70% chance Trump wins” View on YouTube

Within a relatively short period after February 2021 (i.e., “very soon”), public reaction in San Francisco to rising crime and DA Chesa Boudin’s policies will trigger a political reversal toward tougher public-safety policies (e.g., successful recall efforts or election of more traditional prosecutors) that curtails the current trend toward increased lawlessness.

“everything looks exponential until it cycles back, so, you know, you're only going to have so much, um, evolution to Gotham in San Francisco until enough people put their hands in the air and say, okay, you know, time for a change. Let's go back and let's start fixing this.” View on YouTube

By May–June 2021, COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the United States will be high enough that a substantial share of people will choose to fly on airplanes without wearing masks and will feel comfortable doing so, independent of formal rules.

“it feels to me like we're probably May June when enough people are vaccinated that we can have, you know, a circumstance where people are going to fly without masks and be comfortable doing so.” View on YouTube

Even after COVID-19 vaccines become widely available and administered in the US (through at least mid-2021), many schools will remain closed and a significant portion of people will continue to avoid activities such as flying and other normal social behaviors due to persistent fear and restrictive rules.

“But but the issue is really going to be like, how do you break through these rules? And the fear that basically I… I'm concerned that we're not going to end up in a more civil state. Schools aren't opening. People aren't flying. People aren't doing stuff even after vaccinations.” View on YouTube

By roughly March 15, 2021 (30 days from this February 2021 recording), there will be enough U.S. states with broadly open COVID-19 vaccination that any of the four podcast hosts could choose to travel and get vaccinated there.

“there's enough places now that have open VAX or Will in the next 30 days you can go get vaccinated.” View on YouTube

Within six weeks of this late-February 2021 recording (i.e., by early April 2021), COVID-19 vaccine supply in the United States will exceed the capacity of the existing restrictive prioritization rules, leading many of those restrictions to be relaxed or abandoned.

“in six weeks, I think a lot of those restrictions are going to fall by the wayside because the supply is going to outstrip the nonsensical, you know, restrictions and prioritization methods we put in place.” View on YouTube

By May 2021, the United States will have an oversupply of COVID-19 vaccine doses, with available doses exceeding public demand for vaccination.

“We are going to be oversupplied by May. We are going to have far more shots than there will be demand.” View on YouTube

By the year 2050, a majority of manufactured goods (materials, food, and other products) will be produced using bio-manufacturing with genetically engineered biological organisms rather than traditional industrial manufacturing methods.

“I think it's a multi-decade I think by 2050, you know, we should see, um, most of our goods that are manufactured rather than being made in the traditional sense... really shift to a new model of manufacturing where we use a smarter machine, which is a biological organism, to make stuff.” View on YouTube

Thanks to rapid antigen/antibody testing becoming widespread and better understanding of COVID-19 comorbidities, the pandemic will be a distant memory by summer 2021, with behavior and public life largely back to pre-pandemic normal.

“i think kova is going to be a distant memory by next summer i really do” View on YouTube

By the end of the 2020s, bioengineered and synthetic foods will begin to disrupt major commodity food markets, with mass‑market products that look, taste, and feel the same as conventional foods while being cheaper and more sustainably produced.

“I think we are going to disrupt commodity markets. Um, and I think we're going to do that this decade, and it's going to blow people's fucking mind, um, when everything you're eating looks, tastes and feels the same and it's cheaper. And it was just made in a more sustainable way using bioengineering” View on YouTube

If governments commit roughly $1 billion in funding to a seaweed/kelp‑based ocean carbon sequestration program at crisis scale, an effective, engineered biological solution to draw down atmospheric carbon via ocean biomass could be developed and deployed within about five years from the start of such funding.

“If governments are like, it's a crisis, let's put $1 billion into this like we did in the Apollo program. We will get that done in five years.” View on YouTube

A coronavirus (COVID‑19) vaccine will be produced within months of the virus being discovered (i.e., by sometime in 2021), which will be an unprecedented development speed.

“much like we're about to produce a coronavirus vaccine in a matter of months after discovering the virus, um, which is unprecedented.” View on YouTube

Between roughly 2032 and 2037, the United States will experience a major economic and fiscal crisis driven by an unsustainable combination of federal debt levels, entitlement obligations, and defense spending.

“I'm I think it's the most kind of scary set of facts and conditions that we're getting set up for, kind of a major crisis 10 to 15 years from now, because you can't afford all the debt that we've taken on as a country, as well as the entitlement as well as defense. And so something's got to give.” View on YouTube

If Alphabet/Google systematically shut down non-working or low-return "other bets" projects with strict discipline (as described in the discussion), the company’s market capitalization would increase by roughly $600 billion from its level at the time of this November 2022 episode, within a reasonable period after implementing such changes (on the order of 1–2 years).

“And if they did just that, if they added that one disciplinary capability, then I think this, as you said, the market cap would go up by $600 billion.” View on YouTube

Alphabet/Google will announce headcount reductions (layoffs) in the near future following this November 2022 discussion.

“And it is inevitable there's going to be some cutting. So I think that there will likely be some reduction” View on YouTube

As a result of the Russia–Ukraine conflict and related sanctions/export controls, there will be widespread famine globally by the end of 2022.

“these swings in food markets like we've never seen and will almost certainly lead to widespread famine by the end of this year at this point.” View on YouTube

Within one year of this conversation (by around March 2023), the global food-supply situation will become a humanitarian disaster in which hundreds of millions of people experience starvation (insufficient caloric intake), even if not all die.

“Regardless, it is going to be a humanitarian disaster within a year, and we will see hundreds of millions of people go starving.” View on YouTube

Private-market startup valuations will continue to fall from early-2022 levels, with revenue multiples compressing over time back toward roughly pre-COVID norms (~20x rather than ~100x), and this repricing will be sustained rather than a brief, transient dip.

“I think that there's going to be a trickle down effect of what's happened in the market to to privates, and the valuations are going to go back to their pre-COVID levels. I mean, are multiples pre-COVID were like 20, not 100. So we're seeing a massive repricing of Deals and that's going to continue. And I don't think it's just going to be this like transient effect.” View on YouTube

The early-2022 drawdown and volatility in public equity markets will not fully reverse in a quick rebound over the subsequent few weeks; instead, elevated volatility and repricing will persist beyond that short window.

“I don't think it's just going to be this like transient effect. And everything's going to bounce back in a few weeks on the public markets.” View on YouTube

Conditional: If a Russia-Ukraine peace deal is signed in 2022 following this negotiation phase, global equity markets will rally strongly in the days/weeks after signing; conversely, if the peace process collapses instead, markets will fall enough to erase the recent war-related gains and decline further.

“if that peace deal gets signed, I think the market rallies strongly because, you know, it went up considerably just on hopes that it might be signed. But on the other hand, if this peace process falls apart, I think the market will give back all those gains and then some.” View on YouTube

Conditional: If no Russia-Ukraine peace deal is reached in the near term (following March 2022), Russia will escalate the war, including heavy bombing of Ukrainian cities, which in turn will significantly increase political pressure on the US administration to escalate its own military involvement, raising the risk of the conflict spinning further out of control.

“I think that if there is no peace deal, I think you can almost expect Russia to escalate in the war. They have said this is an existential issue for them. I think that would mean, at a minimum, you know, heavy bombing of Ukrainian cities, and then that will step up the pressure even more on Biden and Washington to get militarily involved. This situation could still spin out of control.” View on YouTube

Conditional: If the Russia-Ukraine war continues through the 2022 spring planting season and related conditions keep deteriorating (e.g., agricultural disruption), the US economy will shift from its current slowdown into a very serious recession within the following year.

“if this war continues and we don't get the spring planning and things keep deteriorating, I think we're headed for a very serious recession in this country. I think we'll go from slowdown to recession.” View on YouTube

Over the subsequent decade or two after 2022, state actions like freezing bank accounts and targeting crypto wallets (as in Canada) will accelerate global interest in and adoption of decentralized, "off-government-chain" cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as a way to hold assets beyond direct state control.

“Bitcoin seems to be the resolution to that. And now you're seeing the ultimate challenge to Bitcoin and the challenge to decentralized systems like Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and so on... I think you're right, it's probably going to accelerate interest in these kind of off government chain, if true, into some separate chain.” View on YouTube

The broader social-justice-oriented "woke" movement in criminal justice and education (e.g., progressive DAs, equity-driven school reforms) will persist for years beyond 2022 rather than disappearing quickly in response to backlash in places like San Francisco.

“I think is not a movement that's going to go away overnight.” View on YouTube

Within roughly 15 years from February 2022 (by ~2037), autologous induced stem cell therapies—where a patient’s own cells are reprogrammed into stem cells and used clinically not only for bone marrow transplants but for healing multiple tissue types—will be in practical therapeutic use.

“that's like, you know, 15 years out is, um, autologous induced stem cell therapy, where you actually make your own stem cells and then give yourself all sorts of therapies, not just bone marrow transplants, but you can heal lots of tissue in the body using these stem cell systems.” View on YouTube

In the few years following February 2022 (approximately by 2025–2027), hundreds of distinct cell-based therapies that were in late-stage clinical trials at that time will obtain regulatory approval and come to market globally, alongside gene-editing-based therapies.

“there are hundreds of cell based therapies coming to market over the next few years, they're all in late stage clinical trials as well as gene editing.” View on YouTube

At some future point (implicit multi-decade horizon), advances in tools such as induced stem cells, cell-based therapies, and gene editing will progress to the point that both cancer and biological aging are effectively ‘resolved’ as diseases in humans, analogous to how HIV has become a manageable or curable condition.

“I think hopefully. And I'm optimistic that one day we will look back at cancer and aging in the same way that we're talking about HIV today, and that both of those diseases can and will be resolved with the tools that we're developing through science.” View on YouTube

For many homeowners whose houses were destroyed in the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires in the affected ZIP codes, the combination of service-provider shortages and California’s price-gouging and solicitation restrictions will result in reconstruction timelines on the order of 6–7 years before their homes are fully rebuilt (i.e., many such homes will not be rebuilt until roughly 2031–2032).

“There is not enough service providers down there. You're going to end up waiting six seven years to get your home rebuilt. Now, what do you do?” View on YouTube

Around the January 19, 2025 deadline, US policymakers and TikTok/ByteDance will reach or arrange a deal or delay such that TikTok is not actually banned and remains active in the US app stores when this episode airs (within a few days of Jan 18, 2025).

“Seems like they're going to strike a deal. Chuck Schumer today is calling for a delay in the ban. I'm sure by the time this episode airs, something will have been worked out to create some space for them to get a deal done. But I think they want to get a deal done and keep TikTok active in the US.” View on YouTube

Within the first six months of the next Trump administration, the US and China will reach a broad "grand deal" that eases tensions and creates mutual economic value.

“So this kind of also leads to what I think will be the grand deal with China, which I think will happen in the first six months of the Trump administration.” View on YouTube

As part of the anticipated grand deal in the first six months of a Trump administration, the US will reduce or minimize tariff impacts on Chinese imports in exchange for greater access for US entities to the Chinese market.

“I would imagine, just given the rhetoric, that this administration may try to work out again, some deal that's going to provide access to the Chinese market in exchange for the US minimizing the tariff effect on Chinese importers to the US.” View on YouTube

Due to the Ukraine war’s impact on fertilizer availability, pricing, and related disruptions, an additional tens of millions to as many as 300–400 million people globally will experience starvation (defined as under 1,200 calories per day on average for a year) over the coming years relative to the pre‑crisis baseline.

“Yeah. Look I don't know how many. Look there's some number of people, some number of tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people who are going to starve between here and there that otherwise weren't going to be starving... that's an incremental 300, 400 million people that didn't need to starve. And that's a condition we're now going to be facing.” View on YouTube

If the discussed House tax bill (the Smith/Crapo compromise) is enacted substantially as proposed, it will not materially reduce the U.S. annual federal deficit, and the deficit will rise to roughly $2.5 trillion per year on a sustained basis in subsequent years.

“The bill ultimately yields no real change in the annual deficit. The annual deficit could climb to $2.5 trillion, being added to the federal debt load every single year going forward.” View on YouTube

Under the described House tax bill and current fiscal trajectory, the U.S. federal budget deficit will rise to approximately $2.5 trillion per year and remain around that level annually for the foreseeable future (multiple consecutive years after the bill’s enactment).

“The bill ultimately yields no real change in the annual deficit. The annual deficit could climb to $2.5 trillion, being added to the federal debt load every single year going forward.” View on YouTube

If global investors begin to meaningfully question the U.S. government’s willingness or ability to fully honor its Treasury obligations over a 30‑year horizon, yields on 30‑year U.S. Treasuries will rise by roughly 1–2 percentage points (into the 6–7% range), which will in turn increase federal interest costs and annual deficits in a self‑reinforcing "debt spiral."

“Because what happens is people stop owning treasuries when they start to question whether or not, 30 years from now, the US government is going to meet its debt obligations. Even the smallest marginal question of that drives interest rates up 1% 2%. Suddenly, your 30 year treasury yields at 6% 7%, and then your interest rates climb and then your deficit spending climbs. And that's how it becomes a spiral.” View on YouTube

If Democrats win back national power in the next U.S. federal election cycle (i.e., regain control of the presidency and/or Congress), they will substantially halt or block large‑scale monetization of federal assets (such as expanded drilling and land/royalty programs), preventing that policy from continuing in a sustained way.

“First of all, political cycles are going to affect this. If the Democrats come back into power in this next election cycle, they'll put a blockade on this stuff. It's not going to be persistent.” View on YouTube

Even if the U.S. aggressively monetizes federal assets (land leases, resource extraction, etc.), the resulting new revenue streams will not scale up fast enough over roughly the next 10–15 years to fully offset or close the projected annual federal budget deficits.

“But I'm not sure that the ramp up is going to be fast enough to make up for the deficit.” View on YouTube

California's billionaire asset-seizure tax (BTA) proposal will slightly more likely than not fail to gather the support needed to qualify for the ballot.

“I don't think it's going to make the ballot. I mean, look, I I think it's not I'm not saying 100%. I'm saying slight overweight that it's not going to get there.” View on YouTube

Total COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the United States will top out at roughly 60–65% of the population (i.e., no more than about 65% of people will choose to get vaccinated).

“Yeah, I would guess 60, 60, 65%.” View on YouTube

SARS‑CoV‑2 (COVID-19) will remain endemic in the United States for multiple years and case counts will not fall to zero at any point in the foreseeable future.

“we are going to have Covid in the United States for years to come. It is not going to go to zero.” View on YouTube

US policymakers will continue to rely primarily on monetary expansion (inflation) through at least the coming year (through late 2022) to manage debt and economic imbalances, rather than sharply cutting spending or rapidly raising interest rates.

“I think we're just going to keep inflating our way out of this mess... and, um, it's what we'll do again this year.” View on YouTube

Over the medium term (within the next decade from 2021), US top marginal income tax rates are likely to rise back toward historical 1960s–1970s levels in the 70–80% range.

“remember the top marginal tax rate was what, 7,080% in the 60s and 70s? I mean, you know, that's likely where we're going to go back to.” View on YouTube

In response to fiscal pressures and debt, US policymakers will introduce or seriously pursue wealth taxes and increase the top marginal income tax rate toward approximately 70–80% within the coming years.

“We already got you're gonna you're gonna see some of these wealth taxes get chased down. You're going to see the top marginal tax rate go up 70, 80%.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, adoption of deflationary technologies such as software automation and self‑driving trucks will accelerate specifically to replace low‑income labor that has become scarce and expensive, partially offsetting inflationary wage pressures in those sectors.

“I feel like we need a deflationary set of technologies that can mitigate all of these effects. Right? So software automation, self-driving trucks, things that take the labor force because people don't want to work low income jobs factually.” View on YouTube

Within roughly the next 30 years (by ~2051), advances in quantum computing will enable deterministic modeling of molecular and atomic interactions, allowing the design of new molecular systems and processes (e.g., for synthesis like improved ammonia production) via accurate quantum-level simulation.

“using quantum computing. In the next 30 years, hopefully we'll be able to deterministically, um, model these, these behaviors on a, on a molecular and atomic level and as a result, kind of build new systems to make things.” View on YouTube

In approximately 100–120 years from 2021 (i.e., by around 2121–2141), typical people will have an in-room “replicator” device capable of locally manufacturing essentially all desired physical items (including food and complex objects) almost instantaneously, with very low energy use and very low cost, fundamentally changing supply chains.

“In 100 to 120 years from now, I do think we'll all have a replicator in our room, and that replicator will make all the things we want to make nearly instantaneously, with very low energy and very low cost.” View on YouTube

During Trump's upcoming term, within 2–4 years of taking office, the structure and operation of the U.S. federal government will be significantly and recognizably altered compared to its pre-Trump-2.0 state, as a result of his cabinet and agency-head selections (i.e., the government will “look very different” by the end of that 2–4 year window).

“This is going to bring in the most disruptive force that federal agencies have ever seen... this is going to be kind of an extinction level event, that Trump's decisions on who he's putting in place, I think, are going to drive an outcome on the other end that's going to make the government look very different... in the limited window that's in front of this particular administration, which is probably two years, maybe four.” View on YouTube

Google will appeal the Epic v. Google Play Store antitrust verdict and is likely to win on appeal, resulting in no massive change to Google Play Store business practices or economics (including its overall Play Store revenue) as a consequence of this case.

“Google's going to appeal. They feel very strongly they'll win an appeal. And the markets obviously did a, you know, voted with the fact that Google's stock didn't really move anywhere. And the market said, hey, this isn't this is a nothing burger. Google's 40 billion in annual Play Store revenue. Worst case scenario like you said, if it gets impacted by $2 billion, that's 2 billion out of 300 overall doesn't really matter. And likely they're going to win on appeal anyway. So you know, I think the saga will continue, but I think Google's got a pretty strong case on appeal. And it seems like, you know, it's going to be very hard to kind of see a massive change in App Store behavior as a result of this case, even though it's been hyped up to be that.” View on YouTube

Global food-production and supply stress (from reduced acreage and fertilizer use) will continue to worsen and persist for roughly 9–18 months from April 2022 (i.e., until approximately January–October 2023).

“everything that we predicted. I mean, this is a slow train, a titanic into the iceberg that we're watching right now, and it's going to continue for 9 to 18 months.” View on YouTube

Between April 2022 and April 2023, China will use its food stockpile to export calories and, through these deals, will significantly increase its geopolitical leverage and power in food-insecure countries relative to its pre‑2022 position.

“China is going to be one of the very few potential solutions for bridging the calorie gap over the next year. And I have a strong prediction and a strong belief that because of that, China will use it to maximum leverage. And we will see over the next year an incredible amount of leverage and power being accumulated by China because of transactions that they're going to start to enter into to bridge the calorie gap around the world.” View on YouTube

As the food crisis develops in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti) over the ensuing year or so from April 2022, China will step in as a primary food supplier to resolve acute shortages there and, as a result, will gain increased political influence and at least one new or expanded, more permanent military or strategic foothold in the Horn of Africa region.

“I think that, for example, the the food crisis that we're seeing emerge in Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti is going to be resolved by China. And China is going to end up gaining influence, gaining military presence and establishing a more permanent foothold in the Horn of Africa because of the position that they're in, of strength with all these calories.” View on YouTube

Within 6–9 months from April 2022 (i.e., by roughly October 2022–January 2023), it will be broadly recognized in global media and policy circles that China has significantly increased its geopolitical leverage worldwide by using its surplus food reserves during the global food crisis.

“I think this is going to become a macro trend that we're going to wake up to in 6 to 9 months and be like, whoa, what the heck happened? You know, how did China get so much leverage around the world? And it's starting now.” View on YouTube

Global food-production and supply stress (from reduced acreage and fertilizer use) will continue to worsen and persist for roughly 9–18 months from April 2022 (i.e., until approximately January–October 2023).

“everything that we predicted. I mean, this is a slow train, a titanic into the iceberg that we're watching right now, and it's going to continue for 9 to 18 months.” View on YouTube

Between April 2022 and April 2023, China will use its food stockpile to export calories and, through these deals, will significantly increase its geopolitical leverage and power in food-insecure countries relative to its pre‑2022 position.

“China is going to be one of the very few potential solutions for bridging the calorie gap over the next year. And I have a strong prediction and a strong belief that because of that, China will use it to maximum leverage. And we will see over the next year an incredible amount of leverage and power being accumulated by China because of transactions that they're going to start to enter into to bridge the calorie gap around the world.” View on YouTube

As the food crisis develops in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti) over the ensuing year or so from April 2022, China will step in as a primary food supplier to resolve acute shortages there and, as a result, will gain increased political influence and at least one new or expanded, more permanent military or strategic foothold in the Horn of Africa region.

“I think that, for example, the the food crisis that we're seeing emerge in Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti is going to be resolved by China. And China is going to end up gaining influence, gaining military presence and establishing a more permanent foothold in the Horn of Africa because of the position that they're in, of strength with all these calories.” View on YouTube

Within 6–9 months from April 2022 (i.e., by roughly October 2022–January 2023), it will be broadly recognized in global media and policy circles that China has significantly increased its geopolitical leverage worldwide by using its surplus food reserves during the global food crisis.

“I think this is going to become a macro trend that we're going to wake up to in 6 to 9 months and be like, whoa, what the heck happened? You know, how did China get so much leverage around the world? And it's starting now.” View on YouTube

By roughly the late 2020s, fertility clinics will routinely be able to take somatic cells (e.g., skin cells) from a person, reprogram them into stem cells, and then into egg cells, allowing IVF to be performed for women at essentially any age without harvesting natural eggs.

“So in the next couple of years, there's, you know, there's a few little technical breakthroughs that are happening right now that will enable this, where fertility clinics may end up just taking a little bit of your skin cell, creating stem cells, creating egg cells. And that's how we're going to end up doing IVF in the future at any age. So you could make eggs at any age, and you can ultimately produce offspring at any age.” View on YouTube

Within the next few years (by the late 2020s), advances such as lab‑generated egg cells will make IVF significantly simpler, less invasive, and more widely available than it is in 2025.

“So there's a future here in the next couple of years where fertility becomes a simpler, hopefully easier and more widely available service than it is today, where it's really challenging technically and you've got to go do something that's invasive and, you know, you've got to hope that there's good, healthy eggs and there's a good number of eggs and so on and so forth.” View on YouTube

Under current law and contribution/benefit patterns, the U.S. Social Security Trust Fund will become insolvent (unable to pay full scheduled benefits) around the year 2032.

“Today, the Social Security Trust Fund has $2.7 trillion balance, and based on the outflows and inflows, it's going to go bankrupt in 2032.” View on YouTube

Following this Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)–MS paper (published January 2022), new clinical trials will be initiated in the near term to test EBV-targeted therapies, including T‑cell therapies, in multiple sclerosis patients to see if clearing or suppressing EBV reduces or eliminates the need for ongoing MS treatments.

“So that's the clinical trials that will start now. Because if you can give people a T cell therapy and eliminate EBV and stop all future need for Ms. treatment, that'll save 40 grand a year, it'll start to make sense to run clinical studies to see if that stuff's possible and is worth doing.” View on YouTube

The strong epidemiological data in the January 2022 Epstein–Barr virus–MS paper will trigger a noticeable increase in investment (public, private, or both) into EBV-related therapeutics and vaccines over the subsequent few years.

“By the way, this isn't novel. People have been talking about this for a long time, but this paper has such incredible data and such strong signal that it's really gonna it's really going to catalyze investment.” View on YouTube

If the EU and United States adopt a techno‑pessimistic, highly regulatory stance toward new technologies like AI while countries such as China embrace them, then over the coming years China’s GDP will grow significantly while U.S. GDP will stagnate relative to China.

“And as a result, China's GDP will scale while the U.S will stagnate if that's where they go. That's my assessment or my opinion on what will happen.” View on YouTube

If a new round of U.S. tariffs against China is implemented under a future Trump administration, China will respond by significantly tariffing or sharply reducing imports of U.S. agricultural products, forcing the U.S. federal government to again make large transfer payments (on the order of tens of billions of dollars) to U.S. farmers.

“there will be, as there was in the first Trump presidency, very likely very large transfer payments made to farmers, because China is very likely going to tariff imports or stop making import purchases altogether” View on YouTube

Following a new round of U.S. tariff measures (such as those proposed by Trump), affected trading partner countries will eventually agree to partial concessions and a negotiated trade settlement rather than maintaining maximal retaliatory tariffs indefinitely.

“I do think ultimately many of these countries are going to capitulate to some degree, and we're going to end up with some negotiated settlement” View on YouTube

Friedberg predicts that in Q4 2021 there will be escalating global conflict (i.e., measurable increase in international military tensions or conflicts versus earlier in 2021).

“I predict escalating global conflict. That'll be my prediction to mark the, uh, Q4.” View on YouTube

Friedberg predicts that the trend of conglomerates being broken up will continue over the coming years: activist shareholders will target additional large conglomerates, push for breakups, and those breakup campaigns will typically result in the combined equity value of the separated businesses rising by roughly 20–30% relative to the pre‑breakup conglomerate valuation.

“So I think it'll it'll continue to and you could probably go and pick a bunch of these conglomerates and you'll see the activist shareholders doing this. They'll they'll buy a bunch of shares, they'll instigate and say, hey, you guys should break up. The share price will go up by 2,030%.” View on YouTube

In the United States, once approximately 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered, the COVID-19 pandemic will effectively be over in the sense that community transmission will be greatly reduced and the virus will have substantial difficulty spreading through the population.

“If we can get 200 million shots in arms…we can be done with the pandemic based on how many the efficacy of transmission rate reduction, combined with the fact that a certain number of people have already developed immunity to this thing, we get to the point that there should be kind of a, you know, think about a network and you start turning nodes off the network. Suddenly it becomes really hard to see transmission happen across the network.” View on YouTube

Around 45 days after mid-March 2021 (i.e., by roughly late April 2021), the United States will reach a point with COVID-19 vaccination progress and inventory where the country is clearly beginning to exit the pandemic phase (“skating out of this thing”), with improving epidemiological conditions driven by high vaccine supply and uptake.

“I do feel pretty good when you look at kind of the inventory forecast and you look at how many shots are being given per day, that in 45 days or so, we're going to get to a point that we're starting to skate out of this thing” View on YouTube

If meaningful inflation takes hold in the U.S. economy, prices will rise broadly across commodity products, including food, agricultural products, and metals.

“you'll see this across all commodity products if inflation takes hold in a in a meaningful way, um, including, uh, you know, food products, ag products, you know, um, all commodities, you know, metals.” View on YouTube

In the evolving market environment, retail and other investors will increasingly build portfolios of early‑stage, high‑risk public equities whose performance distribution will resemble venture portfolios: a small number of 10x winners, many total losses, and some modest-return positions.

“I think you're going to see these, um, these scenarios where people will build public portfolios, public public company portfolios that will perform a lot like venture portfolios, right? You'll have 1 or 2 businesses that'll have a ten bagger and, you know, a chunk that will go to zero and a chunk that'll have some modest return on them.” View on YouTube

As speculative, early‑stage public listings proliferate, many investors will concentrate too much capital in single "sure thing" stocks, leading to significant losses for non‑diversified investors; only diversified portfolios across many such names will have a reasonable chance of producing good returns.

“it's going to be this, this tremendous learning experience, because a lot of people will put all their money into one stock that they think is already been made. It's already it's already a done thing... And so depending on the price you're entering and how many of these things you buy, you could build a portfolio that could have a good return. But it's it's going to be a lot of speculative betting and a lot of losses. And if you don't diversify you're going to lose a lot of money.” View on YouTube

Under a Kevin Warsh-led Federal Reserve, overnight interest rates could rise above 5.5-6%.

“I think we should kind of expect especially with a Kevin Worsh Fed, I think we could see north of five and a half, 6% overnight rates. It's not unforeseeable.” View on YouTube

Because of lagging components of inflation such as insurance and other cost items, U.S. interest rates will remain at or near their July 2023 peak (5.25–5.5% Fed funds range) for longer than the futures market was predicting in January 2024 (i.e., cuts will be delayed beyond the then-expected March 2024 start and likely beyond mid-2024).

“So there's a number of these. It's not just car insurance, but there's a lot of things that are going to linger for a while, and they're going to be very hard to work their way through the system very quickly. And as a result, it may be the case that rates are going to need to stay higher for longer.” View on YouTube

When Robinhood conducts its IPO, the company will allocate at least some portion of the IPO shares directly to Robinhood retail customers rather than exclusively to institutional investors.

“It's almost certain they're going to give some of the shares available in the IPO to Robinhood customers.” View on YouTube

By roughly 2050, practical plasma fusion power systems will be operating on Earth (i.e., at least one fusion reactor will regularly produce net useful power).

“over the next few decades, it is appearing more likely that we will have plasma fusion systems working on Earth” View on YouTube

Between 2030 and 2050, fusion power will become commercially real (beyond just experiments), providing such abundant energy that in that timeframe or shortly thereafter it will be technically feasible to reverse climate-change-related carbon buildup in the atmosphere using fusion-powered processes.

“So this seems to be building up. And so the 2030s and the 2040s are where this becomes real. And all these problems and concerns we have about climate change and carbon in the atmosphere, all of this stuff can be reversed with infinite energy.” View on YouTube

By roughly 2050–2100, operational plasma fusion systems will provide abundant, effectively cheap energy; by the 22nd century (2100–2200), controlled fusion-based nucleosynthesis will become practically achievable, allowing industrial-scale production of heavier elements (e.g., lithium, rare earths, phosphorus) from lighter feedstocks such as water or common materials.

“So over the next call it 100 years plasma fusion systems, I think back half of this century come online, provide us with abundant free energy. And then in the 22nd century, I think this idea of nucleosynthesis, the idea that we can actually make the rare earth or the heavier elements that are limited natural resources here on Earth where we could turn water into gold, or water into lithium, or water into molybdenum, or into beryllium or whatever starts to become a reality.” View on YouTube

By roughly 200 years from 2022 (around the year 2222), if fusion development continues, plasma fusion reactors will be miniaturized enough that many or most individual electrical devices could contain their own small fusion power source instead of relying on batteries or centralized grids.

“So I do think that in 200 years, if plasma fusion systems work, there's nothing about the laws of physics that says they're limited in scale to only being large. They theoretically could be reduced down to there's no limit to the size they could drop down to. And so there could be a world 200 years from now where plasma fusion reactors exist in every component that needs electricity.” View on YouTube

The rise in energy prices seen in early 2022 is not the start of a permanent long‑term uptrend; prices will be pushed higher temporarily by geopolitical tensions (e.g., Russia‑Ukraine), but that strength will only last for a limited period (on the order of months, not many years).

“I don't think this is a long term trend... I do think that some of this global tension stuff we're seeing is only going to drive it up for a while.” View on YouTube

If by 48–72 hours after the end of the March 11–12, 2023 weekend all SVB depositors do not have 100% of their deposits made available in cash, there will be a serious crisis characterized by a massive run away from institutions that hold anything other than fully liquid cash.

“every depositor needs to get paid 100% of their money, and that cash needs to be made available to them by early next week. And if that money is not available to them within the first 48 or 72 hours of the end of this weekend, then we are going to have a real crisis on our hands... that's going to cause a massive run.” View on YouTube

The only way to avoid a broader crisis is for a buyer to take over SVB over the March 11–12, 2023 weekend, with the federal government guaranteeing 100% of SVB deposits so that all depositors have immediate cash access next week.

“What has to happen... is if someone takes over Silicon Valley Bank this weekend and that the federal government... has to say we will guarantee 100% of those deposits... But we need to make sure that there's cash here today for all of these depositors to get paid.” View on YouTube

In the immediate aftermath of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse (over the next few months of 2023), private markets and venture capital activity will contract sharply: many VCs will pull existing term sheets, and the number of funding rounds closed will fall to roughly half of the pre-SVB pace as investors focus on triaging existing portfolios.

“I think private markets and VC could seize. I think you're going to see people pull term sheets. Maybe half as many fundings are going to occur as people try to do triage.” View on YouTube

Following the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, some venture funds will shut down, and many portfolio companies that were already heavily distressed (roughly ‘75% distressed’) will not receive bridge financing and will instead shut down at an accelerated rate over the subsequent months of 2023.

“yes, I do think funds could shut down, uh, coming out of this, I think that companies that were call it, you know, 75% distressed are done for now. No one's going to step in and bridge them and fund them. Uh, it's going to accelerate a lot of shutdowns because people are now cash is king, now cash is king.” View on YouTube

During the 21st century, biomanufacturing will grow into a major industry in the United States, and by the end of the century it will be the primary production method for many of the molecules used in food, clothing, and materials.

“I do believe that there is a big wave of bio manufacturing as an industry that is coming on the US this century, and it will hopefully, by the end of the century, be the primary way that we're kind of producing a lot of the molecules that we consume and that we use for clothing and materials.” View on YouTube

Over the course of the 21st century, industrial production will shift toward multi-purpose, programmable bioreactor ‘printers’—large fermentation-tank-based systems that can be reprogrammed via genetic software to output different products, replacing many single-purpose factories.

“in this century we are going to build these giant printers... they're going to be systems that are giant fermentation tanks... you program them with software... they take stuff on the input and they make on the output a bunch of different stuff.” View on YouTube

From the 2020s onward, the United States will experience a sustained growth wave in biomanufacturing, with the sector becoming a major industrial pillar over the remainder of the 21st century.

“we are seeing it now... I do believe that there is a big wave of bio manufacturing as an industry that is coming on the US this century” View on YouTube

Companies using genetic-engineering-based biomanufacturing to produce alternative proteins (such as Perfect Day, Impossible Foods, and Beyond Meat) will be early exemplars and drivers of the broader biomanufacturing wave and will help establish biomanufactured food as a significant category over the coming decades.

“perfect day just raised $300 million this week. Um, impossible Foods raised $400 million... Beyond Meat is where they're at. I mean, these companies are using, um, these techniques...” View on YouTube

If approximately $500 billion of public investment is directed into biomanufacturing starting around 2020, it will substantially accelerate adoption, with biomanufacturing rapidly expanding from food into pharmaceuticals and materials within the following years and decades.

“If we put 500 billion into this, how much would it accelerate it? ... Um, pretty substantially. And I think it goes from food to pharma to materials.” View on YouTube

In fall 2020, U.S. school reopening decisions will vary widely by locality, with some schools reopening in-person with minimal precautions, others adopting strict measures, and some remaining closed, resulting in a heterogeneous national picture rather than a uniform policy.

“Yeah, I think it's going to be a mixed bag... So you'll definitely see a mixed bag.” View on YouTube

The Becton Dickinson handheld COVID-19 antigen testing device, costing roughly $250, will have single-use test cartridges costing about $15–30 per test, and these rapid tests (with ~5-minute turnaround) will become available to buyers by roughly August 2020.

“the handheld device that they use in hospitals and stuff today it's 250 bucks, and there's a little test kit that you buy. It'll probably cost 20 to 30 bucks. It'll be available next month per test... and it takes five minutes to get a result.” View on YouTube

Becton Dickinson (the maker of the described handheld antigen test) will perform well commercially with this COVID-19 testing system over the subsequent years, due to the advantages of protein (antigen) testing versus RNA-based tests.

“I think that company will do well with that testing system they've launched, because it actually tests not for the RNA but for the protein.” View on YouTube

As of July 11, 2020, if the U.S. presidential election were held immediately, Joe Biden would defeat Donald Trump.

“If the vote were to happen today, he would win. Uh, Joe Biden would win.” View on YouTube

Facebook will institute a policy in 2020 banning all political advertising on its platform for the remainder of that year.

“it looks like Facebook is going to ban all political ads this year.” View on YouTube

If Facebook bans political ads for the rest of 2020, that policy will materially benefit Joe Biden’s chances relative to Donald Trump in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

“I think that works. Uh, that obviously works to Biden's favor if that's the case.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years as climate- and weather-related catastrophe losses increase, the ultimate financial burden of these losses will fall predominantly on taxpayers (via government support), rather than on insurers or homeowners alone.

“at the end of the day, one of three parties are going to end up eating the cost of the change in probability of loss that has occurred. It's either the homeowner... or number two is the insurers... Or the third is the taxpayer...” View on YouTube

Due to underpriced state-backed home insurance schemes in Florida and California, governments (state or federal) will have to cover large insurance shortfalls after disasters, which will provoke taxpayer backlash and, in the near future, lead to legislative reforms that reduce or end these subsidies and allow insurance pricing to rise to reflect true risk.

“But at the end of the day, the bill is going to come due. And in the case of Florida and in the case of California, either the state government or the federal government's going to step in and pay the difference. And at some point, taxpayers are going to look at the fact that they're paying some percentage of their income to support someone else's home value, and they're going to say, enough is enough, and enough of these sorts of events start to happen, and then the legislative change I think will happen that says this. It doesn't make sense. We have to make a change. And I think we're getting pretty close after the series of events.” View on YouTube

As AI answer engines mature, a large majority (on the order of ~95%) of low value-add content sites in niches like self-help and basic how‑to advice will disappear because user demand will shift to AI interfaces that aggregate and synthesize that information.

“it is more likely than not that many of these quote content publishers that aren't adding very much marginal value are going to go away, that you could see the number of content sites offering self-help advice and how to do this and how to do that. 95% of them go away because all of that work gets aggregated and synthesized and presented in a really simple, easy user interface that makes them completely oblivious” View on YouTube

If the U.S. continues current policies of (a) maintaining Social Security and Medicare without cuts, (b) servicing existing debt plus interest, and (c) keeping tax rates roughly unchanged, then the U.S. federal government will eventually default on its debt obligations at some future point (no specific date given).

“And so what happens as we make these Social Security Medicare payments and we accrue and pay interest on the debt that we hold today. And we don't change the tax rates in this country. And this is what happens. So it's a runaway kind of debt scenario in the US, by definition, has to default at some point because you cannot tax every dollar of the economy at 100% at some point.” View on YouTube

If, within the coming decades, the United States reduces its energy cost by 50–75% and increases energy production capacity by 10–20x, then U.S. economic growth will be sufficient to materially alleviate or "grow out of" the long‑term debt and entitlement funding problem without requiring extreme tax hikes or entitlement cuts.

“If you can get the cost of energy in this country to drop by 50 to 75%, and you can increase energy capacity by 10 to 20 fold. Then you have a fighting chance because you can actually grow the economy out of the problem.” View on YouTube

If U.S. energy production capacity increases by approximately 10x within 20–30 years from 2023, the U.S. will have a viable path to resolving its entitlement–tax–debt imbalance via growth; if this does not occur, then by around 2043–2053 at least one of the three—entitlement spending levels, tax rates, or debt sustainability—will break down in a disruptive or "ugly" way (e.g., crisis-level cuts, tax hikes, or debt event).

“Yeah. And so look, if we can increase energy capacity in this country by ten x energy production capacity by ten x, and we can do it in the next 20 to 30 years... If we can, we have a path out of the entitlement tax debt problem. Otherwise, one of those three things is going to give and it's going to be ugly.” View on YouTube

Due to a roughly 40% cut in Russian natural gas supplies to Europe leading into winter 2022–2023, Europe will experience massive increases in energy prices (multiples over normal levels) that will in turn cause systemic stress and partial failures across the broader European economy, including currency weakness and disruption in debt markets, during winter 2022–2023.

“40% of energy being cut is a massive, massive problem. There will be significant price climbs for the kind of variable demand in heating and cooling and so on... and so it's causing critical failure, uh, across the economy, across the currencies, across debt markets.” View on YouTube

Within the several months following September 10, 2022 (i.e., by roughly early 2023), Western countries and the EU will broker a negotiated settlement with Russia over the Ukraine war that ends the acute energy crisis in Europe.

“I think that there's going to be this inevitability that we're going to need to broker a deal with Russia... I think that's where this is all going to end up over the next several months.” View on YouTube

If there is no negotiated resolution to the Ukraine–Russia conflict within a few weeks after September 10, 2022 (i.e., by roughly October 2022), Europe will experience significant rioting and civil unrest, along with a severe, potentially "cataclysmic" economic impact (including deep economic contraction and major financial stress).

“If it doesn't, there's going to be significant rioting and civil unrest in Europe. And? And there will be a significant significant economic effect... If there isn't a resolution in the next few weeks, there will be civil unrest. There will be a really cataclysmic concerning economic effect.” View on YouTube

As part of the eventual settlement of the Ukraine–Russia war (expected within several months of September 10, 2022), Western countries and the EU will commit a very large financial package to Ukraine, Ukraine will agree to let Russia retain some captured regions/assets while Russia withdraws from others, and Western sanctions on Russia will be partially lifted to a degree sufficient for Russian gas flows to Europe to resume and for European economies to restart normal activity.

“Ukraine? We are going to have to plow so much money into the Ukraine to make them feel okay about what we're going to ask them to do in order to remove, um, or to end the crisis... my guess is a huge amount of money from the West and EU going into Ukraine... sanctions are partially lifted, but they're partially lifted enough to get the flow of gas going and to get the economy turning again.” View on YouTube

Within roughly 30 years from 2022 (by about 2052), all traditional consumer brands (i.e., legacy, non–content-centric brands) will effectively disappear as viable, competitive entities.

“I have a really strong belief that in the next 30 years or so, all traditional brands are going to die.” View on YouTube

Over time (over the coming decades), traditional paid advertising and marketing will be largely replaced by influencer/content-based marketing, where direct-to-consumer content distribution on social media becomes the primary way consumers discover and purchase goods and services.

“So I think in the future it's advertising. All advertising and marketing gets replaced by content creation. And content creation direct to consumers through the social media platforms becomes the mechanism by which people are aware of and buy goods and services.” View on YouTube

MrBeast Burger (or MrBeast-branded burger franchises) can grow to become more successful than McDonald’s in the burger/fast-food restaurant category, assuming it scales to thousands of franchise locations.

“Yes, and that's what I'm saying. That's my point. That's why I that's kind.” View on YouTube

By roughly 30 years from 2022 (around 2052), every traditional incumbent brand in core consumer goods and services will be displaced or rendered noncompetitive by influencer-led brands built on large content-driven audiences.

“Yeah, but this is exactly my point that I said at the beginning, every traditional brand will get destroyed in 30 years, and they will get destroyed by the influencers that have built an audience through content creation and now creating businesses on top of that, that compete with the traditional incumbents, not technology advantaged businesses. I'm talking about core consumer goods and services.” View on YouTube

Over the decade following 2022 (approximately 2022–2032), distributed content creation tools and platforms will be among the most significant and lucrative investment opportunities, as enabling individuals to make high-quality content will allow them to build and monetize large audiences in many ways beyond standard ad spots.

“And so this is why I just want to point out distributed content creation, I think, represents one of the most profound investing opportunities over the next decade, because if you can give individuals the ability to make high quality content, they can scale an audience that that that now can be monetized in a thousand ways, not just putting friggin ad spots on YouTube, but there's a thousand products.” View on YouTube

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will take over the Democratic Party in 2026, similar to how the MAGA movement took over the Republican Party.

“democratic socialist of america ... i think the dsa is taking over the ... democratic party” View on YouTube

The 'Mamdani moment' (a young, socialist-aligned political figure) will be 2026's biggest political winner, edging out JD Vance, as Democrats shift toward full socialism in response to Trump neglecting working-class economic concerns.

“i'm going to give the edge to the mandami moment” View on YouTube

The tech industry will be 2026's biggest political loser, facing a bipartisan populist backlash (from the MAGA-aligned right and the socialist left) culminating in a midterm referendum against tech.

“my biggest political loser of 2026 is the tech industry ... a really big referendum against the tech industry coming out of” View on YouTube

If strong speech/content regulations are imposed on major centralized social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, a new alternative platform will emerge that operates in a more decentralized model and serves similar discovery/access use cases.

“If they start putting the regulatory hammer down on these quote unquote platforms, telling them what they can and cannot make available to their users. There will be another platform that will emerge, and that platform may end up being in this kind of decentralized model.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years and potentially decades, attempts by regulators to restrict emotionally stimulating online content will function as a whack‑a‑mole: consumers will repeatedly migrate to new services, and overall consumption of emotionally arousing digital media will continue to increase despite regulation.

“So, you know, go ahead and play whack a mole. You'll play whack a mole for a few years, maybe a few decades. But at the end of the day, digital technology and a connected world will drive consumers to exactly where they will naturally find themselves, which is consuming ever more of the things that create this emotional response in them.” View on YouTube

In the coming years, explicitly including the United States as a whole, socialist policies and political movements will become dominant nationwide ("sweep over this nation"), leading to broad public dissatisfaction.

“My prediction everybody's unhappy. My prediction will ring truer than any of us hope. Socialism will sweep over this nation, I fear” View on YouTube

Within approximately 18 months of this August 2025 discussion (i.e., by early 2027), at least one Generation IV nuclear reactor project in the United States will have begun construction or entered initial deployment/production.

“Secretary rice is going to speak at the All in Summit. He has said the Department of Energy that in the United States, we are likely going to have a Gen four reactor deployed or started production in 18 months, but we'll see.” View on YouTube

Around nine months after April 2022 (i.e., roughly January 2023), a significant global famine will begin, driven by the Ukraine war’s impact on fertilizer, acreage, and food supply chains.

“for fear of the famine that's about to hit us in about nine months.” View on YouTube

As the food-supply shocks from the Ukraine war and fertilizer shortages play out over the subsequent 1–2 years after April 2022, the United States, Western Europe, and China will avoid major food crises, while Sri Lanka and countries in Northern and Eastern Africa will experience severe food-supply distress or crisis conditions.

“The United States is going to be fine. Western Europe will be fine. China will be fine. Sri Lanka is going to be a mess. Northern and eastern Africa is going to be a mess.” View on YouTube

During the year 2025, public and policy discussions in the United States about shifting from an income tax–based model to a consumption tax–based model will increase noticeably and become a prominent topic in economic and political debate.

“And I think we're going to hear about it a lot more this year, is trying to get the United States to move away from an income taxation model to a consumption taxation model.” View on YouTube

Over the next 1–2 years (by roughly 2027), hyperscale cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure will add so much AI/GPU capacity and bundle it into their own services that third‑party GPU cloud providers like CoreWeave will face significantly reduced demand and downward pressure on pricing, similar to how "speed doubler" services became obsolete once broadband arrived.

“That would be my biggest if I was to do diligence on this business. That's where I would spend a lot of my time is like, guys, what's the capacity going to be in a year or two? Sort of like when broadband hit the internet and you didn't need speed doublers anymore, do you really need to be paying as much as you are today? Is there going to be as much demand? How much is this going to get bundled in with GCP or AWS and so on in the future?” View on YouTube

Over the 12 months following this March 2025 episode (through roughly March 2026), the Trump administration will pursue a strategy of pushing interest rates down in order to refinance approximately $10 trillion of maturing US federal debt, with Trump showing more willingness than in his first term to tolerate stock‑market weakness in service of that refinancing goal.

“I'd say 60%. He's probably different than Trump 1.0, and he's probably less influenced by the short term rumblings about the market... I would imagine the administration generally with Bessent and others in, in kind of key leadership positions, are trying to make the case that if we can get rates down, we have an opportunity to kind of refinance this $10 trillion that's coming due in the next 12 months and get ourselves into a kind of more sustainable financing position.” View on YouTube

Within the next few years (by roughly 2028), public and elite opinion in the US and other Western countries will shift toward the view that, in an emerging multipolar world with increasing technological and resource abundance, NATO is significantly less necessary than it was in the 20th century, leading to growing political support for reduced US commitment to NATO or a redefined role for the alliance.

“So I would argue maybe NATO in a multi-polar world of abundance isn't as necessary as it has been in the past century... and we may find that in the next couple of years we start to really believe it.” View on YouTube

Over the subsequent 3–5 years from early 2022, hundreds of privately held companies that raised capital at high unicorn-level valuations will be unable to achieve comparable valuations in the public markets if they attempt to IPO on the basis of their then-current financial projections.

“there are hundreds of companies that have raised billions of dollars at valuations that if they look in the public markets now, they are never actually going to achieve. If they were to go public in the next three, 4 or 5 years based on their projections.” View on YouTube

In the current and near-term market downturn being discussed (post-2021), the startup ecosystem will not experience a crash as severe as 2000 or 2008 in which roughly a third of startups disappear or a large number of high-profile VC-backed companies are wiped out (i.e., no "Sequoia graveyard"-type outcome).

“I don't think we're running into that again. So, you know, let's not create a sequoia graveyard” View on YouTube

By roughly two years after this January 2022 recording (i.e., by early 2024), about 80% of aggregate capital deployed into private markets will come from only three or four investment firms (e.g., Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, SoftBank, etc.).

“if you look at the aggregate capital that's being deployed into private markets right now, in probably two years, 80% of it's going to come from three firms or four firms.” View on YouTube

Andreessen Horowitz is very likely to be the first major venture capital firm to go public via an IPO, ahead of its VC peers, following its scale-up to private-equity-like assets under management.

“it's very likely it's very likely that you'll see Andreessen be the first.” View on YouTube

Multiple additional venues based on the Las Vegas Sphere concept will be built, resulting in dozens of such Sphere‑like immersive venues worldwide within roughly the next decade after 2023.

“my prediction on the sphere, I think there'll be like dozens of these things soon enough.” View on YouTube

Future Sphere‑like immersive venues will be built at substantially lower capex than the original (~$2–2.5B), with smaller versions costing on the order of a few hundred million dollars each, and these will be rolled out widely (many installations globally, analogous to IMAX theater proliferation) over the coming decade or so.

“It'll get cheaper and cheaper over time. The first one was, what, two, two, $2.5 billion? They'll make smaller versions of it. It'll be a couple hundred million. It's almost like Imax theaters. They'll roll them out all over.” View on YouTube

Within 5 years (by roughly 2031), the combined market capitalization of today's software companies will be 4x to 10x higher than current levels, though gains will be unevenly distributed across companies.

“I would say that you could probably take the sum of the market cap of all the software companies today and have a pretty good bet that everything will be four to 10x higher 5 years from now, but it's going to be not evenly distributed.” View on YouTube

Over the next few years (by approximately 2029-2030), AI compute electricity efficiency (per token of output) will improve by roughly 70x to 100x due to changes in chip and model architecture.

“I do think that we will see compute efficiency scale by probably on the order of 70 to 100x over the next few years, meaning electricity efficiency per token of output.” View on YouTube

Within approximately 10 years from the time of this recording (by ~2034), China will have roughly four times (4x) the electricity production capacity of the United States.

“and that ultimately leads to a situation where in ten years, we're going to be looking across the water at, you know, a competitive country that has Rex forex. The electricity production capacity of our country” View on YouTube

The performance of Grok 3, trained on xAI's ~100,000-GPU Colossus cluster, will provide a decisive empirical test within its first training run of whether existing AI training scaling laws continue to hold or are starting to break down.

“Grok three is a big card and will resolve this question of whether or not we're hitting a wall.” View on YouTube

Regardless of whether current training scaling laws continue to hold, there will be at least 10 more years of significant AI innovation driven by other axes such as inference-time compute, context window expansion, and architectural improvements.

“Even if scaling laws for training break, we have another decade of innovation ahead of us.” View on YouTube

If current AI scaling laws continue to hold, xAI's Grok 3 model will surpass OpenAI/Microsoft’s best publicly available frontier model and become the state-of-the-art general-purpose LLM by January or February 2025.

“Grok three should take the lead if scaling laws hold in January or February.” View on YouTube

By roughly 2026–2027, training a single top-tier frontier AI model at the cutting edge will require on the order of US$100 billion in total training cost (hardware, energy, and associated infrastructure).

“Particularly if it's going to cost $100 billion to train a model in 2 or 3 years, which I think is a realistic estimate.” View on YouTube

Within about 12 months of this December 2024 recording (i.e., by late 2025), end users will be able to specify an application in natural language and have AI systems autonomously generate, test (including QA), design and iterate the UX, and deploy a working production-ready app within a few hours, with minimal human intervention.

“You fast forward 12 months and now you've got the architecture where the AI can run its own QA testing and debugging, and the AI can run its own kind of sales and marketing and customer its own UX of the application and it can run everything. So you're basically going to say, I want this app to do this. It builds it, it tests it, it builds the UX, it tests the UX, it iterates the UX, it does everything streamlined for you. And then you show up a couple hours later and you're using a new product that was built on the fly for you.” View on YouTube

By sometime in 2025, natural human language (e.g., English prompts and instructions) will be the primary interface used by most developers and many non-developers to create and modify software, effectively making human language the dominant programming language in practice.

“I think next year, the human language will be the dominant programming language.” View on YouTube

According to the CBO projection being cited, U.S. federal debt held by the public will reach approximately 202% of GDP by the year 2051.

“The CBO put out a projection...they said that the, um, US national debt is likely to reach 202% of GDP by 2051.” View on YouTube

In the 2024 US election cycle, an independent or third‑party political effort (e.g., RFK Jr. or a new party) will emerge as a significant 'big winner,' materially challenging the traditional Democratic–Republican two‑party dominance (e.g., via unusually high polling or vote share).

“I'm going to go with independent third party in the US... there may be a big winner this year that challenges the traditional two party split in this country.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2024, US financial and military support to Ukraine will materially decline, Ukraine’s prospects of joining NATO will have significantly faded, and Ukraine will be widely perceived as having been effectively 'left behind' by Western backers.

“I think Ukraine might be the biggest loser this year... the US will probably not have the resources to commit to Ukraine. I think Ukraine's shot at being in NATO is going to fade away. And unfortunately, it seems like the country may be left behind by the end of this year.” View on YouTube

In 2024, commodity‑related businesses (e.g., producers and traders of major commodities) will experience a significant boom, with sector performance notably strong relative to the broader market.

“I'm going with commodities businesses... I think there's a big commodities boom that's coming back in 2024... So commodities businesses are going to see a killer 2024.” View on YouTube

In 2024, vertical SaaS companies (industry‑specific SaaS products) charging high per‑seat prices will see significant headwinds—such as churn, pricing pressure, or valuation declines—as enterprises increasingly replace them with cheaper, internally built solutions enabled by AI and low/no‑code tools.

“Vertical SaaS companies, I think, are going to get smacked this year... I think this is a real threat to vertical SaaS businesses that can charge thousands of dollars per seat per year, that are getting disrupted by the ability for companies now to very cheaply and quickly build homegrown solutions using a lot of the generative tools that are out there.” View on YouTube

In 2024, there will be several 'blockbuster' licensing deals in which major IP owners (e.g., Disney or similar studios) license significant portions of their content libraries for generative‑AI use (e.g., to generate on‑demand images, games, or media), creating a lucrative new revenue stream for such rights‑holders.

“I think rights holders getting licensing deals for generative AI or there's going to be a couple of blockbuster deals this year... where you'll see like Disney licensed out a chunk of their library so people can generate on demand video games or content... I think we see that again with generative AI this year... So anyone that has an interesting content rights will start to license it out and get a lot of value from it.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2024, at least a few large, highly publicized licensing deals between major content rights‑holders and AI companies for generative‑AI usage will have been signed (on top of any NYT/OpenAI‑type settlement).

“We see... a couple of big deals like that this year.” View on YouTube

For calendar year 2024, Friedberg assigns roughly a 1–2% probability (an order of magnitude higher than five years ago) that a nuclear weapon will be used in an armed conflict somewhere in the world.

“I think the big one that's contrarian is that there's an increased probability of a nuclear weapon being used for the first time in conflict... I don't think this is a high probability. I think it's like one, you know, call it 1 to 2% chance something like this happens, but it's ten x where it was five years ago.” View on YouTube

In 2024, there will be a significant political move or formal challenge to Turkey’s status in NATO—such as serious calls or proposals for Turkey to leave or be pushed out—marking an initial visible fracturing of NATO’s unity.

“I think there's a risk that Turkey gets challenged to leave NATO... you start to see the first fracturing of NATO happen, with Turkey being asked to leave or some negotiation on something that happens this year.” View on YouTube

For 2024, the uranium‑focused ETF URA (and underlying uranium/nuclear‑power equities) will be among the best‑performing assets, benefiting from a strong pro‑nuclear and uranium demand cycle.

“Oh I took the uranium ETF Ura easy money... these companies are going to benefit from this big macro cycle.” View on YouTube

Over 2024, shares of vertical SaaS/vertical software companies will underperform, while shares of major cloud providers offering AI tools and platforms will outperform, making a long‑cloud/short‑vertical‑SaaS trade attractive.

“I would go short vertical SaaS, vertical software companies and long cloud providers that have AI tools and platforms... you could obviously pick the companies that would go in that bucket along those those cloud bucket and go short the vertical bucket.” View on YouTube

Over the next few years starting in 2024, many high‑priced vertical SaaS vendors will experience significant per‑seat pricing compression, materially hurting their revenue growth and profitability but not necessarily putting them out of business.

“Now the market has to compress. So I'm not saying that the companies go away, but I do think pricing compression is going to hurt these businesses a lot.” View on YouTube

Freiberg’s company will successfully deploy an internally built replacement for a $5,000‑per‑seat‑per‑year vertical software tool in Q1 2024.

“We have like 100 employees. So we're paying like 500 grand. And so one of our software engineers is like this spins up a replacement for it. We're going to roll it out in Q1.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years after 2023, a large number of cell and gene therapies currently in clinical trials will obtain approvals and reach the market, collectively having a profound impact on many disease conditions.

“So there's this tidal wave coming to market soon of cell and gene therapies. They're going to have a profound effect on a lot of disease conditions.” View on YouTube

In 2024, at least one notable new drug, material, or production method discovered using AI‑driven predictive models (rather than traditional brute‑force lab discovery) will reach a milestone significant enough to be featured as a "science corner" topic on the show.

“I'm excited about seeing what comes to market this year. I'm sure we're going to have a science corner at some point this year that says, look at this amazing new thing that was discovered in software, and it works, and it's going to be really cool.” View on YouTube

During 2024, multiple consumer‑facing products will launch that provide real‑time, AI‑generated video news anchored by synthetic presenters, allowing users to interactively customize topics and presentation style (e.g., "tell me less about the Middle East, more about Wall Street/tech").

“I do think you're going to see a lot of this real time generative video... So I'm really excited for the day that that happens... I do think it's going to happen in 2024, where a series of products will come out that start to look like this, and it'll get in terms of the next few years, if that.” View on YouTube

Under the terms of the 2023 U.S. debt‑ceiling deal, in mid‑January 2024 (around January 17), Congress will likely fail to agree on a new budget, triggering the automatic 1% across‑the‑board cut to discretionary federal spending.

“That's the most likely path right at this point.” View on YouTube

The upcoming U.S. midterm elections will likely flip the House of Representatives to the Democrats.

“Midterms probably going to go to the Democrats in the House. And I think you're seeing Ro Kana, Gavin Esome yesterday on stage at Dealbook talked about redistributing wealth.” View on YouTube

By the 2028 presidential election, the Democratic Party's nominee will be someone widely identifiable as a democratic socialist, even if not self-declared as such.

“probably by 2028, the presidential nominee is going to be not necessarily a self-declared, but probably a referenceable, you know, uh, socialist. Democrat socialist.” View on YouTube

If Elon Musk successfully makes Twitter significantly more profitable by cutting approximately 30–50% of its workforce, then over the following couple of years (roughly 2023–2024) this will set a new benchmark for tech profitability and trigger a noticeable flurry of private‑equity buyouts and M&A targeting distressed small- and mid-cap software companies, with PE firms explicitly emulating the “Elon playbook” of deep cost-cutting to drive profitability.

“if what Elon is going to do at Twitter or what is reported ... that he's going to cut so deep, he's going to cut 30, 40, 50% potentially of the employee base... it really sets a new standard for how profitable a tech company can get... there could be the case that private equity firms take a look at this... and you could see a bit of a flurry of buyout activity as more folks come in and maybe try and mimic the Elon playbook. So, you know, that's one kind of prediction I think may arise. If Elon is successful in making Twitter a much more profitable enterprise, it could set a new model that catalyzes a lot of other M&A activity, a lot of other buyout activity of these distressed small and mid cap companies” View on YouTube

Within roughly the next 18–24 months from November 2022, on the order of 100 private‑equity buyout deals will occur among the ~200 public software companies discussed, as PE firms take these distressed or underperforming software businesses private to restructure them.

“I think there's 100 PE deals to be done. Yeah, 100 buyout.” View on YouTube

Russia will not ultimately lose the war in Ukraine to any alternative intervention or opposing force on the ground; Russia will find a way to avoid outright military defeat in Ukraine because of its nuclear deterrent and overall military capability.

“any sort of assumption that leads to our belief that an alternative intervention or some other force can ultimately win against Russia? Uh, is is completely false because Russia has thousands of nuclear warheads... I wouldn't kind of take any of this stuff, um, that Russia is going to lose a war, uh, you know, a war on the ground in the Ukraine. I mean, at the end of the day, they've got the ultimate trump card.” View on YouTube

Over the long run (on the order of years to a couple of decades after 2022), the per‑patient production cost of cell therapies such as CAR‑T can be reduced to below $5,000.

“I think that over the long run, we can get the cost of cell therapies below 5000 bucks.” View on YouTube

In the long run (over the next couple of decades), CAR‑T and related engineered T‑cell therapies will be successfully developed and used clinically not only for cancers but also to treat autoimmune diseases such as lupus and multiple sclerosis (e.g., by targeting B cells or Epstein–Barr virus), as well as other specific pathogens, in a targeted manner.

“down the road, we could use Car-T to destroy, um, lupus or to destroy antibodies, B cells that are producing antibodies that are fundamentally causing autoimmune conditions, including what we talked about a few weeks ago, multiple sclerosis. Given that we now have a strong belief that if you can get rid of the EBV, the Epstein-Barr virus, from your body, you can wipe that out. So so car T can, in the long run, be harnessed not just for cancer, but autoimmunity and potentially other pathogens in the body in a really targeted way.” View on YouTube

Companies that depend heavily on disrupted supply chains will experience noticeable revenue shortfalls 2–4 quarters after the onset of their supply chain problems (i.e., beginning in mid-to-late 2022 for issues present in early 2022).

“the when the result will actually show up down the road, when all of a sudden they miss revenue three, four quarters down the road. And that's why I've been saying for a couple shows now that the biggest thing I'm concerned about is when the revenue shortfalls start to hit the companies that are dependent on these supply chains, but you don't actually see the revenue shortfall for a couple of quarters after the supply chain problems hit them.” View on YouTube

Virtual reality headsets such as Oculus Quest will not replace traditional 2D computing as the dominant general-purpose computing modality; instead, over the coming years they will remain a niche entertainment device category similar in role to a Nintendo Switch.

“Have you guys used the Oculus Quest device?... there may it may end up becoming kind of a niche entertainment device, almost like a Nintendo Switch, where there's a, you know, a mode when you're using it. But I'm not sure it replaces traditional static, two dimensional computing in front of you. The jury's still out. I don't see like, a computer sentiment that says these things will ultimately prevail over the current, um, mode.” View on YouTube

Starting in the early 2020s, the joint alignment of China and Russia marks the beginning of a long-term decline in U.S. global cultural and economic dominance, with U.S. dominance measurably reduced over the subsequent decade.

“This is the beginning of the end of US cultural and economic influence globally, or dominance rather influence it, uh, globally.” View on YouTube

Vladimir Putin/Russia will play a major enabling role over the coming years in China's rise to global economic and cultural dominance (i.e., China becoming the dominant economic and cultural power internationally).

“he's clearly, uh, not just, you know, out for his own interests, but he's going to play a really important role in China's rise to, uh, economic and cultural dominance.” View on YouTube

China’s domestically developed 3‑nanometer semiconductor manufacturing technology will enter volume production in Q3 2025 and reach full, large‑scale production sometime in 2026, potentially shifting a significant share of leading‑edge chip manufacturing capacity from Taiwan to mainland China.

“China... seems to have developed three nanometer Semiconductor manufacturing technology, which is going to go into production in Q3 of 2025 and will end up being in full production in 2026. This will move the base from Taiwan, potentially into China.” View on YouTube

By approximately 2040, China will have added new electricity production capacity whose total nameplate capacity exceeds twice the current (2025) total electricity production capacity of the United States.

“In the next 15 years, they're going to add more electricity production capacity than the United States Times two has today.” View on YouTube

The All-In podcast hosts will record their first-ever in-person episode together at the poker night preceding the TPB symposium a week from the Monday following this recording (i.e., in mid-September 2021).

“the poker nights gonna have poker, and we're gonna record the all in pod live or together in person for the first time.” View on YouTube

Within 45 days of this September 2021 recording, there will be a protest or march of roughly one million people in the United States in response to the Texas SB8 abortion law.

“They're going to be a million person march within 45 days?” View on YouTube

Over the coming decade, the US federal government will have to cover large real-estate disaster losses from climate-related events at a frequency on the order of several (roughly 4–5) Hurricane Katrina–scale bailouts per year, driving a major shift in economic value away from climate-exposed real estate.

“ultimately the federal government is going to have these, like Katrina events 4 or 5 times a year that we're going to be underwriting losses for people's real estate. That's valued in a way that doesn't account for the effects of climate change... a massive shift in economic value that we're going to someone's going to have to pay for over the next decade. And this is just the beginning of it all, is my is my strong belief.” View on YouTube

The YouTube version of this specific All-In podcast episode will receive a downvote rate between 6% and 10% of total votes.

“I'm going to predict right now our downvotes on YouTube are going to be in the 6 to 10% range.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2025, the emerging field of candidates for the 2026 U.S. midterms will be noticeably younger than in prior cycles, with multiple prominent new nationally recognized candidates in roughly the 40–45 age bracket or younger gaining traction.

“Trump's cabinet picks have an average age of 40 to 45 years old... I do think that this marks the beginning of a new trend in the kind of age range of political candidates shifting younger... as candidates start to emerge for the midterms by the end of 2025, we'll start to see younger new names start to pop up that deliver resonant messages and aren't part of kind of the old guard of the aging political class.” View on YouTube

In 2025, the pro‑war neoconservative faction in U.S. politics will lose influence relative to the more restraint‑oriented, anti‑interventionist wing (e.g., aligned with JD Vance), with concrete policy or legislative outcomes demonstrating a setback for the neocon position.

“I'm going to predict the pro-war neocons who are going to go head to head with the JD Vance and Ellen's and others of the world, and I think that they're going to lose... I think this is going to be the year. It's all going to kind of come to a head. I think they're going to end up on the losing side.” View on YouTube

During 2025, there will be a visible surge in deployment and public awareness of autonomous hardware and humanoid robots, such that by year‑end they are in mainstream commercial use cases and widely recognized by the public as a major new technology platform.

“I think 2025 will be the year of the robot... I think this is going to be the year where we're all going to look at humanoid robots and autonomous systems and be like, oh my God, I can't believe this is here.” View on YouTube

In 2025, legacy U.S. defense and aerospace primes such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon will face significant business or stock‑performance headwinds, underperforming newer tech‑driven defense companies (e.g., Palantir, Anduril) as government defense spending shifts toward more ROI‑driven, tech‑oriented solutions.

“I went with the kind of old defense and aerospace providers Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon... I think that this government contracting business across the board is going to be deeply challenged this year with all the new blood.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2025, OpenAI will not have successfully completed a legally clean conversion of its original nonprofit structure into a fully conventional for‑profit corporate structure.

“Is OpenAI will not be able to convert from non-profit to for profit in 2025.” View on YouTube

In 2025, several multi‑billion‑dollar financing or subsidy packages will be announced for U.S.‑based hardware and robotics manufacturing build‑outs, comparable in scale and prominence to the 2023–24 AI compute build‑out funding wave.

“I do think that there's going to be massive funding deals, similar to what we saw this past year for compute build out. I think we're going to see massive funding deals for hardware based manufacturing build out in the United States... So you'll see a bunch of these big blockbuster deals for hardware build out in the US.” View on YouTube

In 2025, Waymo will complete a major capital markets transaction: either a large financing round, an IPO, or a merger/acquisition with a major ride‑sharing company.

“You could see something happen with Waymo this year that could either be something like a massive financing, an IPO or a merger or acquisition with one of the big ridesharing companies.” View on YouTube

In 2025, Waymo will undertake a major capital or corporate event: either a large external financing round, an IPO, or a merger/acquisition transaction, potentially involving a major ride‑sharing platform.

“I think you could see something happen with Waymo this year that could either be something like a massive financing, an IPO or a merger or acquisition with one of the big ridesharing companies.” View on YouTube

During 2025, socialist political movements and advocacy in the United States will grow dramatically in breadth and depth compared with 2024 (e.g., more organizations, greater membership, or significantly increased political influence).

“we'll see a rise, a dramatic rise in socialist movements in 2025, in the United States.” View on YouTube

Jeff Bezos will complete a sale of The Washington Post during calendar year 2025.

“Jeff Bezos will sell The Washington Post in 2025.” View on YouTube

Chinese technology equities (as represented by broad Chinese tech ETFs and large caps like Alibaba) will significantly appreciate in 2025, outperforming many other equity sectors, assuming macro conditions are not severely adverse.

“So I went with Chinese tech stocks. Chinese tech ETFs... these stocks could be poised for a pretty good run in 25 if the macro works out.” View on YouTube

Vertical SaaS companies will be among the worst‑performing software assets in 2025, with their valuations and/or revenues hurt by AI‑driven in‑house tool development and pricing compression.

“I'm probably just going to triple underline vertical SaaS again... Pricing being compressed as companies explore in-house tools built with AI.” View on YouTube

During 2025, the US will announce significant new nuclear power plant projects and/or regulatory reforms that materially ease the path for nuclear power build‑out.

“My most anticipated trend is around the announcement of build out of nuclear power in the United States in 2025, as a function of deregulation and some new technologies.” View on YouTube

Between roughly 2023 and 2026 (the next 12–36 months from this episode), venture funds will need to deploy a record amount of previously raised but uninvested capital (dry powder), exceeding any prior 12–36 month deployment period in VC history, unless fundraising/mandates change materially.

“That means there's a lot more cash that needs to kind of be deployed in the next 12 to 36 months than has ever been deployed in the history of venture. If that holds true.” View on YouTube

The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 will spread globally and become widespread in many regions in a short period of time (on the order of weeks to a few months from early December 2021).

“one thing that seems pretty certain this variant is going to be everywhere fast, like it is so transmissible” View on YouTube

Subsequent epidemiological analysis of Omicron’s basic reproduction number (R0) will show it to be substantially higher than prior major variants, likely in the high single digits to low double digits (roughly 7–20), and significantly higher than Delta’s R0.

“by some estimates... the r naught on this could be as high as 40... It's more likely that the R naught is somewhere between 7 and 20” View on YouTube

By roughly two weeks after this recording (mid-December 2021), data from South Africa and other early-affected regions will make it clear whether Omicron materially increases COVID-19 hospitalization rates compared to prior variants.

“we'll know in the next two weeks of whether this actually changes hospitalizations” View on YouTube

SARS-CoV-2 will continue to evolve with new notable variants emerging roughly annually, and COVID-19 will become an endemic, seasonal disease similar to influenza rather than being eradicated.

“There will be a variant every year. It'll it'll be a it'll be a seasonal disease. And it'll, it'll, it'll be something like the flu” View on YouTube

Global supply chain disruptions and associated pricing distortions (e.g., elevated freight rates, input shortages) will largely normalize by the end of 2022, with their effects mostly worked through to end consumers by then.

“a lot of folks estimate that this will take all the way through 2022 for that supply chain kind of glut and mismatch to work its way all the way through to the consumer” View on YouTube

Over the ensuing years after 2021, there will be a pronounced 'second act' trend in which many VCs who had major financial success in the 2010s shift their focus to climate-tech investing, driving a surge of capital into climate-tech startups, including a substantial subset of companies and technologies that are not economically viable and whose businesses or technologies ultimately fail commercially.

“What I am seeing is a shift of people who have had successful investing, um, track records and have had massive outcomes shifting their attention. Now they take some time off. And I'd say almost 100% of them come back... And then they're like, I want to work on climate change solutions... So one of the things I'm seeing, um, is this kind of second act phenomenon where VCs are moving away from being pure play technologists and making money to saying, I want to do stuff that's a little bit more meaningful and altruistic coming into climate change. And as a result, we're seeing insane, um, funding happening in climate change, tech companies or climate tech... stuff that, in my opinion, doesn't make any sense. Businesses that aren't real businesses, technologies that don't actually make sense. It'll never work out.” View on YouTube

If Twitter implements and enforces a policy restricting user-generated videos/images of people in public without their consent, then in the subsequent years TikTok (which will not adopt comparably restrictive rules on such public footage) will gain a substantial share of the market for user-generated video content showing events like riots and crime, becoming the primary destination for that type of content.

“Don't you think the biggest winner the biggest winner here is gonna be TikTok. Because if Twitter does go forward with this thing. Yeah. If they say, look, you can't put user generated content on our platform if it has, um, video and images of personal, uh, of people without their consent and approval, it's gonna eliminate all of this democratization of access to video feeds of riots and crime and all sorts of things that have been a real, a real big boon. So, like, TikTok's not gonna do that. TikTok's gonna end up soaking up this whole market, right, for user generated content.” View on YouTube

Given Trump's age, risk factors, and receipt of 8 grams of Regeneron’s polyclonal antibody therapy, he will recover from his COVID-19 infection quickly (on the order of days to roughly a week), without death or long-term severe complications.

“based on the early trials and the general experience with using synthetic and polyclonal antibodies for, uh, infectious disease like this, it's pretty effective. And he should kind of, uh, you know, recover pretty quickly. I would imagine so.” View on YouTube

Within the coming years, routine prevention of infectious disease will shift from traditional vaccines to annual polyclonal antibody ‘cocktails’ that provide antibodies against newly emerging pathogens, functionally replacing the current model of yearly flu shots.

“I do think that, by the way, I do and I've written about this, I think that is the future of infectious disease is we're all going to get a polyclonal cocktail every year instead of getting a flu shot. You get a bunch of antibodies to all the new stuff that's emerging and it wipes everything out.” View on YouTube

Within approximately 10–15 years from 2020 (by 2030–2035), it will be a general reality that people receive yearly booster injections of synthetically produced antibodies that protect against newly circulating infectious diseases, effectively broadening beyond just influenza.

“it highlights what the future of infectious disease treatment is and should be, which is that all of us should be getting a booster shot every year of synthetically produced antibodies that will counteract any new infectious disease floating around in the world. And we're getting to the point in the next ten, 15 years that that should be reality for everyone.” View on YouTube

The current 'once in a generation' velocity of capital, driven by near-zero interest rates, will continue into 2021, keeping conditions unusually favorable for company funding, IPOs, and fast capital deployment.

“there is so much happening ... i don't think it stops going into 2021” View on YouTube

Up to approximately 10% of the U.S. population will become infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant over the coming Delta wave (starting from mid-2021).

“a lot of epidemiologists are saying that the models indicate that we could see up to 10% of the US population now get hit with this variant.” View on YouTube

In the United States, the Delta variant of SARS‑CoV‑2 will not overwhelm or "crush" the hospital system, and will not cause a massive number of fatalities, during its subsequent waves (e.g., through the main Delta wave in late 2021).

“even if this delta variant is highly infectious, there are enough people and people vaccinated in the United States at this point that this Delta variant is not going to crush our hospital system. It's not going to cause massive amount of fatalities” View on YouTube

In the coming years, independent journalists and creator-type media will become the majority of media volume consumed, and traditional journalism/press will be the next major sector to be disrupted by the creator model.

“and now independent journalists are going to become the bulk of volume that's going to be consumed... Journalism and what we call the press is very likely going to be kind of that next layer of disruption.” View on YouTube

As China reopens from zero‑Covid, the Chinese growth engine will resume, and this renewed Chinese growth will have significant effects on U.S. economic growth and U.S. inflation over the subsequent period (starting in 2023).

“And now they're reopening. So I don't know I mean like I'm not sure what we're supposed to comment. What I, what I will stand by is what I said, which is I don't think we have a very clear view about what's going on, what the substance of these protests are and what people actually want. If you're only consuming US media.” View on YouTube

Over the next Silicon Valley funding cycle (the next several years after 2022), tens of thousands of startups will be created around generative AI, and this space will become the focal point of the next tech hype/bubble cycle.

“My prediction, which is so everyone's got the obvious prediction, which is there's going to be 100,000 startups that are going to emerge... So the obvious next step is a bubble will form... my guess is the next hype cycle, the next bubble cycle in Silicon Valley will absolutely be this generative AI business.” View on YouTube

As large language models and natural-language chat interfaces mature over the coming years, many competitors to Google’s current search-results model will emerge, and Google’s core search engine product will be at risk of radical disruption.

“there could be a lot of competitors to the one box and a lot of competitors ultimately to search. And ultimately Google's core product, their search engine could be radically disrupted.” View on YouTube

An index representing the roughly $3.4–3.5 trillion of private unicorns in 2021 will have a total market capitalization greater than $46 trillion (the 2021 market cap of all existing U.S. public companies) within 20–30 years, i.e., by sometime between 2041 and 2051.

“If you take an index of the $3.5 trillion today and said, you know what, these guys today are going to be worth more than the $46 trillion market cap of all the other public companies that sit today in the next 20 or 30 years...I would be willing to bet 20 to 30 years from now is worth more than the $46 trillion of all the public companies today.” View on YouTube

Total lifetime demand for Trump's proposed $5M U.S. "golden visa"/green card product will be no more than about 10,000 buyers (i.e., the program will never reach 1,000,000 buyers).

“I'm not sure there's a million buyers. I think there's probably 10,000 max buyers of this thing is my.” View on YouTube

In the first year after launch of Trump's proposed $5M "golden visa"/green card program, the number of buyers will most likely fall in the 1,000–2,500 range.

“Market, Nick. the most probable is 1 to 2500. I think that's probably right.” View on YouTube

If U.S. rules are changed so that currently non‑accredited retail investors can broadly invest in private startup equity, a significant number of these investors will lose substantial amounts of money, leading to a political backlash in which Senator Elizabeth Warren publicly calls for and helps drive the enactment of new regulations tightening those private‑investment freedoms.

“People can lose their assets. They just need to know they're going to lose their ass. I'm just telling you that's what's going to happen. And then you know what's gonna happen next. Elizabeth Warren's going to get on TV and be like, hey, we got to fix this. Put a bunch of regulations in place.” View on YouTube

Following Databricks’ acquisition of MosaicML and Snowflake’s acquisition of Neeva, additional similar M&A deals (AI/tooling acquisitions by data infrastructure and enterprise software companies) will occur in the subsequent years after July 2023.

“there's other companies out there like them that are also going to need to strap on tools like this to make themselves competitive in this market scape, which means that there are more acquisitions still to come.” View on YouTube

For approximately the ten years following this May 2021 episode (through about 2031), the streaming/media market will be characterized by intense competition among many separate subscription services, requiring consumers to pick and choose among multiple fragmented providers to access desired content rather than relying on a single or simple bundled offering.

“and it's going to be a nasty battle for the next ten years where you and where you want content, you're going to have to go pick and choose who do you want to buy content from” View on YouTube

Multiple additional venues based on the Las Vegas Sphere concept will be built, resulting in dozens of such Sphere‑like immersive venues worldwide within roughly the next decade after 2023.

“my prediction on the sphere, I think there'll be like dozens of these things soon enough.” View on YouTube

Future Sphere‑like immersive venues will be built at substantially lower capex than the original (~$2–2.5B), with smaller versions costing on the order of a few hundred million dollars each, and these will be rolled out widely (many installations globally, analogous to IMAX theater proliferation) over the coming decade or so.

“It'll get cheaper and cheaper over time. The first one was, what, two, two, $2.5 billion? They'll make smaller versions of it. It'll be a couple hundred million. It's almost like Imax theaters. They'll roll them out all over.” View on YouTube

Within approximately 2–3 years from January 2021 (by early 2023–early 2024), the United States will take significant policy or regulatory action regarding Big Tech platforms, clarifying whether they will be broken up or more heavily regulated.

“And we're going to find out in the next 2 to 3 years, because I don't think that anyone on the left or the right likes big tech, as they call it, and the way it's operating today.” View on YouTube

In the final roughly 10 days of his term (mid–to–late January 2021), Donald Trump will not remain quiet or passive; he will take some conspicuous public or legal/political action (such as an unscripted press event or controversial order) rather than simply staying out of the spotlight.

“That's why I think something is brewing, um, with him. You know, he is not going to sit tight and and wind out the last ten days here. Um, you know, whether it's some ad hoc press conference he calls tomorrow and just rants on TV, or he tries to declare some, you know, pass some law without Congress's approval or does something. I mean, this guy has never proven himself to be able to sit quietly and to not be in the spotlight or to be told that he's wrong. And all three of those things are being imposed upon him right now.” View on YouTube

Among U.S. independents and undecided voters, the net effect of Trump’s New York conviction will be to increase sympathy for Trump rather than reduce it, improving his political standing going into the 2024 election.

“it felt like this was always a win win trial for Trump if he gets Convicted, then you know, the conversation that we're hearing now... Either way, Trump looks good... it is clearly infuriating a lot of people... Anyone who's sitting in the middle as an independent or an undecided, I think it is much more likely that they are going to have sympathy for Donald Trump coming out of this, not admonishment.” View on YouTube

Starting around mid‑2024, the technology sector, particularly AI‑related and SaaS stocks, will enter a "slow contraction" characterized by multiple compression and reduced investor enthusiasm, representing the bursting of an initial AI mini‑bubble.

“I do wonder if there is a slow reckoning underway right now in technology... perhaps the first AI mini bubble is bursting a bit... This could be the beginning of what I think might be a slow contraction.” View on YouTube

From mid‑2024 onward, the U.S. will experience an economic slowdown with reduced enterprise spending and lower conversion to new tech purchases, leading to valuation multiple compression across public technology stocks and initiating a sustained period of market contraction in the sector.

“we are seeing an economic slowdown underway. There is going to be reduced spending. There is going to be reduced conversion of enterprise customers to buy anything... you are going to see multiple compression... This could be the beginning of what I think might be a slow contraction.” View on YouTube

At some future point (no specific date given), consumer technology will advance to the point where individual users routinely have fully personalized movies or video games procedurally generated for them on the fly by AI, tailored to their specific interests.

“This is why I really believe strongly that in some period of time, we will all have our own movie or our own video game ultimately generated for us on the fly based on our particular interests.” View on YouTube

Because elevated Treasury yields (driven by persistent federal deficit spending) make bonds more attractive than richly-valued AI/tech stocks, more asset-price bubbles in AI-related equities will pop unless US fiscal and monetary policy changes course.

“we are going to end up seeing more bubbles pop and more of these assets ... that we've kind of inflated” View on YouTube

New AI efficiency techniques will soon be demonstrated that cut token consumption by roughly 50-75% for the same task without loss of capability.

“there is some incredible efficiencies that I think are about to be demonstrated which effectively cut token consumption by about 50 to 75% for the same task” View on YouTube

Solar (with batteries) will become so cheap and dominant in power generation that small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) will be economically obsolete by the time they reach production.

“by the time any of these SMRs actually get near production, the TCO of solar will be like 10 or 12 per megawatt hour and it will be 80% of all the power generation” View on YouTube

Freiberg predicts that if today’s large tech monopolies/oligopolies were forcibly broken up into many smaller firms with much lower profits, those smaller firms would not be able to fund large-scale, capital-intensive R&D projects (like Amazon’s $10B satellite constellation or Alphabet’s self‑driving cars), and such projects therefore would not occur at the same scale or pace.

“Which is a net benefit for society. So by having scale, by having incredible profits and then by reinvesting it in R&D, creating jobs, innovating, it's the only way this kind of stuff is going to get done. You're not going to get it done by breaking up these companies and having 100 companies that only have $10 million of profit each, and then each of them are no one at all can afford to do these grand, important projects that that move markets forward.” View on YouTube

Freiberg predicts that over the 2–3 months following July 31, 2020 (i.e., through roughly October 31, 2020), public news about COVID-19 vaccines will be predominantly positive, with more favorable (“upside”) than unfavorable (“downside”) updates.

“I think there's tons of promise with vaccine news in the next two months. Three months? Uh, I guess the point is you're going to hear more upside than you're going to hear downside news on vaccines, for sure.” View on YouTube

Freiberg predicts that effective COVID-19 vaccines will definitively exist (not just in trials but as real, deployable products); the remaining uncertainty is only about manufacturing scale (number of doses) and timing of availability.

“We're going to have a vaccine. I think it's a function of how many doses, um, at what point in time.” View on YouTube

Freiberg predicts that between July 31, 2020 and the U.S. election in early November 2020, the aggregate flow of information about COVID-19 vaccines will increasingly indicate success — i.e., additional trial data and announcements will on net strengthen confidence that vaccines are effective and forthcoming.

“There is a vaccine. There are vaccines, right. This is a, a known, known. Uh, so, so that news will only continue to improve and build, and there will only be more and more indications of success with vaccines between now and November.” View on YouTube

When forced to choose as of July 31, 2020, Freiberg predicts that Donald Trump will win the November 2020 U.S. presidential election.

“I'd go. Trump!” View on YouTube

Sacks estimates a 25% probability that the aftermath of the November 2020 U.S. election will produce a constitutional or legitimacy crisis similar to Bush v. Gore (2000) if the election margin is close, potentially causing serious political damage to the United States.

“That's a 25% chance of a constitutional crisis. I think if the election is close, we could easily have like a Gore v Bush type situation. Um, it could be very damaging for for the Republic.” View on YouTube

By the end of the discussion (still as of July 31, 2020), Freiberg revises his earlier stance and predicts that Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, will win the November 2020 U.S. presidential election.

“And I changed. I changed my bet to Joe Biden. I've changed my bet after this.” View on YouTube

Within the next few months from this January 31, 2025 episode (i.e., by roughly April–May 2025), there will be an aggressive wave of attempted federal spending cuts initiated by the DOGE/Trump administration, followed by significant court challenges that determine which cuts require new legislation, after which the administration will begin pushing those cuts through Congress.

“I think we should expect a big whirlwind of cutting in the next couple of months, or an attempt to the courts will adjudicate what needs to be legislated, and then they're going to go to Congress and start to try and get some of these cuts in.” View on YouTube

The yield on the 30‑year U.S. Treasury bond, which was about 4.77% on January 31, 2025, will rise to approximately 5.5% before it declines materially, implying a further increase of roughly 70–80 basis points in the near term.

“I got a text from someone who is pretty senior in capital markets thinks this is going to go to 5.5% before it goes down. So they think that there's going to be a little bit more of a turbulent run ahead.” View on YouTube

Architectural advances will cut AI model compute requirements by 70-100x, eventually allowing frontier-class AI models to run locally on iPhones without needing a cloud connection.

“There papers that indicate we could probably go down by 70 to 100x in terms of compute need in how the the model actually runs. So yeah, ultimately these things end up on the on the iPhone running locally and you don't need to go to the cloud.” View on YouTube

Within a few months of March 29, 2024, major chocolate manufacturers will respond to the spike in cocoa prices by reducing the size of chocolate bars and raising retail prices, so consumers will encounter noticeably smaller and more expensive chocolate products on store shelves.

“So you'll start to see that happen in the shelves in the next couple of months. But this is the big news in the commodity markets right now. Is this this parabolic spike in cocoa prices. And, you know, consumers will get hit with high prices and smaller chocolate bars.” View on YouTube

By the end of the 21st century, market- and technology-driven changes in sectors such as animal agriculture, transportation, and energy will have resolved the major factors driving anthropogenic climate change (i.e., these industrial systems will be substantially transformed so that their net contribution to climate change is no longer an existential threat).

“I am an eternal optimist. But in this particular case, I think that this century, much of what we're throwing our hands about and remember at the beginning of the 20th century, we thought we were going to run out of food... It is a matter of time and a matter of natural evolution that we will resolve all of the factors that are driving climate change, from animal agriculture to transportation systems to energy systems. These are all going to get completely rewritten.” View on YouTube

The DEI movement will continue to be seriously questioned and lose support among donors and prior supporters in the years following 2023.

“I think that that movement is going to take a big hit and took a big hit at the end of this year and will continue to, I think, be questioned by donors and supporters of the ideologies of that movement.” View on YouTube

If a viable U.S. third party emerges (e.g., catalyzed by RFK Jr. or similar efforts), it will require a multi‑year period for independents to coalesce into a structured party with defined governance and platform.

“It will take, as these things always do, a number of years for a group of independents to coalesce around what that third party looks like and how it's going to be governed and so on.” View on YouTube

The Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will become insolvent (unable to fully pay scheduled benefits) at some point between 2030 and 2033.

“Social Security, which is going to go bankrupt sometime between 2030 and 2033.” View on YouTube

A first FDA-approved human drug whose primary mechanism of action is Yamanaka-factor-based cellular rejuvenation (reprogramming cells using modified OSKM-like proteins) will be approved in the United States roughly 7–12 years from 2025, i.e., between 2032 and 2037.

“Just knowing the clinical path there, I would say we're probably somewhere between 7 and 12 years away.” View on YouTube

A Merck executive predicts that sales of fetal bovine serum used for cellular meat production will rise to approximately $1 billion in annual revenue and then rapidly fall to near zero because cellular-meat companies will not be able to make money at the required cost structure, causing that use case to collapse.

“the Merck exec was like, we're going to sell $1 billion of fetal bovine serum, and then we're going to sell zero because no one's going to be able to make money doing this” View on YouTube

Friedberg predicts that companies working on recombinant protein production and cellular meat will require several more years (on the order of a few years beyond 2023) and several additional billions of dollars of investment, but that they will ultimately succeed in making these technologies work at commercially viable, cost-competitive scales.

“it’s very likely that these companies may need several more years and several billion dollars. We are going to get there” View on YouTube

Over the long term, recombinant/synthetic-biology-based production methods will move far enough down the cost curve that they become ubiquitous for producing all major classes of proteins and cell types, displacing traditional animal-sourced production for those products.

“eventually we'll get to that cost curve where they're ubiquitous for all proteins or for all types of cells” View on YouTube

By roughly ten years after September 27, 2024 (i.e., by around late 2034), conventional mobile handsets (smartphones carried in a pocket with primary interaction via touchscreens and on-screen app/browser interfaces) will no longer be the dominant personal computing interface; they will be largely superseded by ambient/AR-style computing interfaces.

“I don't think that mobile handsets are going to be around in ten years. I don't think we're going to have this like phone in our pocket that we're like pressing buttons on and touching and telling it where on the browser to go to the browser interface is going to go away.” View on YouTube

By roughly 10 years from this episode (around September 2034), traditional mobile handsets (smartphones kept in a pocket and operated by touch and on-screen browser interfaces) will largely disappear as the dominant personal computing device, and the conventional web browser interface will largely cease to be the primary way people interact with online information.

“I don't think that mobile handsets are going to be around in ten years. I don't think we're going to have this like phone in our pocket that we're like pressing buttons on and touching and telling it where on the browser to go to the browser interface is going to go away.” View on YouTube

Within about 20 years (by ~2044), the dominant human–computer interaction for the next generation (his children’s generation) will no longer involve traditional direct control methods like typing and manual UI navigation; instead, ambient, AI‑mediated interaction will predominate.

“Anyway, we're definitely on this path to ambient computing, I don't think I don't think this whole like, hey, you got to control a computer thing is anything my kids are going to be doing in 20 years.” View on YouTube

As AI and automation advance over the coming years, wages, demand, and job availability in in‑person human‑service roles (e.g., trades, hospitality, fitness instruction, tutoring, personal services) will significantly increase compared to today, leading to a broad expansion in both the number of such jobs and the compensation they command.

“there will be an absolute burgeoning and blossoming in the salaries and the availability and demand for human service in a lot of walks of life.” View on YouTube

Between the recording and airing of this episode (late September 2024), Israel’s military incursion into Lebanon will significantly expand. There is a non‑trivial chance (he estimates >30–40%) that before the November 2024 US election, this conflict will escalate into a full‑blown multinational war in the Middle East involving multiple regional states.

“I think there's going to be a big war. I think by the time this show airs, Israel's incursion into Lebanon is going to get bigger. It's going to escalate. And by next week, we could be in a full blown multinational war in the Middle East. And if I am, you know, a betting man, I would bet that the odds are, you know, more than 30, 40% that this happens before the election, that this this conflict in the Middle East escalates.” View on YouTube

As of late October 2023, the probability of a nuclear weapon being used somewhere in the world over the next 20 years has increased materially versus earlier in 2023 (on the order of a few percent to high single‑digit percent), due to rising multi‑front conflicts and constraints in conventional munitions production.

“let's say something goes from 2% chance to 8% chance. It's now for X in the next 20 years. That's a significant shift in risk.” View on YouTube

For mid‑tier venture funds that historically would have produced roughly 1.8x gross multiple over 10 years, the current cycle will result in them returning only about 0.5x–0.7x capital over their fund life, i.e., they will be net capital‑losing funds when fully realized.

“And now those guys are all underwater. So instead of being 1.8 x they're all going to return 0.7 x or 0.5 x. And they're going to lose money.” View on YouTube

As ocean heat content and sea‑surface temperatures continue to rise over coming decades, the frequency of extreme, fast‑intensifying storms like Hurricane Otis will increase, producing cumulative economic losses on the order of multiple trillions of dollars globally via insurance, reinsurance, and coastal real estate devaluations.

“the truth is, the frequency of these events and the risk factors, which is this ocean heat, temperature rising continuously for long period of time, are going to drive that frequency of events. And there's going to be a real economic cost to bear on the order of several trillion dollars over time, because someone has to underwrite that real estate and someone has to underwrite the insurance to support that real estate.” View on YouTube

Hurricane Otis–type catastrophes will act as catalysts that trigger a cascading repricing downward of high‑risk coastal real estate in multiple regions over the coming years, as insurance becomes unaffordable or unavailable and owners are forced to sell at lower values.

“These sorts of events like Acapulco are catalyzing events for forcing the market to rewrite this stuff. This is the beginning of a cascading effect.” View on YouTube

When Google removes third-party cookies in 2024, it will become very difficult to track users across websites, and this change will significantly and negatively impact digital ad networks’ and publishers’ ability to target consumers and generate ad revenue starting in 2024.

“Google has declared that they're removing third party cookies in 2024. This means that in 2024, it is going to be very hard to track a user from one website to the next... And that change is now going to make this hit very, very hard beginning in 2024. So the ad networks themselves are already being massively hurt by Apple's ID changes. The third party cookies being removed, it's becoming harder to target consumers, harder to make money as a for publishers.” View on YouTube

In the years after COVID, there will be growing public questioning of existing school vaccine requirements for other illnesses in the US.

“You know, you start to question, I think we will start to see people question whether those are appropriate.” View on YouTube

The statements they just made on the show about not getting further COVID boosters will provoke strong negative reactions from a large number of people in the audience and online discussion in the near term (weeks to months after release).

“By the way, the other thing this is going to do, it's going to inflame a large number of people just hearing us say this.” View on YouTube

A realistic timeframe for achieving broad, whole-body reversal of human aging using approaches like Yamanaka factors is on the order of 30 years from 2023 (i.e., not expected before roughly the early 2050s).

“30.” View on YouTube

The 2023 U.S. debt ceiling negotiations—reported at the time as being roughly $72 billion apart—will be resolved with a bipartisan agreement before an actual default occurs.

“Reuters had a report this morning that there are only 72 billion apart now in their positions, which is a relatively small amount. So my guess is they're going to they're going to work this out.” View on YouTube

If Wiz maintains its current high growth rate, its public market valuation (equity market cap) could reach roughly $100 billion, comparable to Palo Alto Networks, within approximately two years of this July 26, 2024 episode (i.e., by around mid-2026).

“if Wiz continues to grow at this rate, it's conceivable they could be in the range of a Palo Alto Networks $100 billion market cap in a couple of years.” View on YouTube

In the near term following Biden’s withdrawal in 2024, a large share of ‘anyone but Trump’ voters will quickly rally behind Kamala Harris, strengthening her polling performance.

“I do, however, think that pretty quickly. There's a lot of people who are anyone but Trump that are going to rally behind her, and she seems to be polling well in the polls that have come out in the last couple of days here.” View on YouTube

By 2050, total U.S. electricity generation capacity will approximately double from ~1 TW to ~2 TW. By 2050, China’s electricity generation capacity will increase to about 8.7 TW, with roughly 88% of its power coming from renewables. By 2060, about 18% of China’s total power generation will come from nuclear reactors, if current stated plans are executed.

“So today, the US has roughly one terawatt of total electricity production capacity... by 2050, the US is projected to build out an additional terawatt to getting us to two terawatts of capacity. So we're going to double our total electricity output by 2050. China, meanwhile, has a plan stated to increase electricity production to 8.7 terawatts, so basically tripling between now and 2050. 88% of their power by 2050 will be renewables. And by 2060 they've stated this goal, that they want about 18% of their overall power to come from nuclear reactors.” View on YouTube

China will continue its current nuclear buildout, from 26 reactors under construction toward a program targeting roughly 300 reactors and about 500 GW of nuclear capacity over the coming decades (by around mid‑century), consistent with current planning statements.

“They currently have 26 nuclear reactors in the construction phase. They've got planning going on around building 300 of these. and they've already got stated plans, around 500GW of capacity.” View on YouTube

As China expands renewables and nuclear power, its average retail electricity price will decline to below $0.06 per kWh in the future (by around 2050), remaining significantly below U.S. retail electricity prices.

“Just to give you a sense on the relative cost of electricity, China is about 7 to $0.09 a kilowatt hour. The US is 17 to $0.25 a kilowatt hour, and China is projected to drop their price to less than $0.06 due to the expansion of renewables and nuclear power in the country.” View on YouTube

Due to elevated ocean temperatures, California-scale atmospheric river ‘Arkstorm’-type mega-flood events that historically occurred every 150–200 years will, going forward, occur roughly every 25–50 years or less, with greater frequency and severity than in the historical record.

“These sorts of events are predicted historically to happen every 150 to 200 years. But based on the warm temperature in the oceans, we see it's now predicted that these will happen every. Call it 25 to 50 years or much sooner. And these high temperatures are driving a higher increased frequency and severity of these sorts of events.” View on YouTube

In the next couple of weeks following this January 26, 2024 recording, California will experience wet, possibly very wet weather, but it will not experience an Arkstorm‑level mega-flood event; no Arkstorm 2.0-style catastrophic flooding is imminent in that period.

“a lot of meteorologists have looked at the ensemble, which is the simulation model forecasts, and said, you know what? It's not going to be Arkstorm 2.0. It's going to be wet over the next couple of weeks. It could be very wet. But this isn't the big mega flood event that everyone's been worried about, so rest assured it's not imminent.” View on YouTube

Over the next several years and decades, decentralized or user‑controlled data architectures (e.g., data stored on‑device, on distributed networks, or on blockchains rather than centralized enterprise servers) will increasingly prove better aligned with consumer needs and will win significant market share versus traditional centralized services.

“Isn't this part of the. Philosophy behind decentralized services that. Yeah, crypto is distributed. Yeah. I mean, I don't like using that term, but just decentralized services where the data doesn't sit on some centralized, enterprise controlled servers, but the data is distributed either on a chain or in your phone or in some way.... that fundamental principle may actually come to kind of bear over the next couple of years and decades that a consumer model. Yeah, that that model is more appropriate for us, for me. And therefore the services that are built that way are going to win in the market.” View on YouTube

If the forced sale of TikTok’s U.S. business proceeds, major U.S. financial media (e.g., The Wall Street Journal) will (1) publish coverage highlighting large advisory fees earned by investment banks running the TikTok auction, and (2) subsequently publish analyses describing how the tech and media competitive landscape has been significantly reshaped by the ownership change of TikTok’s U.S. operations.

“if it does go through, there's the next story you're going to see in the Wall Street Journal is how much money the bankers are going to make on fees running the auction here. And and then the next story you'll see after that is going to be about how the tech and media landscape has been reshuffled and rewritten by the TikTok deal.” View on YouTube

At some point in the coming years, the U.S. Federal Reserve will be forced to significantly increase its purchases of U.S. Treasury securities (effectively monetizing federal debt by creating new money) because external and private buyers will be insufficient to absorb the required Treasury issuance.

“I think it is inevitable that the Federal Reserve in the United States is going to need to buy the debt. They're going to need to monetize the debt, which means printing money. There is no one else to buy the debt.” View on YouTube

In an upcoming inflationary environment characterized by rising commodity prices, companies whose revenues and profits are directly linked to commodity prices (e.g., mining firms and commodity trading businesses) will, over that cycle, outperform businesses that are not commodity‑linked.

“there are other commodities out there that are much more fungible and used in production cycles… and commodity linked businesses… will outperform other businesses… So anyway, I think that Paul Tudor Jones, because if you own a commodity, it's not a productive asset… But if you own a business that's making a profit and it just seems like it's easier to own bitcoin” View on YouTube

Over the next couple of years after mid‑2021, many additional emerging variants of SARS‑CoV‑2 will appear globally, and there will also be an increasing number of risks from potentially engineered biological agents.

“we are going to have a lot more of these kind of emerging variants over the next couple of years with SARS-CoV-2, but also with potentially engineered” View on YouTube

Within the next decade after 2021, small bioreactor-based "vaccine printers" capable of receiving digital genetic code and locally producing vaccines will be deployed around the world by companies pursuing this technology.

“we will have vaccine printers around the world. There are going to be small bioreactors. You're going to be able to effectively ship code to them. They're going to print vaccines. There are several companies pursuing this.” View on YouTube

Over the decade following mid‑2021 (by around 2031), Amazon and Apple will lose significant relative competitive ground in commerce/financial services to Shopify, Square (Block), and Stripe, such that these challengers will materially erode Amazon’s and Apple’s dominance in those areas.

“I think that over the next decade, because of exactly what you guys said, that Apple is run by managers who don't want to see loss but aren't driven to gain. You're going to end up seeing Amazon and Apple likely as well lose to the likes of Shopify and Square and Stripe. Shopify, Square and Stripe are all formidable threats to Amazon over time.” View on YouTube

The extremely elevated level of GPU/AI-compute spending that is driving Nvidia’s 2023 results is not a long‑term steady state; total spend per application will be rationalized downward as companies discover the efficiency frontier, leading to lower growth in aggregate Nvidia compute demand within a few years (by ~2026).

“So I would I would envision Nvidia is probably writing, writing a little bit of a discovery of the efficient frontier wave right now, and that this probably is not necessarily steady state” View on YouTube

If Donald Trump is forced out of the 2024 presidential race (e.g., by legal trouble or collapse in support), Vivek Ramaswamy will become the frontrunner for the Republican nomination by inheriting most of Trump’s base.

“And then the bet is that there's some chance, not 100%, but some chance that Trump doesn't make it all the way. He ends up in jail, or people start to turn on him, and then he's the frontrunner because he's basically captivated that audience with the same message.” View on YouTube

Donald Trump will likely skip all GOP primary debates for the 2024 cycle yet still secure the Republican nomination ("get elected" in the primary) while maintaining a large polling lead.

“I don't know if he's going to show up. I don't know why he would if he's up 50, 60, 70% in the polls. I mean, it would be it would just be such a Trump move to just not show up to any of these debates and just like, get elected.” View on YouTube

The proposed California one‑time 5% billionaire wealth tax constitutional amendment will ultimately be found unconstitutional and will not go into effect, even if voters approve it at the ballot box.

“Now, it is very likely that this sort of an amendment to the California Constitution is not constitutional and actually cannot be made and will not actually go into enforcement, even if the voters do vote to approve it.”

The SEIU-backed California billionaire wealth-tax ballot initiative is primarily a political tactic: it will be used during the next election cycle to attack and politically damage high-profile opponents who denounce it, regardless of whether the measure ultimately takes effect.

“However, it is very likely the case that the SEIU is simply using this as a baiting mechanism to get people to stand up and denounce it, and then they will be in a position to attack those people and destroy them, and use this effectively as a political fodder for this next election cycle.”

The effort to extend California’s Prop 55 (the surtax on incomes over $1 million) will succeed and the higher income-tax rates on high earners will be extended beyond their current sunset date.

“They're already trying to extend, prop 55, which is the progressive tax for people making over $1 million, they're going to get that pass.”

Following the May 2024 resignation of OpenAI’s superalignment team leaders (including Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike), one or more government regulators or oversight bodies will formally contact and interview these former employees about OpenAI’s technology and safety practices, leading to new, previously non-public information about OpenAI’s internal state-of-the-art models or safety processes becoming public (e.g., via hearings, reports, or leaks) within the next 1–2 years.

“my guess is there are certain regulatory people who are going to have interest in the fact that this team just left. They're going to make a phone call, they're going to ask this team to come in and have a conversation, and they're going to start to ask a lot of questions about what the state of technology is over there. And I suspect that some things are going to start to come out.”

Starting in the mid‑2020s, the food industry will increasingly introduce and market premium "low plastic" or "low phthalate" food products, and there will be a broader commercial wave of bioplastic alternatives used in food-related applications, positioned as healthier replacements for conventional fossil-fuel-based plastics.

“I think that this is going to trigger and is the beginning of a wave. I'm noticing that a lot of folks are going to start to pay attention in the food industry, and start to figure out ways to represent low plastic, low phthalate food products as a way to kind of sell a more premium solution. I think that's been the trend historically with the food industry is to respond to your ask right now and to then show up with with solutions. So I do think that that's ... a really big opportunity for for a wave of bioplastic alternatives.”

The U.S. federal government will eventually deploy on the order of $2–3 trillion in new support (backstops, facilities, or similar programs) specifically to stabilize and support real-estate- and bank-related assets, including commercial real estate and banking system liquidity.

“I think it's inevitable. We'll have probably 2 to $3 trillion of federal money. You know, spent to backstop and support the asset.” View on YouTube

To address accumulated debt and asset fragility, the U.S. will resort to substantial further monetary expansion and inflation, but the U.S. dollar will not experience Weimar‑style hyperinflation or go to (or near) zero in value; instead, it will undergo a more gradual devaluation similar to the British pound at the end of the British Empire.

“there has to be money printing to get out of this hole. I don't know if it's necessarily in this moment...The truth is, it looks a little bit more like the pound sterling at the end of the British Empire...it's really hard to kind of just say, hey, it's going to be hyper inflationary and the value is going to go to zero. It's just not going to happen.” View on YouTube

If the U.S. Congress fails to agree on and pass a timely increase in the federal debt ceiling by June 2023 due to a hardline Republican stance on spending cuts, the U.S. will technically default on some of its federal obligations, triggering severe financial market turmoil and broader economic stress.

“In June, Congress needs to pass. An increase in the debt ceiling...if it does look like the Republican Party takes a very hard line and says...we are not going to approve increasing the debt limit...in the absence of that, the US will have to default on debt...you can have things really melt down.” View on YouTube

Despite mounting debt and fiscal issues, the United States will not experience Weimar‑style hyperinflation of the dollar in the foreseeable future, because the dollar’s status as global reserve currency and its widespread holdings make such a rapid, total loss of confidence unlikely.

“I'm not sure there's going to be this kind of like Weimar Republic Deutschmark hyperinflation thing, because it is the reserve currency and it is so widely held by everyone, it would require collective giving up.” View on YouTube

The most likely U.S. policy outcome for TikTok is that it will be required to spin out its U.S. operations to U.S. investors, with the Chinese parent ByteDance retaining at most a non‑voting equity stake and U.S. authorities mandating that a majority of shares and governance control are in American hands.

“Yeah, I think I've shared this in the past. I think they're probably going to have to spin this thing out. And if they hold any equity, if the Chinese parent company holds any equity interest, it'll probably be non-voting shares, and there'll be a mandate that the majority of the shares and some degree of oversight.” View on YouTube

(Conditional) If U.S. residential real estate prices fall by around 30% from current levels, it will create serious financial problems for many Americans, especially given rising interest rates and limited ability to refinance.

“Most, most Americans have most of their net worth tied up in real estate. And if we see a 30% correction in real estate, it could be a real problem, particularly with rising interest rates, inability to refinance.” View on YouTube

Over the next couple of years (roughly 2022–2024), there will be a large volume of regulatory and prosecutorial enforcement actions in the U.S. against crypto-related entities and individuals (by agencies such as DFS, SEC, DOJ, etc.).

“there will be a lot of action on this over the next couple of years.” View on YouTube

The Ukraine war and its economic fallout will act as a further catalyst for rising nationalist politics globally over the coming years, reinforcing rather than reversing the existing trend toward nationalism.

“The slow march of nationalism will continue, and this will be another catalyzing event.” View on YouTube

For the current and upcoming early‑stage venture cohorts associated with this high-rate environment (roughly the early‑ to mid‑2020s), if the industry-wide average net return ends up around 6% annually, then approximately 80% of VC funds will have net negative real (inflation-adjusted) returns, about 20% will have positive returns, and only a small minority of those will generate very strong (top-decile-type) returns.

“If the market average return in venture in early stage investing is going to be 6%, remember it's it's not evenly distributed. So you know, 80% of funds could end up having net negative real returns and 20% make money. And then there'll be a very few that will make real money.” View on YouTube

The new research linking the herbicide piclorum to rising colon cancer rates in people under 50 will lead to an EPA review of whether piclorum should continue to be legally allowed.

“It will very likely lead and it should lead to an EPA review on whether this should be legally allowed.” View on YouTube

Following the July 2021 discussion, COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. will increase from then-current levels, with the increase driven primarily by unvaccinated people.

“so, you know, we'll see. Uh, it's going to come down to policy. But I think from a depth perspective, there will absolutely be a rise in deaths now, as unvaccinated people are going to be the bulk of those deaths.” View on YouTube

COVID-19 will become and remain an endemic virus, continuing to circulate in the human population with intermittent modest-to-severe outbreaks for many years, regardless of how many people are infected or vaccinated.

“it seems this is, you know, as we talked about earlier and as I think everyone is coming to terms with, this is going to be an endemic virus, and that means that it's going to be circulating in the population in a modest way, causing sometimes severe, sometimes modest outbreaks for likely a very long time. No matter how many people get it, no matter how many people get vaccinated” View on YouTube

DeepMind will expand its AlphaFold-based public proteome database to include over 100 million unique protein structures from many species, making them freely available and searchable within the months following July 2021.

“they said that they're going to publish this proteome database and scale it for all other species of life, that we have the sort of data set around us for which they expect will achieve over 100 million unique proteins in this database over the coming months, freely available and searchable.” View on YouTube

Over the years following the public release of DeepMind's protein-structure database (starting July 2021), hundreds of new drug discovery or therapeutics-focused companies will be founded that rely materially on that database.

“there will be hundreds of drug companies that will now start because of what's in that database.” View on YouTube

General-purpose AI Q&A services (such as Google Gemini) will only be commercially successful if they implement user-level personalization of values and filtering; if they do not, over time a significant share of users will abandon these products after encountering outputs that conflict with their objectives.

“I think the only way that a company like Google or others that are trying to create a general purpose, knowledge Q&A type service are going to be successful is if they enable some degree of personalization... If they don't allow this, eventually everyone will come across some search result or some output that they will say doesn't meet their objectives... they're going to say, I don't want to use this product anymore.” View on YouTube

Due to dissatisfaction with heavily filtered/bias-tuned large models, multiple competing AI models will proliferate and open‑source models will gain a significant competitive advantage ('win') in the market over more tightly controlled proprietary models.

“And so it is actually an opportunity for many models to proliferate, for open source, to win.” View on YouTube

Within a few months after February 2024, the quality of LLMs will improve so quickly that people will look back on early‑2024 LLM behavior (and this discussion) as primitive and notably bad, analogous to how 1996 web search compares to later eras.

“I think we're like in the 1996 era of Llms, and in a couple of months, the pace, things are changing. I think we're all going to kind of be looking at these days and looking at these pods and being like, man, remember how crazy those things were at the beginning and how bad they were?” View on YouTube

If Google continues on its current Gemini/product-ideology path, it will lose a meaningful number of users/consumers to competing AI/search products that offer a better experience; competitive market forces will correct for Google’s missteps rather than allowing it to retain dominance with an inferior product.

“I actually think to your point, Google could be going down the wrong path here in a way that they will lose users and lose consumers, and someone else will be there eagerly to sweep up with a better product. I don't think that the market is going to fail us on this one” View on YouTube

No single company will be able to achieve a monopoly on training data or information control for AI models through paid content licensing, because the open internet already contains sufficient data to prevent effective monopolization and a resulting 'disinformation age' driven by one actor.

“I think the open internet has enough data that there isn't going to be a monopoly on information by someone spending money for content from third parties. I think that there's enough in the open internet to give our all. Give us all kind of, you know, the security that we're not going to be monopolized away into some disinformation age.” View on YouTube

Interest rate futures markets are implying that by December 31, 2024, the Federal Reserve will have cut the federal funds rate by a cumulative 75 basis points with roughly 100% implied probability, and by 100 basis points with roughly 70% implied probability.

“So now with inflation kind of supposedly approaching 2% and unemployment over 4%, the market, if you look at the trading markets, they are now estimating a 100% chance of a three quarter of a percent rate cut by the end of 2024 and a 70% chance of a one point rate cut by the end of 2024.”

Prediction markets as of late August 2024 imply approximately a 50–75% probability of a 25 basis point rate cut at the September 2024 FOMC meeting, a ~20% probability of a 50 basis point cut, and a ~6% probability of no cut.

“50 or 75% chance of a quarter point cut. 20% chance of a 50 basis point cut and then 6% chance of no cut.”

Some version of Biden’s April 2021 capital‑gains tax increase proposal (raising the top long‑term capital‑gains rate for high earners well above 20%) will be enacted by Congress, even if the exact rate or details differ from the initial 39.6% proposal.

“I think it's going to pass. I think something like it's going to pass” View on YouTube

Stripe (the company founded by John and Patrick Collison) will become the most valuable privately held company in the world, with the sole exception of SpaceX, at some future point after this April 23, 2021 episode.

“Yeah, those guys are those guys, that company zero. That's gonna be the most valuable, valuable company that's private right now besides space.” View on YouTube

Global IPO activity for full-year 2023 will total fewer than 1,200 IPOs, which will be lower than both 2022 and 2019 levels.

“If you look at the slide, this is from Ernst and Young showing the IPO activity by year. And this was through June 30th. So if you assume kind of a steady state, you probably are going to come in at a volume that's less than 22 and perhaps even less than going back all the way to 2019, with less than 1200 IPOs during the year, compared to the peak of 2400, which happened in 2021.” View on YouTube

Over the next several years following 2023, the total amount of limited-partner capital committed to venture funds, and thus the aggregate capital available to fund startups, will decline significantly compared with the 2020–2021 period.

“it's going to be less LP money going into venture, and there's going to be less capital available to fund startups in aggregate by a significant amount.” View on YouTube

Within the next couple of years following 2023 (by roughly the end of 2025), at least some therapies based on the described liver-targeted glycosylated-antigen modality for autoimmune disease will show clinical success, gain traction, and advance to market (e.g., into late-stage clinical development or commercial availability) for specific autoimmune indications.

“Folks will take this paper and try and start to develop very specific therapeutics for very specific autoimmune conditions using this approach. And hopefully over the next couple of years, we see some of these things have success, gain traction and go to market.” View on YouTube

Rising Japanese government bond yields (30-year hitting a record 5.1%) unwinding the yen carry trade will act as a catalyst for a global credit crisis.

“I would think that this is one of those things that could be a catalyst for a for a a credit crisis because there's a lot of people that are in this carry trade and we'll see.” View on YouTube

In the U.S. residential real estate market, the dominant compensation model for agents (currently a percentage of home value, typically ~5–6%) will shift over time toward fixed or flat fees for defined services, materially reducing the use of percentage‑of‑sale‑price commissions.

“I do project, and I do expect that much of what is charged on a commission basis, on a percent of home value today will change to being a fixed fee and a flat fee.” View on YouTube

As the post‑settlement commission regime in U.S. residential real estate takes hold, between roughly 500,000 and 1,000,000 of the current ~1.4 million National Association of Realtors members will, over the coming years, find the profession insufficiently lucrative and exit the industry.

“So there is a long tail. So there's probably a third of those folks who are already kind of sub living standards in terms of income. Maybe half of them won't be able to make enough money in this new fee regime that it'll no longer be an attractive proposition to be a real estate agent for maybe half 1 million to 1 million people over time that are agents today.” View on YouTube

Following the NAR commission settlement, a significant number of startups will quickly launch AI‑enabled, direct‑to‑consumer, a‑la‑carte real estate transaction services (e.g., disclosure review, negotiation support) that reduce or replace the need for traditional residential real estate agents, and these offerings will be compelling enough to gain meaningful adoption in the near term.

“And I think it's a great opportunity for startups. I'll say this right now. Like I think there's going to be a lot of startups that are going to come out of this ruling that are going to launch a la carte services, leveraging AI to make these services available direct to consumers without needing an agent. And they're going to be pretty compelling services, and they're going to show up real fast.” View on YouTube

Traditional industrial sectors such as food, medicine, and manufacturing will derive substantial future gains in productivity and value from applying AI, software, robotics, automation, and related hardware, with much of AI’s economic value accruing to these existing businesses rather than to new pure-technology companies.

“These are markets that aren't going anywhere. And they could all certainly benefit from unlocks in software or in robotics and automation and hardware. So that's probably where I would think about concentrating capital.” View on YouTube

Use of genetically modified animal organs (such as CRISPR-edited pig organs) for human transplantation will become an increasingly adopted medical solution in the future, moving toward routine or mainstream clinical use over time.

“Definitely where we're headed.” View on YouTube

If China’s fertility rate remains around 1.15 children per woman, China’s population will shrink by roughly 40% each generation and will fall below 600 million people (potentially significantly below) by the year 2100.

“the birth rate or the fertility rate in China slipped to just 1.15 in 2021... So they've got a huge demographic problem. To Gemma's point, it's going to be something like, well, the population is shrinking by 40% with every generation. That's what these numbers imply... it's going to be under 600 million by the year 2100. But I would I don't understand how it wouldn't even be less than that if it keeps going at this rate.” View on YouTube

According to Peter Zeihan’s analysis, which David appears to endorse in this context, China will experience a demographic collapse (a sharp, structurally driven decline in working-age population and overall demographic sustainability) within roughly the next 10 years from 2022 (i.e., by about 2032).

“the commentator Peter Zeihan has... pointed out that China is facing demographic collapse in the next decade or so.” View on YouTube

Over the next couple of decades (roughly by the early-to-mid 2040s), China will build around 400 nuclear power plants, reducing industrial electricity costs there to under $0.05 per kWh, which will give Chinese manufacturing a significant cost advantage over U.S. manufacturing, where electricity costs around $0.11–0.12 per kWh.

“China announced that they're building 400 nuclear power plants, that drops the cost of electricity to under $0.05 a kilowatt hour in the US. Manufacturing, um, electricity typically cost around $0.11 per kilowatt hour, $0.12 per kilowatt hour in that range. So if factories become much more automated, they start to become a function of the price of electricity in terms of what they can output. China's going to have a huge advantage as these nuclear power plants come online over the next couple of decades, and these facilities get upgraded.” View on YouTube

Following the 2021 boom, venture capital firms will shift their behavior over the subsequent period by moving later stage—investing at higher ARR thresholds rather than at very early stages—so that, compared to 2021, a larger share of VC capital will go into later-stage SaaS companies (e.g., at $5M+ ARR) instead of very early-stage ($1M ARR or below) companies.

“So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5. You find out whether the product is really scalable. So what is the better deal... Well, like you said, the SaaS index is trading at roughly six times... So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5... So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5... So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5... So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5... So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5... So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5... So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5... So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5... So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5... So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5... So what I'm saying is there's a lot of risk in going from 1 to 5... you’re going to start seeing a dynamic where in the same way that last year, everyone went earlier and earlier, you're going to see VC start to sit back and go a little later and later.” View on YouTube

Within one year after Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical closes, Amazon will significantly expand One Medical’s telehealth footprint (e.g., materially increase the availability and scale of One Medical-style telehealth services to Amazon’s existing customer base).

“I will bet you I will bet you a dollar that within a year after closing the deal, they're going to massively expand the telehealth footprint of what we're doing, because one medical had to go out and do customer acquisition to go and acquire customers to make money doing telehealth services... Amazon's already got the customers.” View on YouTube

Within roughly the next few years (by around 2029), AI systems will transition significantly toward architectures built from networks of smaller, specialized models (SLMs), yielding roughly 10x–100x reductions in energy and dollar cost per token, and leading to a substantial increase in total token production compared to 2025 levels.

“my personal belief on this is actually that these models are going to move towards slms... this re-architecture of these systems dramatically reduces the energy cost and the dollar cost per token generated... Ten x 100 x more efficient. And I actually think at that point token production will go way up, not way down.” View on YouTube

By the late 2020s (around the 2028 U.S. election cycle), a politician clearly aligned with the socialist wing of the Democratic Party—potentially Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—will be elevated as a major national standard-bearer or leading candidate within the party.

“I think there's a as I've talked about many, many times, a very high probability that someone who's a little bit more socialist aligned is going to end up being kind of thrust forward here. And I think AOC fits the bill there.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, self-identified socialist or highly left-wing political movements and candidates in the United States will continue to gain support and political momentum rather than plateauing or declining.

“No, I think the socialists are going to continue to grow their momentum.” View on YouTube

In the "post‑AI era" (implicitly within the coming decades), advances in AI will make currently infeasible, extremely large-scale engineering projects routine, such as deep mining toward the Earth’s interior for rare earth minerals and large-scale space projects like colonizing the Moon, by enabling coordination and design that would otherwise require millions of people.

“I have a thesis that, like AI more than anything, unlocks deeply complicated projects for humans that would otherwise be infeasible in the AI era. I think in the post AI era, we're going to be like, oh, here's all these projects that we do that are like, oh, you know, we on a daily basis, we mine to the center of the earth and we get cool like rare earth minerals from like 500 miles down and we go to space and colonize the moon and all these crazy things, because AI unlocks these large scale projects that would require millions of people to do things in a coordinated way.” View on YouTube

Given current (February 2025) trajectory estimates, the asteroid discussed, which will cross Earth’s orbit in 2032, has approximately a 1.5% probability of impacting Earth in 2032, and conditional on impact, roughly a 15% probability of causing human loss of life (with an energy release up to ~20 megatons if its diameter is near 300 feet).

“And so right now, the probability is estimated at 1.5% that it will hit the Earth. And based on the size of this asteroid, there's this range. It goes up to 320ft in diameter, as small as 80ft in diameter, which actually can have a pretty big effect on how big of an energy release there would be if it actually, you know, hit the Earth. So even on the high end, if it was call it 300ft, it would be the equivalent of call it a 20 megaton bomb… So it's 1.5% chance of hitting the Earth and then call it a 15% chance if it hits the Earth, causing loss of life.” View on YouTube

As of this updated NASA assessment (February 2025), the probability that the referenced asteroid will impact Earth during its 2032 close approach is approximately 0.33% (one third of one percent).

“And guys, it just came through that NASA just dropped the probability of an impact event to about a one third of 1%. So it's gotten even smaller, which is we can all go to sleep comfortably.” View on YouTube

A wave of support for democratic-socialist policy will build through the 2026 midterms and culminate in a candidate like AOC winning the presidency in 2028.

“there is going to be some sort of big movement towards more socialist policies that we're going to see play out between now and 2028... I continue to believe I think someone like an AOC becomes president.” View on YouTube

Over the coming AI-driven technology wave (starting circa 2023), the total economic value created could be roughly 10x the value created during the internet era, but broad-based (index-style) investing in AI startups will lose money overall, with only a small number of companies capturing the vast majority of gains.

“I think we're at a point in time right now where we could see ten times the value generated in this phase of technology advancement than we saw during the internet and the advancement of the internet. And if if that is true, I think you'll end up seeing certainly the same thing happen, which is the index will lose money, but the few winners will accrue such extraordinary gains.” View on YouTube

Over the next few years following April 2023, a large share of late-stage private companies (“zombie-corns”) whose valuations have fallen below their preferred equity stacks will experience recapitalizations that effectively wipe out common equity, prompting a significant exodus of founders and employees from those companies into new AI-focused startups.

“So many of those companies have a valuation that's less than their preference stack. And as a result, those founders that work there and those employees that are there are getting their equity wiped out.... a lot of those employees are going to run. Those founders don't want to go work for the VC's when they get recapped and get offered a 4% equity to go, because it looks like they're going to start AI companies.” View on YouTube

After April 2023, there will be multiple further major negative valuation events (e.g., large write-downs, bankruptcies, or distressed financings) for tech/biotech companies that went public or raised money at peak 2020–2021 valuations, beyond what had already occurred by that date.

“it's still. Yeah, I think you're right. Chamath is probably a another hammer to drop. [01:19:11.150]: Multiple hammers.” View on YouTube

US policymakers and ByteDance will pursue and ultimately implement a restructuring in which TikTok’s US operations are placed into a separate US-based corporation (TikTok US Inc), with all data and algorithms controlled and hosted in the US and ByteDance retaining only a passive, non‑voting economic stake.

“If TikTok US were set up as TikTok US Inc, it's its own c-corp. It's based in the US. And ByteDance owns passive, non-voting shares in TikTok US Inc… that asset is entirely managed. Run… That should be a goal in the US. And I think that's what it's going to do that.” View on YouTube

Within the coming years after January 2023, some form of major structural transaction for TikTok in the US—such as a spinout, sale, or similar ownership/oversight restructuring to US-controlled entities—will occur, rather than TikTok continuing indefinitely under its existing ByteDance-controlled structure in the US market.

“Okay, well, look, something like this is going to happen, so it'll be interesting to watch.” View on YouTube

By the year 2030, there will be approximately 100,000 operational eVTOL "flying cars" in China being used to transport people (i.e., active passenger-carrying air taxis), on top of an already large drone-delivery industry.

“The drone delivery business in China is already $30 billion a year. And they're also launching a pretty significant fleet of what we would call kind of evtols or flying cars. The expectation is that by 2030, there'll be 100,000 flying cars moving people around in China.”

Within about seven years from this episode (by around 2031–2032), it will be standard practice for organizations to use AI systems that can automatically design and generate production software, including security, permissions, and regulatory-compliance logic (e.g., for a bank), based on natural-language instructions and analysis of existing software.

“there's no reason that in seven years that is not the standard, is your that I don't have the ability to say, go look at all the software that's out there in the world today. So that help me build a tool that meets compliance standards, that meets all of my security standards.”

Google will eventually introduce an ad-supported version of its Gemini AI assistant, with an option for users to pay to remove ads (a freemium ad/no‑ad business model for Gemini).

“I think you'll end up having a Gemini that has ads eventually, and you could pay and have no ads, or you could not pay and have no”

Within the next several years, there will either be (a) a corporate merger between the Ellison-controlled legacy media assets (Paramount/Skydance and a potential Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition) and TikTok US, or (b) a deep commercial integration in which TikTok offers premium, studio‑produced content (e.g., HBO and Discovery shows) directly in the TikTok app on a paid basis (e.g., subscription or per‑episode payments).

“And so a lot of big time creators, by the way, the audience at YouTube is over ten x bigger than it is on Netflix. So Netflix is only paying to retain subscribers now... So if you take the incredibly rich content and production capabilities of HBO and all the Warner Brothers Discovery Media properties and production houses underneath this combined company. And you combine that with the direct to consumer distribution of TikTok. There may in the future be a merger between this media company and TikTok, or a deep commercial relationship where imagine going on TikTok and you can now get premium content for ten bucks a month or two bucks an episode, and watch all of your HBO shows in the TikTok app, or watch all of the discovery shows or all of the other content that's available.” View on YouTube

A combined Ellison media-and-social platform (legacy studios plus TikTok-style distribution) will, over time, become a top-tier competitor that directly challenges both YouTube and Netflix for global video-viewing share and creator relationships.

“So I do think that the distribution that has been delivered by this kind of social media model, like YouTube and TikTok, combined with the premium model, may end up creating a real category killer that can challenge both YouTube and Netflix.” View on YouTube

The consolidation of Paramount/Skydance with a potential acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, combined with Ellison-linked involvement in TikTok, will mark the beginning of a multi‑year restructuring that significantly changes ("rewrites") the global media landscape, with new dominant players and business models emerging from this Ellison-centered empire.

“And so I would kind of look at this story as like a beginning of an unfolding of something that may rewrite the entire media landscape.” View on YouTube

Members of the All-In Podcast team (at least Friedberg and Jason, based on context) will attend the Formula One event in Las Vegas scheduled for November 2025.

“And we're going to be at that formula One event in Vegas in November, which we're.” View on YouTube

By approximately 5–10 years after this May 2023 episode (i.e., by roughly 2028–2033), large language models and similar AI models will have largely moved to run on edge devices (e.g., user hardware rather than centralized servers) in such a ubiquitous and rapidly evolving way that it will be effectively impossible for regulators to comprehensively track, audit, and approve which models are being run on which machines.

“there really isn't a great or easy path or ability to do that. And there certainly won't be in 5 or 10 years. Once these models all move on to the edge of the network, and they're all being turned around all the time, every day, and there's a great evolution underway.” View on YouTube

Donald Trump will win the 2024 U.S. presidential election regardless of whether Joe Biden remains the Democratic nominee or drops out.

“That's it, it's over. Trump's won. It was probably one of the most iconic patriotic visuals I think any of us have seen... Third thing I thought is it doesn't matter if Biden drops out now because it's over. Biden could stay in. He could leave. Um, this just feels like a lot of momentum.” View on YouTube

Huawei will be the company best positioned to challenge Nvidia, deploying independently-developed Chinese lithography technology across its mainland China fabs, with announcements of this in 2026 and visible production impact by 2027.

“My early prediction for 2026 is Huawei, where I think that there's lithography technology that exists in China that is not publicly discussed that is going to be deployed in Huawei and all these fabs that they're building in mainland China.” View on YouTube

Within one week of the recording date, the All-In Summit organizers will begin sending responses to applicants, processing them roughly in the order received, after having already received more applications than available seats within the first 72 hours.

“we had within 72 hours. I think we had more applications than we have seats, but we are still leaving applications open. And in the next week we'll start to respond to people. So basically, if you're interested in going to the summit, sign up now. Get your applications in this week.” View on YouTube

Approximately one week after this episode was recorded, the All-In Summit will publicly announce a group of confirmed speakers together in a single batch.

“In a week. In a week, we'll announce a bunch together.” View on YouTube

Because the R&D amortization fix is stalled in the U.S. Senate past the April 15, 2024 tax deadline, many U.S. small businesses in tech, life sciences, and defense will suffer significant financial strain in the 2023–2024 tax years due to having to pay taxes on phantom profits created by forced R&D amortization.

“And Congress can't get out of its own way where this this bill passed, by the way, bipartisan in the House. Then it went to the Senate, and now it's getting taken apart in the Senate. And now it's stalled out and everyone's freaking out that it's stalled out past April 15th, and it's actually going to hurt a lot of small businesses in this country.” View on YouTube

Under the current legislative proposal (as of April 2024), U.S. companies that incur R&D expenses outside the U.S. will be required to amortize those expenses over 15 years indefinitely; as long as that rule remains, any growing U.S. business with significant offshore R&D will report higher taxable income than economic profit and will consistently face U.S. tax liabilities even when economically at or near breakeven.

“even in this bill where they're repealing this, they're leaving in the fact that if you invest in R&D outside the US, you have to amortize it over 15 years. So let's say that you're a US developer and you hire people offshore... You got to basically amortize the offshore stuff over 15 years, which means you'll never make a profit. You're always going to have to pay taxes.” View on YouTube

Over the next decade (2024–2034), U.S. federal spending commitments will drive growing pressure for additional tax revenue, leading to new or expanded tax measures that increasingly target businesses in ways that can unintentionally hurt innovation-driven industries.

“it also an illustration of just how hungry we are for tax revenue in this country. You know, it's only going to grow... it really highlights just the challenges that are going to emerge, particularly in the decade ahead, because we have all of the spending that's coming in front of us over the next decade, and how we're going to start to demand more and more tax and all these weird ways that can really hurt industry.” View on YouTube

If SpaceX achieves routine re-use of Starship’s heavy booster (on the order of ~10 flights per vehicle with fast turnaround on the order of an hour), then within the next few years the Starship system will be able to deliver payload to low Earth orbit at roughly $10 per kilogram.

“So if you can reuse that thing ten times, that's a $3.5 million cost per launch, plus a million for fuel... That's how you start to get to ten bucks a kilogram over the next couple of years, but it was critical to be able to reuse that heavy booster. And that's what Elon just demonstrated, is we can actually catch that heavy booster, refuel it and launch it an hour later. And if you can do that over and over again, you're spending ten bucks a kilogram to put material into space.” View on YouTube

Over time, if Starlink achieves broad satellite-to-phone availability, its subscriber base will grow from about 4 million in 2024 to on the order of 100 million or more, potentially reaching several hundred million subscribers and becoming the largest subscription business in history by subscriber count.

“Starlink is apparently... running at 4 million subs right now... If we can get satellite to phone and you can get Starlink more broadly available, this could be 100 million subscriber business. I mean, this could be it could be the biggest businesses on the on the on the earth. It could be the largest subscription business in the history of humanity... it could be hundreds of millions of subscribers. It could even be crazy.” View on YouTube

Over the next 10–20 years, to meet projected U.S. (and broader industrialized-world) electricity demand driven by GDP growth, nuclear power using uranium fuel will need to provide a substantial share of new generation capacity; renewables alone (solar, wind, geothermal) will not be sufficient to meet that incremental demand.

“Fundamentally, we are going to need to use uranium to make electricity to meet the demand of the growing the GDP that it seems we're going to to be growing it. I think this is just such a necessity.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years and decades, most of the world (including China) will widely adopt new nuclear power technologies out of economic necessity, while the United States risks becoming a "Luddite state" that is comparatively slow to adopt such technologies.

“I think globally this is the case and we're seeing it in China now where the US, whether the US ends up becoming... And we may be the we may end up being the Luddite state. And we'll end up just saying, you know what? We're not going to adopt new technology.” View on YouTube

Over the next several decades, as the global economy becomes increasingly digital and automated, countries and businesses with cheaper and more abundant electricity will achieve superior economic performance, and the United States will suffer negative economic consequences if it is slower than competitors in achieving low-cost, abundant power.

“The countries and the businesses that have a lower cost of electricity and a more abundant source of electricity will end up winning as the economy continues to progress towards a much more kind of digital state and an automated state over the next decades. So if we're going to be slower, we're going to suffer the consequences of that as a country.” View on YouTube

If China is able to reduce its large-scale electricity costs toward roughly $0.05 per kWh while U.S. electricity remains around $0.20 per kWh over the coming years, the United States will lose economic competitiveness relative to China.

“Are Smrs operating in China, Russia and India today. And there's about 65 being built at this moment. Right. So and that's outside the US. So that's why the US is is is kind of observing and trying to catch up and adopt these technologies that are being used by call it economic competitors and economic partners around the world. It's important for economic prosperity in the US, for us to have a degree of competitiveness and electricity prices. If China races towards $0.05 per kilowatt hour for electricity, and we're sitting here at $0.20 a kilowatt hour for electricity, what's that going to do to our economic competitiveness?” View on YouTube

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Chevron decision (referenced as already issued by the time of this podcast in October 2024), the scope and authority of the California Coastal Commission are likely to be reduced ("peeled back" and "dialed down") in the ensuing years through legal or regulatory changes.

“It has since grown into effectively a much larger entity with much more authority, which potentially, after the Chevron ruling and the Supreme Court may get peeled back and may get dialed down. We'll see what happens” View on YouTube

Within a couple of years after June 2021 (by around mid-2023), a public and policy debate will emerge in the United States explicitly weighing consumer benefits from low prices and free services provided by big tech monopolies versus the value of increased competition and innovation in the business world, in the context of new antitrust or regulatory actions against large technology companies.

“And I don't think that we're really having that debate. And I think that that debate will inevitably kind of arise over the next couple of years if in.” View on YouTube

For at least the next few months and possibly for several years after June 2021, there will be ongoing disputes, challenges, and debates over mask mandates and related workplace/tenant safety rules, even after official government health authorities lift COVID mask requirements.

“it's going to bring up this whole series of challenges and questions I foresee for the next couple of months at least, and maybe for several years, about what's fair and what's right.” View on YouTube

Post‑COVID, consumer demand for traditional movie theaters (e.g., chains like AMC) will collapse such that moviegoing will not recover to pre‑2020 norms; audiences largely will not return to theaters.

“No one's gonna go back to the movie theaters.” View on YouTube

The Black Lives Matter movement will persist and will drive significant, lasting societal and policy changes (including corporate, state, and regulatory actions) over the coming years.

“I think that the, uh, the movement itself is going to spawn a lot of change.” View on YouTube

With the Biden administration taking office in 2021, climate change policy and climate‑related initiatives will regain momentum in the United States.

“I think climate change is going to have momentum with the new administration at least coming into office in the US.” View on YouTube

In the coming decade in the US, for occupations threatened by AI and automation (such as drivers), employers will first recruit those workers into new, higher-paying roles created by the innovation cycle before demand for their old jobs declines; the recruiting and transition into new jobs will generally precede large-scale elimination of the old roles.

“That's how this is likely going to go. That is the more positive view on how what you're calling job displacement actually plays out in the US economy in the decade ahead. A recruiting cycle precedes the elimination of old jobs that aren't needed anymore.” View on YouTube

If Joe Biden remains in the 2024 presidential race as a Democratic candidate, Dean Phillips will not be able to defeat Biden for the Democratic nomination due to structural factors in the party and primary system.

“I mean, I think if Joe Biden runs, he obviously doesn't stand a chance just based on the structural issues that he described.”

Ohalo’s “boosted breeding” technology will be applied across nearly every major crop worldwide, leading to higher yields and cheaper seed production, which in turn will lower food prices while improving sustainability metrics (less land, water, and energy per unit of food) compared to current agriculture.

“So we're going to be applying this boosted technology that we've discovered across nearly every major crop worldwide. It'll both increase yield, but it will also have a massive impact on the ability to actually deliver seed and help farmers and make food prices lower. Is it improve sustainability? No, it's actually cheaper. So higher yield, lower cost.” View on YouTube

Compared with conventional crop varieties, boosted‑breeding crops from Ohalo will require less water, less land, and less energy per unit of output to achieve their higher yields.

“Do you need more water. … Less water, less land, less energy?” View on YouTube

Once Ohalo’s boosted‑breeding crops reach commercial trials and deployment, fertilizer required per pound of harvested output will decrease significantly compared with current crop systems, due to improved efficiency despite higher biomass.

“Fertilizer usually scales with biomass. But these sorts of systems should be more efficient. So fertilizer use per pound produced should go down significantly. As we get to commercial trials with all this stuff.” View on YouTube

Over time, in the US and likely globally, central banks will effectively absorb and directly backstop a very large share of the banking system’s balance sheets, causing the system to function de facto as if there were one giant central bank acting as the primary bank for the economy.

“at the end of the day, the central bank, it appears in the United States and probably globally, it's going to be one big bank, right? They're basically going to take on the whole balance sheet themselves.” View on YouTube

By roughly 2033, the United States will implement significantly higher tax rates on corporations and high‑net‑worth individuals as a primary policy response to fiscal pressures from debt and entitlement/pension obligations.

“the only stopgap, I'll just say one thing, the only stopgap in the next decade is going to be significantly higher tax rates in the United States. I don't see how you're going to fulfill the tension gap that's underway right now with respect to where productivity is going and where capital markets are going, and where the demands are on the system, from people requiring additional capital to come out to them without taxing assets away from the asset holders. So this would be corporations and high net worth people.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, AI systems will undergo a cycle similar to past media (print, radio, TV, internet) where: (1) there will be government censorship battles, stakeholder fights, and widespread claims of bias and untruth; and (2) this controversy phase will eventually subside, leading to a stable ecosystem of differentiated AI systems serving different audience preferences.

“And just because we're calling it AI doesn't mean there's necessarily absolute truth in the world, as we all know, and that there will be different opinions and different manifestations and different textures and colors coming out of these different AI systems that will give different consumers, different users, different audiences, what they want. And those audiences will choose what they want. And in the intervening period, there will be censorship battles with government agencies. There will be stakeholders fighting. There will be claims of untruth. There will be names of claims of bias. You know, I think that all of this is is very likely to pass in the same way that it has in the past, with just a very different manifestation of a new type of media.” View on YouTube

Over time, and faster than most observers in early 2023 expect, the capability to run large language models and build data-scraping–based alternatives will commoditize, enabling new competitors to emerge against the early incumbents (e.g., OpenAI, Google, Microsoft).

“What I'm saying, what I'm arguing is that over time, the ability to run llms and the ability to scan, to scrape data, to generate a novel, you know, alternative to the ones that you guys are describing here is going to emerge faster than we realize there will be.” View on YouTube

COVID-19 (including variants such as Omicron) will remain an endemic disease for the foreseeable future (multi‑year horizon beyond 2021), requiring long‑term adaptation in how society operates rather than a quick, definitive end to the pandemic.

“this is an endemic kind of circumstance. We're going to be in this for a while. And, um, you know, the circumstances are one that may kind of require, you know, an adaptation in terms of how we live and operate and especially as it relates to things that are so important, like keeping businesses open in schools.” View on YouTube

Over the decade following 2021, mRNA and related RNA-based technologies will significantly transform medical practice, becoming a major modality for treating a wide range of diseases (including cancers and genetic diseases) and materially changing how medicine is delivered.

“the frontiers in RNA over the next decade could change the course of how we treat disease... man, this is going to transform how medicine is delivered and the potential of things that we can kind of trade.” View on YouTube

In upcoming U.S. elections following this 2021 discussion (i.e., in the next few election cycles, starting with 2022), voters across many cities and localities will vote out incumbent leaders perceived as having created or mismanaged current problems (e.g., crime, education), leading to widespread local political turnover.

“I think that and by the way, I think you'll see to Saxe's point earlier, I think you'll see the same response across the nation where folks feel like the the leaders that got them into the mess that they're in locally, in cities and elsewhere around this country are going to vote those folks out of office because they want to change.” View on YouTube

By roughly December 2024 (18 months after June 2023), the compute cost required to train a large language model equivalent in capability to GPT-4 will fall from roughly $400 million to approximately $5–10 million, implying about a 40–80x reduction in training cost.

“So something that costs like we said, OpenAI spent $400 million training models for for GPT four. If they spent $400 million in the last couple of years, you could probably assume that doing the same training exercise could be done for 5 to $10 million. 18 months from now to generate the same model. That's a, you know, 100 x cost reduction.” View on YouTube

Between roughly December 2024 and June 2026 (18–36 months after June 2023), the cost of a given large AI model training run that would cost $100 million in mid-2023 will decline to about $1 million, i.e., around a 100x reduction in training cost over that period.

“Play this out. $100 million of capital spent training today is $1 million spent doing training in 18 months. Yeah, three years, 1818 to 36 months. Somewhere in that time frame is likely the time frame.” View on YouTube

Within a short period after July 2021, COVID-19 vaccination policy and practice will shift such that the general population will be recommended to receive a third (booster) dose.

“both of them kind of said, I think we're going to need to do a booster very soon for everyone, and we're going to need to get a third shot.” View on YouTube

Vaccine effectiveness against infection for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines will decline to roughly two-thirds (~60–70%) about six months after completion of the initial vaccination series.

“it sounds like he was saying that you're going to see an efficacy drop to that kind of two thirds level after about six months of your after getting your vaccine.” View on YouTube

COVID-19 booster doses will be authorized and available on the market in the United States by September 2021.

“it's almost certain we're going to get boosters and that we're going to end up seeing them hit the market next month in September.” View on YouTube

In the weeks following mid-July 2021, rising reports of breakthrough COVID-19 infections will cause a noticeable share of people to voluntarily reduce travel, flying, and restaurant dining, even without formal lockdowns.

“people are going to get scared again. And people if we're not kind of enforcing economic lockdown, people will go into social lockdown. Um, and we're going to revisit, uh, you know, more of the behavior we saw over the past year where people are going to be nervous to travel. Uh, people are going to be nervous to fly. People are gonna be nervous to go to restaurants.” View on YouTube

Within about four weeks after mid-July 2021, many people will become more hesitant to engage in discretionary activities like theme park visits and travel as they hear about more vaccinated friends getting COVID-19.

“I would say that at this point, uh, you know, if all other things being equal, would I go to Disneyland with my kids, I would probably wait right now, 6 to 12 weeks to see what happens here... I think a lot of people are going to be feeling that way in the next four weeks as they hear about more friends getting Covid.” View on YouTube

If current AI hardware and efficiency trends continue, Nvidia’s market capitalization has the potential to reach on the order of $10 trillion in the long term, making it several times larger than its ~$1.8 trillion valuation as of February 2024.

“And so it really starts to rationalize the Nvidia thesis that it could be worth $10 trillion, potentially.” View on YouTube

The next generation of major mobile devices (e.g., the next iPhone/flagship Android cycle following February 2024) will ship with on-device chips specifically capable of running AI models locally, enabling significant AI features without needing cloud inference.

“I think you're going to see a chip on the next set of mobile devices. 100% that will run models locally.” View on YouTube

Nuclear fusion will achieve a production-level demonstration (i.e., a commercially relevant, continuously operating pilot plant) sometime in the 2030s (roughly 8+ years after 2022), and grid-scale deployment of fusion power plants will occur in the 2040s.

“My estimate is that we will see production demonstration of fusion in the 2030, in the 2030s. So call it eight years from now plus. And then you'll see grid scale scale up in the 2040s.” View on YouTube

The ITER fusion project in Europe, a roughly $30 billion production-scale fusion demonstration facility, will be online and operating by the end of the 2020s.

“the biggest funding is happening in Iter, which is the largest construction project in Europe, and this is a $30 billion production scale fusion demonstration system that should be online by the end of the 2020s.” View on YouTube

Over the few years following late 2022, most private equity acquisitions of software/tech companies will be executed as bolt-on or add-on deals to existing PE-owned platforms, with a strategy that emphasizes cross-selling and synergy-building in addition to cost-cutting.

“I think it's very likely over the next couple of years you will see, like the playbook in private equity includes not just cost cutting but also synergy building. And they typically do bolt ons and add ons.” View on YouTube

Within roughly the first couple of years of Brian Niccol’s tenure as Starbucks CEO (starting August 2024), Starbucks will open experimental stores that are noticeably more highly automated (e.g., heavy use of robots or automation for drink/food prep) than typical Starbucks locations.

“I would expect that with Nicole coming in, you'll see some experimental stores. As you point out, Jake, that will be more highly automated” View on YouTube

Within the first year of Brian Niccol serving as Starbucks CEO (by around August 2025), Starbucks will reduce the complexity of its menu, for example by trimming the number of drink/food options or customization permutations.

“one of the first things you're going to see from Nicole within the first year at Starbucks is a reduction in the complexity of the menu.” View on YouTube

Apple will emerge as a leading AI player within the next year by leveraging local, privacy-preserving models running on its high-RAM desktop hardware.

“I think the future of this is going to be local models running on extraordinary desktop hardware. And if you have employees on this level of hardware running these models local like I have started to do, they become 10 times more valuable than the employees not running it. I think Apple's my choice for the next year.” View on YouTube

The upcoming year will be the hottest year on record by far, driven by a record-breaking El Nino releasing stored ocean heat into the atmosphere.

“there is so much excess energy stored up in the oceans... over the next few months, that energy is going to be released into the atmosphere. And that will absolutely 99% confidence that will make the upcoming year the hottest year on record by far that humans have ever experienced.” View on YouTube

India's monsoon season will fail this year, triggering a calorie deficit and major economic crisis across South Asia given the compounding nitrogen-fertilizer shortage from the Iran/Hormuz crisis.

“the scariest one of all is if the monsoons fail, which is now a very high probability event in India... over the next year in South Asia you could see a calorie deficit and a major kind of economic crisis that starts to emerge.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years of the AI era, for each major professional services vertical (e.g., lawyers, accountants, artists), market share will concentrate so that one leading vertical AI provider captures the bulk of usage, effectively becoming the default ‘one lawyer service’, ‘one accounting service’, etc., that most users rely on in that vertical.

“I definitely think that's kind of what we're seeing.” View on YouTube

Within the next couple of years, the U.S. federal government will pass legislation that explicitly legalizes and broadly permits cultivated (lab-grown) meat, preempting state-level bans like Florida’s, provided the technology proves beneficial.

“What will likely end up happening here is this will find its path to federal preemption. Historically, when we've seen states try to impose these sorts of bans, the companies that are ultimately affected, the innovators that are affected go to the federal government, and they try and legislate for a bill that says this stuff is legal and should be broadly available, that federal preemption then stops states rights on having a ban in place. And so it's very likely that we'll end up seeing some legislation here over the next couple of years if this technology is ultimately beneficial.” View on YouTube

Following Florida’s ban on cultivated (lab-grown) meat, Texas and multiple other U.S. states will enact similar bans on the manufacture, sale, or distribution of cultivated meat.

“The problem is, now that Florida has done this, I guarantee you're going to see Texas, which is a huge ranching state, and many other states step up to do it.” View on YouTube

Within the next one to two years, and particularly in the next U.S. election cycle after August 2025, limiting institutional purchases of homes will become a widely popular political issue and policy proposal.

“If we really want to solve this today, besides solving the government spending problem and inflation problem and dollar devaluation problem, which obviously require cutting spending, I think it's going to need to be some sort of set of rules around making sure that homes are not being bought up by institutions. That's one that I think is going to be a pretty popular point that's going to come up in the next year or two, particularly in the next election cycle.” View on YouTube

By the end of the 21st century (by year 2100), electron-based computing (using copper interconnects and conventional semiconductor electronics) will largely be supplanted, for most major computing workloads, by photonic (photon-based) and quantum–photonic computing systems.

“I have a belief that I think electron based computing is going to go by the wayside by the end of the century and be replaced with photon based computing. And I think we're going to move most of what we do today with copper and semiconducting material over to photonic material and photonic systems, and what will ultimately be quantum meets photonic systems, probably at some point this century.” View on YouTube

Within a couple of years from June 2024 (by roughly mid‑2026), many large enterprises will have built effective internal LLM‑based tools on top of smaller open‑source models, reducing or eliminating the need to pay for external proprietary AI services like ChatGPT for many internal use cases.

“So I can see like a couple of years from now, all these big enterprises are going to figure this thing out, and then you're not necessarily going to need to pay for the ChatGPT stuff. If there's an internal tool and an internal LLM that” View on YouTube

As of mid‑2024, the U.S. macro environment should be classifiable as stagflation: real GDP growth will remain low (around 1–2% annualized) while CPI inflation will remain above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, at least through the then‑current measurement period (Q2 2024).

“We have stagflation right now. Definitely.” View on YouTube

Exceptionally high sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic will cause the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season (the 2023 season, given the July 2023 recording date) to be the most active hurricane season on record in terms of storm activity severity or count.

“We were talking about what to talk about, as you guys know. I said, hey, we could talk about the sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic. That's likely going to drive the biggest hurricane season we've ever seen this coming season.” View on YouTube

Broad, coordinated global regulation that effectively stops or tightly restricts AI model development and deployment worldwide will not occur; even if the U.S. imposes strong regulations on AI models, many other countries will not follow in lockstep, and advanced AI models will continue to be developed and exploited competitively outside the U.S.

“If the US tries to regulate it or the US tries to come in and stop the application of models in general or regulate models in general. You're certainly going to see those models continue to evolve and continue to be utilized in very powerful ways that are going to be advantageous to places outside the US. There's over 180 countries on Earth. They're not all going to regulate together... to try and get coordination around the software models that are being developed. I think is is pretty naive.” View on YouTube

The U.S. economy will enter a recession in the near term following this May 2022 discussion, driven by stagflationary conditions (high inflation combined with weak real economic growth).

“that's where we have a problem with stagflation and where we are inevitably going to run into a recession.” View on YouTube

In the period following May 2022, the U.S. may develop a severe consumer credit bubble, characterized by unsustainably rapid growth in consumer borrowing (credit cards and other personal credit) that creates systemic risk and is likely to end in a sharp correction or spike in delinquencies and defaults.

“we may find ourselves in a really ugly consumer credit bubble.” View on YouTube

From the roughly $250B in VC dry powder available as of mid‑2022, at least one new technology company will emerge and grow to a market capitalization of $1 trillion or more over the subsequent years, transforming some part of the economy and retroactively making the VC industry’s recent capital deployment look attractive.

“All you need is one of the next trillion dollar mega-caps to emerge from the quarter trillion that's sitting for the entire industry to look fantastic and for that business to transform the landscape of some part of the economy.” View on YouTube

The roughly $250B of VC dry powder available as of mid‑2022 will be deployed over the following years in a way that is significantly stimulative to the real economy, funding new technology companies that in aggregate create substantial new employment and new areas of economic growth, offsetting much of the prior speculative excess.

“We’ve never had this much dry powder sitting on the sidelines. And this is where the free money should go. It should go to creating new companies that create new jobs. And it is it's found its way there... some amount of it made its way into funding the creation of new companies that are going to create jobs. And that is the good thing of what's happened over the last couple of years, despite the asset implosion of all these bubbly things that have happened.” View on YouTube

Within roughly 9–12 months from mid‑May 2022 (i.e., by around May 2023), the US will experience a consumer credit bubble culminating in a noticeable credit crisis, characterized by widespread concern about consumers’ ability to service their accumulated credit card and loan debt.

“I really think we're going to run into a consumer credit bubble here... We're going to face a credit crisis and call it 9 to 9 months, to a year where we're all going to wake up and be like, wait a second, how are consumers going to be able to afford all this credit?” View on YouTube

Over the coming years, essentially all software-dependent business models that are based on traditional information retrieval will be restructured or replaced to incorporate AI-driven synthesis capabilities.

“fundamentally every business model can and will need to be rewritten. That's dependent on the historical, on the legacy of kind of information retrieval as the core of what computing is used to do.” View on YouTube

1) In 2023, a major book publisher will publish a novel primarily generated by AI. 2) A major symphony orchestra will perform a symphony primarily composed by AI within roughly the same near-term horizon. 3) A primarily AI-generated screenplay will be turned into an AI-generated 3D movie that achieves broad public viewership in this near-term period. 4) Within about 3–4 years from early 2023 (by ~2026–2027), consumer tools will exist that allow ordinary users to create their own AI-generated video games by verbally or textually specifying the world and game they want.

“When's the first AI novel going to get published by a major publisher? I think it happens this year. When's the first AI symphony going to get performed by a major symphony orchestra, and when's the first AI generated screenplay get turned into an AI generated 3D movie that we all watch? And then the more exciting one, I think, is when do we all get to make our own AI video game... I don't think that's happening for the next 3 or 4 years” View on YouTube

If Democrats win control of the House and the presidency in 2028, the federal government will likely step in to federalize and bail out state and local pension obligations (such as California's roughly $1 trillion in unfunded public pension liabilities).

“If you end up with a Democratc controlled House and a Democrat president in 2028, you'll very likely see a federalization of that obligation, meaning that the federal government will step in to bail out or support those state and local governments” View on YouTube

The current period of strong GDP growth, job creation, and AI-driven capex will, in retrospect, be seen as the start of a new economic golden age comparable to the late 1990s.

“I suspect we'll look back on this time period as the beginning of a new golden age.” View on YouTube

If Google continues progressing on its current quantum computing roadmap, within roughly 3–7 years from 2024 there will exist large‑scale quantum computers capable of running algorithms like Shor’s such that they can, in principle, break essentially all current classical encryption standards.

“One of the things that this highlights is that in a couple of years, theoretically, if Google continues on this track and now they build a large scale qubit computer, they theoretically would be in a position to to start to run some of these quantum algorithms like Shor's algorithm. And so we're now kind of spitting distance or a couple of years. It's not really clear. Is it. Three years, five years, seven years, but a couple years away from having computers that theoretically could crack all encryption standards.”

If U.S. federal debt rises to around 200% of GDP with interest rates around 4% (implying roughly $2 trillion in annual interest expense at current GDP levels), then to sustain that debt service the U.S. will eventually raise overall tax burdens so that effective tax rates exceed 70% of government income (i.e., taxes will need to be raised to historically high, roughly 70%-plus levels).

“You're using more than half of the government's income based on the current tax rates to fund the interest payments on your debt. That's not even to pay for social services... That's just more than half of the income... That's why you have to see taxes go up to over 70% because it's the only way you can. You got to tax everything in order to fund that.” View on YouTube

As of May 2023, Friedberg predicts that Donald Trump has a real chance of being reelected president in the 2024 U.S. election.

“So I think he's got I think, I think the reality is he's got a real shot at getting reelected here.” View on YouTube

As of May 2023, Friedberg predicts that there is a meaningful (non-zero) probability that President Biden will decide not to run for reelection in 2024 and will exit the race before the election.

“I think there's a non-zero chance Biden actually doesn't run for reelection at this point.” View on YouTube

For at least the next several years (on the order of a decade), U.S. CPI inflation will not sustainably return to 2%; instead, markets and the economy will operate around a roughly 3% annual inflation rate "for quite some time."

“So it's very unlikely that we get back to a two handle, you know, at least in this kind of era. And as a result, you'll probably see the, the market kind of assumed that we're going to be at a 3% kind of inflation level for for quite some time.” View on YouTube

Within roughly the next 2–3 years (and with visible progress over the next several quarters from mid-2024), the ROI and fundamental economics of current large-scale AI infrastructure investments will be demonstrably positive, showing that the AI buildout was economically justified.

“if you fast forward another 24, 36 months, I do think that there's a great reason to be optimistic that there's going to be extraordinary ROI based on the infrastructure that's being built... I do think that the fundamental economics of AI will be proven over the next couple of quarters.” View on YouTube

Because of the quality of generative music AI systems available as of 2024, usage of such tools by musicians, other artists, and general consumers will grow rapidly over the next few years, becoming widespread enough to force legislators to actively grapple with and debate new laws or regulations specific to generative music AI.

“I think it shows the state of the art is such now that this is going to become a real challenging question from a legislative point of view, given how far ahead these technologies have gotten. And I think that musicians, artists, consumers are going to start to use these tools in a really prolific way, given how good they are now.” View on YouTube

Due to post-2020/2021 regulations removing sulfur dioxide from cargo ship fuel, the rate of ocean warming will be roughly twice as high during the 2020s (and thereafter) as it was prior to these regulations.

“By removing sulfur dioxide, we are now going to see a doubling of the rate of warming of the oceans in the 2020s and going forward.” View on YouTube

Given the continued trend of significantly warmer oceans, in the United States events currently classified as "1-in-100-year" storms will occur roughly every 2–3 years, and "1-in-500-year" events like the Asheville storm will occur on the order of every few years rather than once per several centuries.

“Now they're going to be more frequent if the ocean temperatures remain elevated, as they seem to be, and continue to be elevated... it seems to be the case that we are having a very significant trend of continuously warmer oceans. And those continuously warmer oceans means that we're going to have what used to be called a 1 in 500 year storm, which is what Asheville is being termed at 1 in 500 year. These sorts of storm events can happen every couple of years, and we're now looking at 1 in 100 year events happening every 2 to 3 years in the United States. With the hurricane activity that we've been seeing.” View on YouTube

AlphaFold 3–style AI systems will usher in a new era of drug development and biological design, leading to profound, large-scale impacts on human health and the biopharma industry over the next couple of decades.

“it's going to usher in a new era of drug development, design for human health. So all in all, I'd say it's a pretty astounding day... the capabilities and the impact are going to be like, I don't know, I know I say this sort of stuff a lot, but it's going to be pretty profound.”

In the future, AI systems like AlphaFold 3 will enable in-silico search over chemical space to design combinations of molecules that can safely reprogram and "de-age" human cells (Yamanaka-factor-style approaches), leading to powerful longevity or rejuvenation therapies.

“We can now simulate that. So with this system, one of the things that this AlphaFold three can do is predict what molecules will bind and promote certain sequences of DNA, which is exactly what we try and do with the Yamanaka factor based expression systems and find ones that won't trigger off target expression. So meaning we can now go through the search space in software of creating a combination of molecules that theoretically could unlock this fountain of youth to de-age all the cells in the body and introduce an extraordinary kind of health benefit.”

As AI tools are adopted in enterprises over the next several years (through roughly 2030), managerial roles will be among the first categories of white-collar jobs to be materially reduced or eliminated relative to individual contributor roles, due to AI-enabled automation of management decision-making.

“He gave us two anecdotes of how he personally has used some of these tools to make management decisions, and his observation was managers are the first to go.” View on YouTube

Given the current low level of exits and corresponding returns, venture capital funding volumes will decline in the near-to-medium term as limited partners reduce commitments to the asset class, representing a normalization of the market to match the underlying pace of economic growth and innovation.

“ultimately, shouldn't the exit volume define the amount of capital that LPs should invest in this asset class to get a return that compensates them for the illiquidity relative to public markets with the same kind of risk levels? At the end of the day, it is what it is, and you're going to see a reduction in venture dollars. And that's just the market normalizing the the economy only grows and only innovates at a certain pace, maybe is what the data shows.” View on YouTube

During the upcoming 2021 Western U.S. fire/heat season (summer–fall 2021), there will be a notable increase in consumer and business purchasing/adoption of portable and distributed power generators in California (a visible 'power generator push').

“We need those solutions. Like I think there's going to be a big kind of power generator push, right.” View on YouTube

By fall 2021, COVID‑19 booster vaccine doses will be deployed or recommended for at least some portion of the vaccinated population (e.g., in the U.S. or Israel).

“There will be there will be boosters for sure, right? Like this fall?” View on YouTube

If Apple Vision Pro (or similar AR goggles) are deployed to the greenhouse/lab technician workflows Freiberg describes (scanning QR codes on flowers, image/data capture, task lists), they will ultimately increase worker productivity in that job by roughly 10x compared to the current iPhone + scanner + printer setup, once the necessary software is built and adopted.

“literally every aspect of this job will be massively improved and productivity will go up by ten x with these goggles. Will it happen in the next couple of weeks or months, I don't know, but my engineering team is looking into it.” View on YouTube

Apple will generate at least $100 billion in cumulative revenue from Apple Vision Pro hardware (current and next-generation models) within less than five years of launch (i.e., before February 2029).

“I think they're going to sell $100 billion of Apple Vision pros, not this version, but this version plus the next version, probably over the next, I would guess for them to get to 100 billion in sales. It'll take them less than five years.” View on YouTube

If US office commercial real estate values fall by roughly two‑thirds as implied (from about $3T to $1.8T), resulting in large losses to pension and retirement funds, then within the following few years the US federal government and/or Congress will implement a material structured support or bailout program specifically aimed at cushioning retirees and pensioners from these office‑related losses (rather than allowing those write‑downs to fully hit beneficiaries).

“You're not going to see governments let that happen. You're going to see the federal government. There's going to be some action at some point, and it's unlikely the office market is going to suddenly rebound overnight. If this stays the way it is, who's going to fill that hole for retirees and pensioners? Because we're not going to let that all get written down. Someone is going to step in and say, we've got to do something about this, and there's going to need to be some sort of structured solution to support retirees and pensioners, because that's ultimately who ends up holding the bag in this massive write down.” View on YouTube

Within the next year from this conversation (by roughly August 2025), there is a greater-than-not probability that the US economy will enter a recession (e.g., exhibit two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP or a comparably recognized recessionary condition).

“Yeah, I think there's a great chance of a recession.” View on YouTube

During that same roughly one-year period (to around August 2025), if a recession occurs, the US federal government will roll out significant countercyclical programs or interventions that help support financial markets, such that US equity markets can continue to rally or at least remain strong despite the underlying recession.

“But I do think that there's going to be government programs to mitigate the effects. Meaning you could see the markets, the equity markets continue to rally on some of the government programs and government activity” View on YouTube

Over the next few years following this November 2024 election (roughly by 2028), the Democratic Party will shift its platform and positioning toward the political center in order to win back voters who left for the Republican Party.

“My big prediction over the next few years is you will see a more centrist Democratic party as they try... and they try and attract their two back.” View on YouTube

If GDP per capita in emerging markets (e.g., BRICS countries) continues to rise and iOS remains the superior product experience, Apple’s iOS share of global mobile OS usage will increase from its then-current ~27% level over the coming years, taking share from Android.

“So while today Android is 72% of the market, if the emerging markets continue to grow, GDP per capita and iOS continues to be the superior product, you'll see Apple able to to steal into more share over time.” View on YouTube

Globally, governments will increasingly implement cap‑and‑trade or taxation systems over time (starting in the 2020s) to price negative externalities in production, industry, and especially agriculture, with the effect that producers will adopt lower‑emission technological alternatives because those alternatives will become cheaper than paying the imposed taxes or buying permits.

“I think that that is what is going to happen around the world is that that sort of cap and trade or taxation system is going to get slowly rolled out for a lot of these externality costs in production and industry and agriculture, particularly because there are technological alternatives, and it will incentivize the switch to those alternatives because the alternatives will cost less than the taxes.” View on YouTube

Jeff Bezos will not run for President of the United States in the 2024 election cycle (i.e., he will not formally declare a presidential candidacy).

“I will bet anything against that.” View on YouTube

If the United States were to implement the kind of centralized, 24/7, mass-site, nurse- and National Guard–driven program Friedberg describes, it would be possible to vaccinate essentially the entire U.S. population against COVID-19 within 90 days of starting that program.

“We can get at this entire country vaccinated in 90 days.” View on YouTube

Between this episode (released January 8, 2021) and the next time the All-In hosts record together, at least one highly unexpected and highly impactful event will occur.

“I will say one thing before we meet next time, I guarantee you some highly unexpected and highly impactful thing will occur.” View on YouTube

Of the university leaders involved in the campus antisemitism controversy discussed in the December 2023 hearings (e.g., presidents of Harvard, MIT, Penn, etc.), at least one will be fired or will resign under pressure within the near term (on the order of months following the hearing).

“I think of the four. If I were to just have to make a bet, I'd say probably at least one of them's getting fired.” View on YouTube

Google will remain a major competitive player in AI going forward, with its Gemini launch marking the start of it being one of the leading forces in the AI market for the foreseeable future (at least several years).

“So you know big, big, big announcement for Google I think it's definitely worth saying that they're in the game and it's going to be pretty powerful to watch I think pretty important to watch.” View on YouTube

TikTok will surpass YouTube in overall size/scale (e.g., usage or engagement) in the near future relative to October 2022; at that time (Oct 2022) TikTok is already almost as big as YouTube and will soon be bigger.

“look at how big TikTok has gotten. It is bigger than YouTube almost or will be soon.” View on YouTube

During the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season immediately following this June 7, 2024 episode (i.e., over the next few months of 2024), the Atlantic basin will experience hurricanes that are, in aggregate, larger, stronger, and more frequent than in any previously recorded Atlantic hurricane season.

“the National Hurricane Center, a lot of the climatologists are forecasting that over the next couple of months, we could see and should expect to see probabilistically much larger, stronger, bigger, more frequent hurricanes than we've ever seen historically. So we'll see if it plays out.” View on YouTube

If Atlantic sea surface temperatures continue their then-current trajectory without tapering off before late summer 2024, the August–October 2024 period will set new record-high sea surface temperatures in the main Atlantic hurricane formation region, and this will in turn lead to multiple massive hurricane events originating in the Atlantic that make landfall on the continental United States in that same 2024 season.

“if this does not taper off or level off, we will see record sea surface temperatures in the August to October time frame, which will almost certainly push massive hurricane events out of the Atlantic. And they will find their way towards the continental U.S..” View on YouTube

The U.S. Social Security trust fund will become insolvent (unable to fully pay scheduled benefits from its own dedicated assets and income, requiring other funding or triggering automatic benefit cuts) by around the year 2033 (eight years after this February 2025 discussion).

“So Social Security is functionally going to be bankrupt in eight years.” View on YouTube

Around 60 days from early April 2023 (i.e., around June 2023), the U.S. debt‑ceiling standoff will reach an intense and highly dramatic apex, raising serious market questions about potential U.S. default on Treasuries and the continued use of U.S. Treasuries as the global risk‑free benchmark asset.

“So the very likely case is that. Relative wealth will decline. So in the near term, I think it's inevitable we have higher tax rates. I've said this before because in order to kind of meet the gap, even if we have these austerity measures or reduced costs or reduce the budget as the Republicans are going to push for as this debt ceiling debate reaches its apex in 60 days from now, which you better believe this is going to be pretty, pretty damn dramatic. And there's going to be real questions of what happens if the US defaults on its treasuries, if the US defaults on Obligations it has on treasuries. There will be a real shift away from using those assets as the baseline of the risk free rate worldwide.” View on YouTube

In the June 2023 U.S. debt‑ceiling episode, Congress will ultimately reach a last‑minute deal that extends the debt ceiling, includes some spending‑cut concessions for Republicans, and avoids a U.S. default on its debt.

“No, I think it's going to be a pretty...straightforward deal where they're going to it's going to come down to the wire. But my guess is no one's going to want to default on the debt and there's going to be some concessions on spending. And ultimately the debt ceiling will get extended, and that those concessions on spending will allow the Republican Party to save face with their voters and say, look, we we got some concessions here.” View on YouTube

Despite funding shortfalls and asset losses, U.S. pension systems will not be allowed to fully default; the government will intervene to ensure pensioners continue receiving payments, though benefit levels may be reduced somewhat rather than going to zero.

“We're not we're not going to allow, given the civil unrest and social unrest risk. And obviously as a democracy, we're not going to allow that all to go to zero and we're not going to let pensioners not get paid. Ultimately, that's just a kiss of death. Maybe pension payments are reduced to some degree.” View on YouTube

Within the coming years, the U.S. will significantly raise taxes on high‑income individuals, with the top marginal tax rate on the wealthiest people eventually reaching around 70%, and this policy will be broadly popular among non‑wealthy voters.

“So there will be higher taxes. So that's I still think I still think we'll end up seeing 70% tax rates on the wealthiest people. 70% I don't see I don't see it being like unpopular. I think it's going to be unpopular with the wealthy. It's going to be popular elsewhere to fill the hole.” View on YouTube

If and when U.S. Social Security reaches insolvency (projected in the 2030–2035 window), the federal government will respond by creating and issuing additional dollars (monetization) to cover the shortfall rather than allowing promised Social Security benefits to go unpaid.

“Those Social Security payments may not end up coming back to us if Social Security is allowed to go bankrupt. So ultimately, the government has to step in and issue new dollars to make that up. Then the economic question is what happens to the value of the dollar, what happens to the value of the economy, and so on as you issue trillions of dollars to fill these holes?” View on YouTube

Following the 2024 All-In Summit (held shortly after this September 6, 2024 episode), recorded summit content will be published to YouTube over the subsequent days and weeks rather than all at once during the event.

“And then, as we did in the last two years, material will roll out in the days and weeks that follow.” View on YouTube

The Trump administration will reach a major grand-bargain-style deal with China around meetings expected in late March/April 2026, using the leverage created by the Iran and Venezuela operations cutting off China's oil supply.

“I think the president and the administration have probably the biggest meetings of the term coming up in China in April. My estimation based on the conversations and the comments made by the president before he came into office and since he's been in office is that finding a grand bargain or a deal with China is probably one of his top priorities.” View on YouTube

In 2023, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) will significantly increase his global political influence—using Saudi Arabia’s position between the U.S., Russia, and China and moves like oil-for-yuan deals—such that he becomes one of the most influential global political figures by year-end 2023.

“My biggest political winner for 2023 is, um, MBS Mohammed bin Salman. I think that Saudi Arabia will have the most important year in the modern era in terms of their role… I think as a result, you will see him kind of rise in terms of influence… he will rocket ship to the top because of this, this kind of jockeying he can now do between these three great nation states.” View on YouTube

Saudi Arabia will begin conducting at least some of its oil trade with China denominated in Chinese yuan (the ‘petro-yuan’ trade) in the near term, i.e., starting by the end of 2023.

“If the US is creating a barrier for them to import US tech into Saudi or for Saudi to kind of invest in the US, but China and Russia have open arms and all they want is for Saudi to start doing trades and yuan. It's going to happen.” View on YouTube

In 2023, global debt problems—particularly in emerging market sovereign debt—will begin to unravel noticeably, forcing the IMF to intervene repeatedly; as a result, the IMF will become a major political scapegoat and face heavy global criticism over its actions (for being either too slow or too aggressive).

“I think this is the year where a lot of the debt markets start to unravel… the entity that steps in to try and support these unwinding moments is the IMF… I think the IMF is going to get a lot of heat… As a result, the IMF will get a lot of heat and you'll end up seeing a lot of pressure and political… we'll end up blaming the IMF for a bunch of problems that will arise.” View on YouTube

In 2023, OpenAI will receive at least $1 billion in new investment (likely via a massive deal with Microsoft) and will emerge by year-end as widely viewed as one of the top-tier technology companies in Silicon Valley, functioning either as a core AI infrastructure provider (like an ‘AWS for AI’) or via major integrated products.

“My big bet is OpenAI… I think OpenAI will become… the AWS providing tooling and infrastructure… or they will end up doing a massive deal with Microsoft. I think it's inevitable they're going to get $1 billion plus investment this year… we're going to come out of this year and say they're one of the top tech companies in the Valley.” View on YouTube

Over the coming downturn (starting in 2023), the vast majority (~99.5%) of capital‑intensive Series B–D ‘growth’ startups will eventually fail or shut down, while roughly 0.5% will survive and go on to become the next generation of $100+ billion market-cap companies, similar to the post–dot-com shakeout.

“My Biggest Loser is the general category of capital intensive series B through D growth businesses in the startup landscape… I think we'll see what we saw in the.com bubble, where 99.5% of these companies actually die. The half percent that win are going to emerge as the next $100 billion enterprises.” View on YouTube

If and when Saudi Arabia begins selling oil to China in yuan (a petro‑yuan arrangement, expected around 2023), this will mark the beginning of the erosion of the U.S. dollar’s status as the unquestioned global reserve and sole ‘risk‑free’ currency.

“The Petro Yuan trade… If this happens and oil is sold in yuan, it marks the beginning of, I think, um, the end of the assumption that the US dollar is the global reserve and the risk free currency in reserve for the world.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2023, Saudi Arabia and China will formally sign and implement a petro‑yuan oil trade agreement (oil sold in yuan), representing a significant global monetary shift.

“The Petro Yuan trade… Once this gets inked and signed, it's a real shift globally.” View on YouTube

In 2023, Apple will announce a large, out‑of‑category acquisition—such as a major content company (e.g., Disney) or a major automotive manufacturer (e.g., Fiat Chrysler or similar)—to diversify away from its China‑dependent hardware and App Store revenue model and sustain long‑term growth.

“I think Apple ends up buying something completely out of the ordinary… They might end up doing something like buying a real content company. Maybe they do something like buy a Disney, maybe they do something like buy an automotive company like Fiat Chrysler… it feels like they've got to do something this year in order to keep that business growing.” View on YouTube

By the end of 2023, there will be observable signs that the U.S. dollar’s status as the de facto global reserve currency has begun to weaken (e.g., increased use of non‑USD settlement in major international trade blocs), marking the “beginning of the end” of unquestioned dollar reserve dominance.

“maybe this year marks the beginning of the end of the US dollar as the kind of global de facto reserve currency” View on YouTube

In 2023, the U.S. dollar will begin to trade more like a risk asset and less like a risk‑free asset, reflected in market behavior and pricing.

“maybe this is the year we start to see that shift.” View on YouTube

Throughout 2023 and beyond, the U.S. (and likely other major economies) will continue to undertake significant infrastructure spending driven by stimulus and national security considerations.

“I think it's inevitable that we continue to have significant infrastructure spending from both the stimulus and security point of view.” View on YouTube

Sometime in 2023, there will be a significant deterioration in U.S. consumer credit performance, with many consumers unable to meet debt obligations and a noticeable spike in defaults across categories such as credit cards, buy‑now‑pay‑later, and possibly mortgages.

“I think we're going to run into a real wall with respect to consumer credit in, um, sometime this year. And you're going to see... consumers are not going to be able to meet their debt obligations. And so defaults.” View on YouTube

Over the next several years starting in 2023, multiple new cell and gene therapies will obtain regulatory approval and reach the market, and there will be significant build‑out of manufacturing and delivery infrastructure to support broader use of these modalities.

“cell and gene therapies are becoming more mainstream... I'm really excited about seeing more of these products come to market and seeing the whole kind of infrastructure and delivery system change.” View on YouTube

In 2023, generative‑AI‑based media will advance to the point where we see high‑profile examples such as a fully AI‑written symphony, an AI‑written published novel, short films based on AI‑generated scripts, and early AI‑driven interactive video game experiences where content is dynamically generated for the user.

“We could see, for example, the first, you know, AI written symphony, the first kind of AI written, published novel... Maybe short films based on an AI driven script, and maybe even... AI based interactive video games... I think AI driven media.” View on YouTube

The Callin app, which as of early August 2021 is in private beta, will open to the public (exit private beta) in the near future following this recording.

“No, it's still in private beta. We're going to open up soon.” View on YouTube

Among Craft Ventures’ incubated companies, Callin will be the second incubation to launch as a live product/company, after Harbor.

“But, um, but I think Colin will be the, the second one to to launch.” View on YouTube

By roughly 2031, consumer financial services will consolidate so that 3–5 dominant companies provide an integrated stack across banking, lending, trading, crypto, and insurance.

“I have a thesis and a big belief that over the next decade, we're going to see those five categories start to merge, and you're going to have 3 to 5 superpowers that are going to offer a consolidated stack of services.” View on YouTube

The U.S. Social Security system’s trust fund will be exhausted and effectively insolvent around 2034–2035, absent structural changes.

“Right now it's projected Social Security will go bankrupt in 2035, 20, 34 around that range.”

If the United States does not significantly change its fiscal trajectory (deficits, debt, entitlements, and/or taxes), it will experience a massive economic or financial crisis within approximately 5–10 years from 2023 (by 2028–2033).

“Otherwise, we have this obviously kind of never ending debt spiral that's going to cause a massive crisis, whether it's not this year, maybe it's in five years or ten years.”

By the end of the 21st century (circa 2100), global primary energy production will need to be approximately 5–10 times higher than its 2023 level in order to support projected GDP-per-capita growth trends.

“if you look over nearly any historical time scale, since we've had industrial energy production on Earth, for every 1% increase in GDP per capita, you see a roughly 1.2% increase in energy consumption per capita. And so if you forecast out by the end of the century, the GDP per capita estimates in the US and around the world, we need to increase global energy production by roughly, you know, anywhere from 5 to 10 x.”

By the middle of the 2030s (around 2035), there is a significant likelihood that the world will experience serious material shortages (e.g., critical minerals and inputs) that constrain the scaling of renewable energy technologies.

“And there appears to be, you know, a reasonable chance of a pretty serious material shortage for renewable sources by the middle of next decade.”

If U.S. AI regulation remains fragmented at the state level over the next several years, it will materially impede nationwide deployment of AI services by large providers (e.g., Google, OpenAI), harming U.S. consumers and slowing AI‑related job growth.

“If we end up creating a patchwork of regulations on AI this early… having a patchwork of regulations on, for example, model development or telling software companies what software they can deploy would make it practically impossible for internet service providers like a Google or an OpenAI to service customers across state boundaries… This is a huge detriment to consumers and a huge detriment to the job market.” View on YouTube

Despite the current dispute, Elon Musk and Donald Trump (and their respective political and tech camps) will ultimately de‑escalate and re‑align, recognizing their mutual dependence in advancing their agendas during the coming political cycle.

“I don't think MAGA can exist successfully without the tech alignment. I don't think tech can exist without MAGA… I do think that both sides have heads that are going to be cooler, that will prevail here. And I do think that these two are going to recognize the importance of being co-dependent, if you will, in being able to progress their respective agendas.” View on YouTube

Within roughly 18 months of this July 4, 2025 episode (i.e., by early 2027), Harvard will face a severe budget shortfall that forces it to actively sell portions of its private equity portfolio, and those secondary sales will clear only at steep discounts of approximately 20–40% to reported net asset value.

“Harvard's cooked, and I think this is really good for America... They can stall for probably another year and a half, but at some point they will not have the budget to sustain themselves, and they're going to get into a huge world of hurt. What they will have to do in order to finance their budget in probably 18 months is start to actively sell their private equity portfolio... There is no smart money on the street that's going to look at any private equity portfolio from Harvard without asking for a 20, 25, 30, 35, 40% discount, because your back will be totally against the wall.” View on YouTube

OpenAI will generate approximately $13 billion in revenue in calendar year 2025 and approximately $125 billion in revenue in calendar year 2029, and Anthropic will generate approximately $35 billion in revenue in calendar year 2027.

“OpenAI. Their revenue numbers just leaked. They're forecasting 13,000,000,000 in 25 2025, spiking to 125,000,000,000 in 2029. You have anthropic. Their revenue by 2027 is forecasted to be about 35 billion. So what does all of this tell you? To be honest, it's telling me that the state of software is a little unclear. Meaning I actually believe the OpenAI and anthropic numbers.” View on YouTube

Over the next several years following Figma’s IPO (on the order of 1–3 years), a market-neutral trade that is long Figma and short an equivalent dollar amount of Adobe will be profitable, as Adobe’s valuation will compress more than Figma’s, allowing an investor to make money on the spread.

“If I could get like 50 or $100 million of Figma, I would probably be long it and I would short an equivalent quantum of Adobe, and I would just book the spread. And I think you make a ton of money that way. That's a safer trade because, you know, even if the AI model thing comes around the corner, we don't see it, the person who's going to take a retrade on valuation faster than Figma will be Adobe. And so you'll be hedged and you'll probably make money that way.” View on YouTube

By December 2022, at least one non-Google/DeepMind group (academic, corporate, or startup) will have publicly demonstrated a protein-folding model with AlphaFold-comparable accuracy, effectively replicating the AlphaFold result.

“it’s an inevitability that in the next 24 months, someone else will replicate this” View on YouTube

By around 2050, biodefense will have become one of the most important and sizable global industries, comparable in strategic importance and scale to today’s major defense or healthcare sectors.

“I think biodefense 30 years from now is going to be so important.” View on YouTube

Between approximately 2050 and 2100, biodefense will emerge as one of the largest global industries by economic size and strategic priority, comparable to or exceeding current major sectors such as conventional defense, energy, or information technology.

“I think biodefense is going to become probably one of the biggest industries on planet Earth, starting in the latter half of this century” View on YouTube

By December 2021, multiple startups will be founded that claim to replicate or closely emulate AlphaFold-like protein-folding techniques for use in drug discovery; and between roughly December 2021 and June 2022 (12–18 months from this Dec 2020 episode), on the order of dozens (around 50) of such novel protein-design/protein-focused startups will receive venture funding.

“I think we’re within within one year, JCal, of a lot of startups replicating this AlphaFold, uh, technique and then using that to go do drug discovery. And you'll see 50 startups getting funded 12 to 18 months from now based on some novel protein idea.” View on YouTube

Between 2023 and roughly 2025–2026, the LK‑99 episode will spur additional superconducting-materials research that produces new, distinct materials (not just LK‑99 variants) that are demonstrated in the literature as superconducting or strong candidates, with at least some being easier to manufacture or possessing superior properties to LK‑99 as originally claimed.

“I think this is going to unfold over the next couple of years with more material discovery, more invention coming off of this initial discovery and simulation model that then offers all these other opportunities for creating potentially new materials that maybe are easier to manufacture and better to produce.” View on YouTube

The question of whether LK‑99 itself is a true room‑temperature, ambient‑pressure superconductor that can be industrialized will not be definitively resolved immediately; it will take on the order of many months to a few years after August 2023 before there is broad scientific consensus one way or the other.

“Whether or not this actually does turn into a room temperature, superconducting material that can be industrialized and used in all these applications everyone's really excited about. I think it's probably months to years away from knowing” View on YouTube

As of August 2023, a roughly 30% probability is an appropriate forecast that a preprint claiming room‑temperature, ambient‑pressure superconductivity in LK‑99 (or a very similar material) will be experimentally replicated to the satisfaction of the scientific community before the end of 2024.

“Yeah I think it's probably that's probably a good handicap for where we are.” View on YouTube

Prominent economists Friedberg cites predict that U.S. long‑term interest rates (e.g., 10–30 year Treasuries) will settle in the 5–7% range and remain in that range for many years, constituting a new long‑run interest rate regime.

“there were two prominent economists who shared that they think we're going to be facing long term rates in the 5 to 7% range, very long term rates for a very long period of time that it is a new fiscal regime.” View on YouTube

Given the current fiscal and monetary trajectory discussed (high debt levels, rising rates, global bond repricing), further inflationary pressure in the U.S. and other indebted Western economies is inevitable over the coming years.

“Coupled with inflation coupled with inflation. Right. Which is inevitable.” View on YouTube

Between 2025 and 2035, deployment and use of AI systems will drive a very large increase in electrical power demand in the United States (materially above current levels attributable to non‑AI uses).

“there's no question that AI is going to create a huge need for power over the next 5 or 10 years.” View on YouTube

In the United States, additional electricity generation capacity added to meet AI‑driven demand over the next five years (through ~2030) will be predominantly natural gas–fired, while over the subsequent 5–10 years (through ~2035) nuclear power will become a major component of new capacity serving that demand.

“I think on a 5 to 10 year time frame, the answer is probably nuclear, or at least that's a big part of it. But nuclear takes at least five years. Within the next five years, it's probably gas, natural gas.” View on YouTube

The Biden administration’s $45 billion office-to-residential conversion initiative announced in late 2023 will be only the first in a series of U.S. federal programs over the coming years that are publicly framed as supporting affordable housing or similar goals but are substantively aimed at mitigating economic losses and balance-sheet impairment in the commercial real estate sector.

“I personally think they're just trying to find more ways to pump money into supporting commercial real estate markets because of the issues we just highlighted, and I think this is the first of what will likely be several programs to support, framed as things like affordable housing, but really designed to support the economic loss impairment. That's going to be inevitable at some point.” View on YouTube

By around late 2026, the Biden October 30, 2023 AI executive order’s model-size/parameter-based standards and technical definitions will be largely obsolete and inapplicable to the then-current state-of-the-art AI models and practices.

“It's going to look like medieval literature in three years. None of this stuff is even going to apply anymore.” View on YouTube

Following this episode, the 'fake Chamath' Twitter handle will see a significant increase in popularity and activity in the near future.

“My guess is that that that Twitter handle is about to get popular again.”

Over the next couple of months, enterprises will broadly shift away from relying solely on large centralized model providers toward a hub-and-spoke structure that includes medium-sized training hubs and distributed, on-premise inference for their own proprietary models.

“I think the model is shifting where we're going from large hubs, large spokes to large hubs, medium hubs, and then a distributed spoke model... everyone I think is walking this path and they're going to walk this path over the next couple of months.” View on YouTube

Enterprises will increasingly buy their own AI compute hardware (rather than relying solely on cloud providers/hyperscalers), triggering a buying frenzy for on-premise AI infrastructure.

“I think people are going to again deploy their own hardware against it. I think there's going to be a buying frenzy in the enterprise, not just with the Neoclouds and the hyperscalers. I think the enterprise is going to be a buyer.” View on YouTube

California's exodus of high-income residents will accelerate in 2025 and continue into 2026, driven partly by a proposed billionaire tax.

“With the new billionaire tax that's being proposed, we're going to see an acceleration as the numbers come out for 2025. There's, as we all know, personal friends that have left the state in 25 and many more that'll leave in 26, including our friend David Sachs.” View on YouTube

Over the next decade, California's fiscal condition will deteriorate toward the brink of default, provoking a political fight over whether the federal government (and red-state taxpayers) should bail out the state.

“This state... is on the brink of defaults that are going to be so significant that if the federal government was called in to bail them out... all of the red states... will say, 'Why the hell should I pay federal taxes to bail out California?' And I think that's what the story will be over the next decade.” View on YouTube

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) will become a future U.S. president, driven by voter frustration over cost of living and wealth disparity.

“I do predict... AOC will be president. I mean obviously there's a lot of dispersion in what could happen here but I would say AOC would be my front runner based on... the extraordinary cost of living in the United States right now.” View on YouTube

Over the next 24 months, cost-of-living and wealth-disparity concerns will continue driving a socialist political movement in the US; if a future administration bails out and federalizes California's debts, some red states will publicly question remaining in the union.

“The fact that people are seeing this wealth disparity, those two things are going to continue to drive socialist movement over the next 24 months. And if AOC comes in and they bail out California and they federalize California's liabilities, you're going to see parts of this union... say, why should we be part of this union anymore?” View on YouTube

The damaged Qatari nitrogen-fertilizer facility (the world's largest urea producer) will remain incapacitated for 3 to 5 years to repair, and any new nitrogen fertilizer facility built elsewhere will take about 7 years to come online.

“The facilities take at least three to five years to fix when they break, which is what just happened in Qatar... That's now going to be incapacitated for 3 to 5 years. And if you want to build a new facility, takes about 7 years.” View on YouTube

In the near term following this May 2025 episode, the Trump administration will take executive or regulatory action on abusive third‑party import practices on Amazon, and Congress will pass (or at least formally advance) legislation aimed at shutting down or heavily restricting certain categories of foreign direct‑to‑consumer imports (the "foreign import of records" issue they describe).

“the Trump administration is going to act on this. And if there's an act that's coming out of Congress as well to shut down the foreign import of records.” View on YouTube

Friedberg predicts that moves such as China and Saudi/Brazil settling oil and other trade in local currencies mark the beginning of the end of US dollar dominance in global trade and, over time, the end of the US dollar’s status as the singular global reserve currency (on a multi-decade horizon, not an immediate collapse).

“And it's the end of the dominance. Right. It's the end of you've been... beginning of the end now, maybe it's a poor choice of words. It's not the end... Define dollar dominance in global trade... of the US dollar as a global reserve currency.” View on YouTube

Friedberg predicts that as AI model performance improves and costs decline over the coming years, demand for AI compute and applications will grow nonlinearly (i.e., accelerating rather than saturating or shrinking).

“look, I think as performance improves, as cost declines, like any economic model, there's a pretty nonlinear relationship with demand. So we'll find new ways to apply this technology. I think the demand is only going to go nonlinear.” View on YouTube

Within the next few years (by the end of 2027), a credible alternative to the US dollar as the primary global reserve/settlement asset will emerge, likely associated with the BRICS bloc or similar, leading to a noticeable shift of assets away from USD into that alternative (and into hedges like gold and Bitcoin during the transition).

“there may be an alternative that emerges in the next couple of years, and maybe everyone's kind of putting their assets away in gold and, and others and Bitcoin and other stuff while they're waiting for the transition to find another place to buy. We'll see.” View on YouTube

Eli Lilly's retatrutide will win FDA approval around mid-2027, though approval could plausibly come sooner, potentially before the end of this year.

“when's the projected date for >> 2027. Mid 27. >> That's what they're saying. Could happen sooner. I mean, the data is in the, you know, the FDA will take their time to evaluate it, but I think given the way this is all looking, >> could happen sooner, could happen sometime later this year.” View on YouTube

Within approximately one year from March 1, 2024, the market and industry practices for valuing content used to train large language models will become significantly clearer and more settled than they were at the time of the conversation.

“Over the next year this will all start to become clearer.” View on YouTube

As of early December 2023, the OpenAI–Sam Altman leadership crisis will see further major twists or structural changes (e.g., in governance, ownership, or leadership) beyond Altman’s reinstatement; the situation will not be fully resolved in the immediate term.

“I think we're still in the second act here. I don't think this is over by a long shot.”

Subsequent media and other investigations into Sam Altman and OpenAI will uncover additional previously unknown information and controversies that will enter the public narrative about the company.

“so I think there's a lot of investigators digging around now trying to figure out all the backstory... So this will reveal all sorts of new threads that'll start to become part of the narrative.”

In the future, commercially or publicly available AI systems will be released that are explicitly tuned to specific religious beliefs (e.g., 'religious AIs' for different faiths).

“I do think we'll end up seeing religious AI. I think we'll see AI that's tuned to people's religious beliefs.” View on YouTube

At some future point (no specific year given), AI models will be formally allowed to obtain professional certifications such as bar admission (law) and medical licensing, to the extent that prediction markets like Polymarket could list and resolve a market on this event occurring.

“It sounds crazy today, but I guarantee if you put it on polymarket, there will be a date when this happens.” View on YouTube

Due to war‑related export disruptions from Russia/Ukraine, reduced planting (including up to an ~80% decline in planted acres in Ukraine), and very high fertilizer costs making planting uneconomic in many regions, global food production will decline over the following year (through roughly spring 2023), resulting in famine conditions in parts of the world, with Africa being at especially high near‑term risk.

“That means there's going to be less production over the next year. That means famine hits us in a year. Um, that's a big problem.” View on YouTube