All-In’s 2026 Predictions

Summary

The All-In Podcast besties gather to deliver their annual predictions for 2026, covering politics, business, assets, and media. The episode opens with discussion of David Sacks moving to Austin, Texas due to California’s proposed wealth tax, with the hosts debating whether the “asset seizure tax” will make it onto the ballot. Jason, Chamath, Friedberg, and Sacks each share predictions across multiple categories including biggest political winner/loser, biggest business winner/loser, best/worst performing assets, biggest deals, contrarian beliefs, and most anticipated trends.

Key themes emerge around the “Trump boom” economy with GDP predictions ranging from 4.6% to 6%, the rise of democratic socialism taking over the Democratic party (the “Mamani moment”), and significant concerns about the tech industry becoming a political lightning rod. The hosts are bullish on IPOs returning in 2026, with predictions that companies like SpaceX, Anthropic, Stripe, and OpenAI could file. Chamath predicts copper will surge due to global supply shortages, while Sacks believes AI coding assistants represent a breakthrough trend similar to chatbots in 2022.

The conversation also touches on geopolitics, with Friedberg predicting the Russia-Ukraine war will settle this year and Iran potentially becoming an independent democratic state. Jason predicts the standoff with China may be largely resolved, potentially becoming a signature achievement of Trump’s second term.

Highlights

”About half a trillion of net worth has left California”

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“When you look at our friends that all explicitly left, it’s about half a trillion of net worth, which I think is very bad for the long-term budget of California.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, 2:52

”Replace the fragility of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism”

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“We’re going to replace the fragility of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” — Mamani quote discussed, 11:04

”The Trump boom: 5-6% GDP”

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“The good economic news start breaking out before 2025 was even over. We have 2.7% inflation. Core CPI at 2.6. Both those are 40 basis points below expectations. 4.3% GDP growth in Q3. Lowest trade deficit since 2009.” — David Sacks, 13:53

”The Venezuela operation lasted three hours”

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“This war with Venezuela, if you want to call it that, it was a flawless operation. It lasted three hours. They went in there and they basically captured Maduro. No Americans were killed.” — David Sacks, 28:03

”Nobel prizes don’t keep people in power. Men with guns do.”

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“The Democrats are criticizing the administration for not putting Maria Karina Machado in power. But here’s the problem. Nobel prizes don’t keep people in power. Men with guns keep people in power.” — David Sacks, 29:27

”The economic cost to Sacks will exceed a billion dollars”

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“I divested my Grok shares as part of joining the government… XAI just raised an up round at twice the valuation. The economic cost to Sacks will probably exceed a billion dollars by the time he leaves.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, 39:31

”SpaceX will reverse merge into Tesla”

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“My contrarian belief number one is I don’t think SpaceX will IPO. I think that it will reverse merge into Tesla and I think Elon will use it as a moment to consolidate control and power of his two seminal assets into one cap table.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, 56:15

Key Points

• David Sacks Moves to Texas (0:45) - Sacks officially domiciled in Texas in December, citing California’s proposed wealth tax and hostile business environment as reasons for leaving
• California Wealth Tax Discussion (2:21) - About half a trillion in net worth has left California; super voting stock provision could make tax effectively 25% for founders like Larry and Sergey
• Wealth Tax Ballot Prediction (8:48) - Both Chamath and Friedberg predict it won’t make the ballot; Polymarket shows 69% chance it will
• Biggest Political Winner: DSA (12:27) - Friedberg predicts Democratic Socialists of America will take over the Democratic party like MAGA took over Republicans
• Trump Boom Economics (13:53) - Sacks predicts 5% GDP, Chamath says 5-6%, citing 2.7% inflation, 4.3% GDP growth in Q3, lowest trade deficit since 2009
• Biggest Political Loser: Monroe Doctrine (21:28) - Chamath argues Trump has created a new doctrine emphasizing hemispheric dominance and economic unilateralism
• Tech Industry Under Attack (22:42) - Friedberg predicts tech will be biggest political loser as AI and tech wealth become lightning rod for populism on both sides
• Venezuela Operation (28:03) - Described as “flawless operation” lasting three hours to capture Maduro with no American casualties
• Biggest Business Winner: Huawei/Polymarket (33:05) - Friedberg picks Huawei for chip stack efforts and Polymarket for evolving from prediction market to news platform
• Copper Investment Thesis (34:29) - Chamath predicts copper will go parabolic; by 2040 we’ll be short 70% of global supply
• IPO Year (35:46) - Sacks predicts trillions in new market cap from IPOs, reversing trend of companies going private
• Amazon Robot Singularity (36:21) - Jason predicts Amazon will be first company with more robots driving bottom line than humans
• State Government Financing Crisis (40:51) - Friedberg warns about unrealized pension liabilities and state borrowing concerns
• Software Industrial Complex Disruption (43:08) - Chamath predicts $3-4 trillion SaaS economy will contract as AI disrupts maintenance and migration
• Coding Assistants Breakthrough (50:31) - Sacks notes breakthrough quality in last month, comparing trend to chatbots in late 2022
• Russia-Ukraine Settlement (51:21) - Friedberg predicts war will settle this year due to economic and political factors
• IP License M&A Workaround (51:56) - Chamath predicts hundreds of billions in licensing deals as traditional M&A becomes impossible
• SpaceX-Tesla Reverse Merger (56:15) - Chamath’s contrarian belief: SpaceX won’t IPO but will reverse merge into Tesla
• AI Increases Knowledge Worker Demand (57:26) - Sacks cites Jevons paradox: as code becomes cheaper to produce, aggregate demand will increase
• Best Asset: Tech Super Cycle (1:03:05) - Atlanta Fed forecasts 5.4% Q4 GDP; US productivity surged 4.9%, strongest in 6 years
• Iran Democratic Revolution (1:15:17) - Friedberg predicts uprising will lead to independent democratic state, potentially destabilizing other Gulf states

Mentions

Companies

• Amazon (36:21) - Jason’s biggest business winner pick; first corporate singularity with robots
• Huawei (33:05) - Friedberg’s biggest business winner; partnering with SMIC on chips
• Polymarket (33:21) - Evolving from prediction market to news/insights platform
• Tesla (32:47) - At all-time high; potential SpaceX reverse merger target
• Google (32:55) - Biggest Mag-7 winner at 65% returns in 2025
• SpaceX (56:15) - Chamath predicts reverse merger into Tesla instead of IPO
• Craft Ventures (1:32) - Sacks signed lease for Austin office
• Netflix (50:12) - Acquired Warner Brothers
• Scale AI (53:06) - Example of IP licensing deal structure
• XAI (39:31) - Raised up round at 2x valuation; Sacks had to divest
• Meta/Facebook (52:37) - Tried to buy Manis for $2.5B, blocked by China
• Anthropic (55:25) - Potential IPO or acquisition target in 2026
• OpenAI (40:50) - Jason’s 2025 prediction of peak valuation was wrong
• Coinbase (33:45) - Expected to offer prediction markets
• Robinhood (33:43) - Moving into prediction markets

Products & Technologies

• Copper (34:29) - Critical material for data centers, chips, weapons; 70% supply shortage by 2040
• Coding Assistants (50:31) - Breakthrough quality achieved in past month
• Stable Coins (32:35) - Chamath’s 2025 prediction was spot on
• Enterprise SaaS (43:08) - $3-4 trillion economy facing AI disruption
• Prediction Markets (33:21) - Evolving to replace traditional news and markets

People

• David Sacks (0:39) - Moved to Texas; working in government; divested investments
• Elon Musk (56:15) - Chamath predicts he’ll consolidate SpaceX and Tesla
• Donald Trump (21:28) - Creating new “Trump Doctrine” superseding Monroe Doctrine
• JD Vance (15:54) - “Darth Vance” - Jason’s second pick for political winner
• Mamani (16:31) - 34-year-old representing socialist movement in Democratic party
• Ro Khanna (2:17) - Criticized for elevating wealth tax issue
• Larry Page/Sergey Brin (2:52) - Left California; super voting stock makes wealth tax punitive
• Reid Hoffman (3:57) - Even he thinks California wealth tax is insane
• Governor Abbott (3:04) - Welcomed Sacks to Texas on X
• Gavin Newsom (10:16) - May negotiate with SEIU to stop ballot initiative
• Nick Shirley (5:59) - Investigative journalist exposing fraud
• Sundar Pichai (53:00) - Did IP licensing deals as M&A workaround
• Satya Nadella (53:02) - Microsoft’s IP licensing approach
• Jensen Huang (53:04) - Nvidia’s Grok licensing deal
• Maduro (28:17) - Captured in Venezuela operation

Surprising Quotes

“When you look at our friends that all explicitly left, it’s about half a trillion of net worth, which I think is very bad for the long-term budget of California.” — Chamath, 3:27

“We’re going to replace the fragility of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” — Mamani quote discussed, 11:04

“Nobel prizes don’t keep people in power. Men with guns keep people in power.” — Sacks on Venezuela, 29:38

“The economic cost to Sachs will probably exceed a billion dollars by the time he leaves.” — Chamath on Sacks’ government service, 39:51

“If we print six percent GDP, the only country in the modern world that has printed six is the Chinese, in a period where it had complete and total coordination and domination of a federal, state, and local economy. And the fact that we can do it under democracy and capitalism is outrageous.” — Jason, 15:21

Transcript

0:00 This is what we need. Let him go. All right, here we go. This is Jason in the corner warming up. Welcome back to the number one podcast in the world. The podcast I, Jason Calacanis, named, created, and I’m the executive producer for life. With me, my three miscreant friends, Chamath Palihapitiya, our dictator. Love you, brother. Good seeing you. David Friedberg, our Sultan of Science. Who’s now made his way down to Austin. Welcome, brother. Let’s go shooting. Let’s get those beef ribs.

0:39 David Sacks, how are you settling in to the great state of Texas? Everybody wants to know, David. I’m loving the 70 degree weather. Is it like this all year round? You know, this is a very wonderful time of year. You miss the two weeks where it goes to freezing temperatures. We have 10 days of freezing temperatures and then we have 80 days of 100 degree temperatures, but you’ll be on a yacht or Italy or somewhere during that like the rest of us. That’s basically all you need to know about Austin. Just get out during the summers because it’s brutal. That’s it. Everything else is fan freaking fantastic.

1:15 But in all seriousness, you’re here. You’ve moved. You’ve domiciled in Texas. This has happened. It happened in December. Yes. And so we closed on a new house. We moved in. Went to the DMV. I signed a lease for an Austin office for Craft. Nice. It’s done. Okay. I got to get you a dentist and whatever else you need. I got a doctor, too.

1:42 Okay. Does this mean I have to bring Moose back? This has been the big discussion in our house. Does this mean we lose Moose or do we have you in custody? He needs a significant acreage to run around. We know that. Oh, he does. But he misses you and I and we’ll definitely bring him by for a visit. And we’ll be playing some backgammon smoking some cigars. You got to come by. Cannot wait.

2:05 Chamath, what about you guys? You guys going to come down? Two of four besties. Matt and I started the process in December. We are coming to check things out. We have not made any final decisions though. Okay. Shout out to our boy Ro Khanna for driving everybody out of the state.

2:18 So, here’s the funniest thing is we’re all in the chat group discussing the California wealth tax, whether people are going to leave or not. So, Chamath, he’s making a big show. I’m going to stay and fight. I’m not leaving my home. They can’t drive me out. And then meanwhile, I get a call from my broker who says she’s helping Chamath find a place. What’s going on? Is Chamath doing backdoor trades? I’m shocked that Chamath tells you one thing and is doing another. He’s at least hedging his bets.

2:52 A lot of people are hedging their bets. Sergey in Florida. Larry’s got a beautiful place in Florida. According to the news, a lot of people and I saw Governor Abbott reached out to you. That’s right. He welcomed me to Texas on X. A lot of people did. Michael Dell did. Ted Cruz. And yeah, it was a real welcome reception. It’s funny. I never got anything like that when I was in California. The politicians were never embracing you.

3:27 I put this on X. But when you look at our friends that all explicitly left, it’s about half a trillion of net worth, which I think is very bad for the long-term budget of California. Then I can pick about 25 people just off the top of my head. And then if you think about all the people that will stay and fight, I still intend to stay and fight, but where if we’re forced to look down the barrel of an asset tax that has god knows what methodology, it’s the only thing that’s united everybody on the left and the right. Even Reid Hoffman thinks this is insane.

4:19 Listen, I think this is going to be a topic. This is a prediction. I think this is going to be a topic throughout the year because it’s not going away. They’re gathering signatures right now. And we’re going to find out in say April whether it’s on the ballot. Now, it’s possible they don’t gather the signatures, but they only need about 850,000 of them. If it gets on the ballot, there’s going to be a huge freakout and I think there’ll be a lot of people who will say, I can’t take the risk. They’re going to leave the state.

4:58 So, I think there’s going to be a rush for the exits. There’s going to be all sorts of repercussions from that. Then, there’ll be an election in November. Obviously, we’ll find out if it passes or not. And then there’ll be legal challenges. So, this is going to be a saga. I don’t think this is over by a long shot. And quite frankly, even if it’s beaten in 2026, I think a lot of people expect that some version of this comes back in 2028, which is the thing that kind of pushed me over the edge in terms of leaving is I don’t think this problem is going away.

5:31 It’s very difficult if you’re an entrepreneur with a good idea to start building here because if you get stuck in success with a bunch of illiquid stock and have no way to pay 5% of that value, you’re going to bankrupt your own company. It just doesn’t make any sense. And what if your company goes to zero the next year, which can totally happen with private companies? You still owe the tax bill.

5:59 I was talking to Ro Khanna and Eric Swalwell who we had on the program and I told these guys like these dopey Democrats, you have to stop fraud first before you start seizing people’s assets or start a discussion about raising taxes. And you know, we had Nick Shirley on last week who was doing his investigative journalism. Shout out to Shirley. And how do we sell to the American public that we want to seize their assets while sending it out the back door to fund fraud? That makes no sense. It’s a leaky bucket. So fix the bucket first.

6:56 You mentioned that Larry and Sergey have left the state and they’re probably getting dragged for that. But one of the reasons why I think they kind of have to is because of the super voting stock provision in this thing where the way they calculate the value of your stock is not based on its liquid market value but if you own super voting shares they multiply your ownership by the market cap of the company and they deem your shares to be worth that. So for example Larry and Sergey I think they combined have voting power of about 52% of Google. So what’s Google worth these days? 4 trillion.

7:47 So now their net worth will be deemed to be roughly one trillion each. Not the 200 billion. So the 5% tax for them is more like a 25% tax of all their net worth. And it becomes 50% because you’d have to sell more than that to overcome the drag of selling to generate 25 billion or 50 billion of net worth. You have to sell 2x that because you have to pay taxes on that. So what is the point of having that super voting provision in there? It’s just totally punitive and vicious.

8:07 All right, so let’s just go with a quick prediction here. I’m going to call an audible. We’re gonna get into the prediction show, folks. We’ve been delaying this prediction show because the world is moving at an incredible pace and the news is just intense. And we have a lot of stories you all want us to cover. We will cover them, but we’re going to start with our prediction show.

8:28 Just lightning round prediction here. Does this seizure tax, I’m going to call it what it is, it’s a seizure tax, they’re seizing assets, does the seizing assets tax go into effect or not? Does it pass or not? Freeberg, you’re first. Yes or no? Give us a percentage. Well, does it get on the ballot first? Well, we know it’s going to get on the ballot. I don’t think it’s going to get on the ballot. I agree with that.

9:01 Here’s your Polymarket, everybody. This is the question. Will the billionaires to Austin tax, wealth tax, make it onto the California ballot? Lightly traded currently at 69%. But you see how much lower it was? That spike happened after Ro Khanna elevated the issue. So when it became a cause celeb among progressives and Bernie Sanders weighed in, it spiked up from 45% to 80%.

10:40 But if it does get on the ballot, what do you think the odds are that it passes? I think it’s going to be a really important moment for people to vote. 40% moment for people to vote the ability to be industrious and have agency or what did Mamani say? It’s rugged individualism versus collectivism, also known as communism, as in collect. We collect your assets. He said that we’re going to replace the fragility of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.

12:18 Let’s do what everybody wants to hear. Our predictions for 2026. We’ve been pushing it off. We’re going to give it to you right now. We always like to start with the biggest political winner. Last year’s prediction for biggest political winner for 2025 to remind everybody. Freeberg said young candidates. Well done. Gavin said Trump and centrism would be the biggest political winner. Chamath, you said fiscal conservatives. I said Gen X and Elder Millennials, the JD Vance, Tulsi, Sacks group.

13:05 Friedberg, who do you think will be the biggest political winner of 2026? Democratic Socialist of America, the DSA. Just like the MAGA movement took over the Republican party, I think the DSA is taking over the Democratic party. And I think that’s the move we’ll see solidified in 2026. Chamath, who do you got for biggest political winner 2026? Whoever is going to fight waste, fraud, and abuse at the federal, state, and local level. It’s an open lane. It’s a political gambit that I think will work really well in 2026.

13:48 David Sacks, who would you pick as a political winner in 2026? I’m gonna say that the Trump boom is going to be the biggest political winner of 2026. The good economic news start breaking out before 2025 was even over. We have 2.7% inflation. Core CPI at 2.6. Both those are 40 basis points below expectations. 4.3% GDP growth in Q3. Lowest trade deficit since 2009. The Challenger Gray report showed that job cuts dropped 50% from November. The S&P 500 keeps making record highs.

14:55 Pick your GDP for this boom year. Three, four, five or six points Sacks. I’m going to go for 5%. Within a rounding error I believe 5%. Chamath, you want to pick a number? I think the lower bound is five. I think the upper bound is 6.2. Freeberg? 2026 growth. Yeah. 4.6%.

15:54 In terms of my prediction for the big political winner, I went back and forth between the emperor’s apprentice, Darth Vance, JD Vance, or the Mamani moment. He is the most popular politician clearly at Turning Point USA and he is the OG in the America first, America only moment. But I’m going to give the edge to the Mamani moment. He’s 34 years old. We’ve got Ro Khanna at 49 pivoting into a socialist. And I think that’s because Democrats believe the easiest way to win in 2026 is to go full socialist.

17:45 Biggest political loser. Sacks, who’s your big political loser in 2026? I said democratic centrism or democratic centrists. There’s two reasons for this. One is because the socialist ideology has ascended among the democratic base, especially the young people who support Mamani. Unfortunately, our universities are woke madrasas that have done a terrible job educating these students and they’ve brainwashed a lot of them into this woke ideology.

19:36 Chamath, what do you got? The biggest loser of 2026 is the Monroe Doctrine. I think that when historians look back on the Trump presidency, they’re going to rewrite it. I think there is a clear Trump doctrine that trumped the Monroe doctrine. We view this as hemispheric dominance. We view it as proactive and in very specific cases interventionist. We intervene against drug cartels. We control immigration. We secure vital assets.

22:42 Freeberg, biggest loser 2026. My biggest political loser of 2026 is the tech industry. I think AI and tech wealth have become the lightning rod for populism on both sides of the aisle. The right is fracturing a bit where this alliance between tech and MAGA seems to be getting a really strong challenge from the more populist movement. In the same sense the left is turning hard on tech because of tech’s alignment with the right.

23:17 Can I tell you guys a little story from yesterday? I had a meeting with three very senior sitting senators before I flew back to California. These are Republican senators and Freeberg, I was surprised exactly what you said. There are a couple of companies that have exacerbated their frustration. They view those companies, these are techs and the tech leaders of these companies as just not trustworthy and they’ve largely been grinding these guys for a long time and they’re pretty frustrated with it.

24:35 The reason why there’s anger on the populist right is because they remember the censorship and the deplatforming and the shadow banning. What there needs to be is some truth and reconciliation that happens between some of these tech leaders and some of these conservative influencers. I would like to host some of these meetings in 2026 and get these people together because I think that the tech companies have either realized their mistake or they were pushed into it by the Biden administration.

27:20 The problem with neocon regime change operations was three-fold. Number one, the invasion with land armies. Number two, you then have an occupation for 10 or 20 years. And third, you have nation building spending trillions of dollars. But look, what has Trump done that is like any of those things? There’s been no invasion, no occupation, and no nation building. This war with Venezuela, if you want to call it that, it was a flawless operation. It lasted three hours.

28:08 I woke up and it was like the meme where it’s like, “Wake up, honey. Trump’s won another war.” It was over before it even started. They went in there and they basically captured Maduro. No Americans were killed. It was absolutely flawless operation and they are bringing him to justice. By the way, he begged for it. He’s on tape talking a lot of smack at rallies saying, “Come get me,” calling the Americans chicken.

29:27 The Democrats are criticizing the administration for not putting Maria Karina Machado in power. But here’s the problem. Nobel prizes don’t keep people in power. Men with guns keep people in power. And she doesn’t have the men with guns. So it would be American GIs. There would have to be the guns to keep her in power. And the administration has not done that. They’re looking to basically work with the existing regime.

32:18 Biggest business winner for 2025. Freeberg picked robots and autonomous hardware. Year of the robot. I think if you include robo taxi there, you nailed it. Chamath, you said dollar denominated stable coins. Given what we’ve seen with regulation, that was spot on. I pick Tesla, which is at an all-time high. And Google, which of all of the Mag Seven crushed, is the biggest winner, and they did 65%.

33:05 Who do you have Freeberg as your biggest business winner prediction for 2026? I couldn’t decide. My number one is Huawei, which I’ve mentioned in the past out of China. I think Huawei’s effort to partner with SMIC to go deeper in the chip stack and they’re just firing on all cylinders. Keep an eye on Huawei over the next year. It’s going to outperform expectations. And the second is Polymarket. I think prediction markets could become not just markets but also news.

34:05 Chamath, biggest business winner for 2026 after yourself. I will pick copper. We are still completely underestimating how short we are in terms of the global demand supply dynamics of a handful of critical elements that we need. In the Trump doctrine view of the world, we need to have unilateral national security. The asset that is set up to go absolutely parabolic is copper. Right now, by 2040 we will be short about 70% of the global supply at current course and speed.

35:41 Sacks, what do you got? Biggest business winner of 2026. I said the IPO. I think 2026 is going to be a big year for IPOs. I’m not going to say which ones. I think there’s going to be a bunch of them, a bunch of successful ones. And I think we could see trillions of dollars of new market cap created of public companies. For a while, people were concerned that the number of public companies were shrinking. This is going to be a big reversal of that trend. This will be part of the Trump boom.

36:21 My prediction for 2026 is that Amazon is going to have a massive year as they continue to replace humans with robots. I think this is the most important company to watch. They’re essentially flat in terms of hiring humans and they’re surging in deploying robots. I think they’ll be the first corporate singularity which is to say the first company to have more robots driving their bottom line than humans.

38:16 So, Jason, you’ll buy like virtues at like 8:00 a.m. and it arrives by noon. Yes. Absolutely. And when you put your order in for ethics and morality, it just never shows up. It’s like, “Hello, customer support. I ordered a moral compass 2 years ago. It still hasn’t arrived.”

39:11 By the way, I divested my Grok shares as part of joining the government back in February or March. Oh god. XAI just raised an up round at twice the valuation from the last round and we had to divest that too. The economic cost to Sacks will probably exceed a billion dollars by the time he leaves. Personally, this is crazy. People need to know this. I’m accused of somehow doing this job for money when it just keeps costing me money.

40:25 Business loser 2025. Gavin said federal government service providers because of Doge and them being held to the fire. Old guard defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed was yours Friedberg. Chamath you said the Mag 7 expected a decrease in the record concentration. I said OpenAI which would see a peak valuation and obviously I got that wrong.

40:51 What do you got this year Freeberg? Who do you think is going to be the biggest business loser? I think these state governments are going to have a real problem with finding financing because what’s going on with the exposes that are underway on waste, fraud, and abuse in state agencies is going to lead to a conversation that’s going to cause folks to question the long-term solvency. The other thing that’s going to hit the fan this year is all of these unrealized pension liabilities. Folks are going to wake up and be like, “Holy, there’s a ginormous hole in these states and their obligations.”

43:08 Chamath, who’s your loser? I will pick the software industrial complex. So these are the companies that sell licensed SaaS to the corporations of America. It’s about a $3 to $4 trillion a year economy. That is separated into three buckets. Bucket one is the initial licensing, probably 5 to 10%. Buckets two and three where all the money is made is maintenance and migration which represent 90% of all the dollars in revenue. Because of the advancement of AI models and building agents, I think you’re going to see that total economic opportunity shrink and contract aggressively.

44:56 Sacks, your biggest business loser of 2026 prediction? For me, we already talked about this, but it was California because of the wealth tax and also the onerous regulations driving business and capital out of the state. Regardless, there’s two major refineries closing by the spring. Higher gas prices will be the result.

45:30 I went with young white collar workers in America. I think they’re going to be the biggest business loser. It’s getting really hard for them to get entry level jobs. Companies are having an easier job just automating with AI than training up Gen Z graduates. That’s why I’m launched Founder University on three continents. If you are a young person, you got to be resilient.

46:39 I got a text last night from a friend. He said went to a roundtable of 50 CEOs and asked everyone if they’re hiring junior engineers. Everyone said they are still, but not as much as before because during COVID every college lowered the bar on admissions and the talent just isn’t as good anymore. The Gen Z kids are all really challenging to hire because of cultural issues, not because of AI.

49:34 Let’s go with the biggest deal. Last year’s predictions for biggest deal for 2025, traditional auto OEM consolidation was you, Chamath. Gavin said a tidal wave of M&A. Freeberg you said massive compute buildout deals. Of course you nailed that one. I said also Apple would buy Warner Brothers. That wound up going to Netflix.

50:21 What do you have as your biggest deal for 2026, David Sacks? I think there was a breakthrough in the last couple of months in terms of these coding assistants where there seems to have been another level of quality achieved just in the last month or so. This trend feels to me like chatbots did at the end of 2022 going into 2023. I think coding assistants and tool use will get bigger and bigger this year.

51:21 Freeberg what do you got biggest deal? Russia Ukraine I think it’s going to settle out this year. I think there’s a lot of motivating factors to get it settled out this year. Economic and other political factors, but I do think it’s going to settle out this year and it’s going to bring a bit more stability to that region. If Trump can stop that war, he would be two for two.

51:56 Chamath biggest deal 2026. It’s not a specific deal, but it’s an approach. I think that M&A cannot happen. So it’s the IP license M&A workaround. And I think you’re going to see hundreds of billions of dollars of these kinds of deals. This is the deal that Google did with Character AI. Microsoft did it. It’s obviously what Nvidia did with Grok. Traditional M&A is effectively dead. I think it’s going to be impossible to get a large transaction done.

54:52 For 2026 I think we’re going to see some massive M&A. I do think we’re going to see a $50 billion plus deal. It could be one of the Mag 7, an Apple, a Meta, a Microsoft or an Amazon going out and trying to buy XAI, Mistral, Perplexity, Anthropic. I think one of them is going to go for it. I think it could wind up being Apple or Meta or Amazon who buys an Anthropic or a Perplexity.

56:15 Most contrarian belief. Chamath, what’s on your contrarian belief? My contrarian belief number one is I don’t think SpaceX will IPO. I think that it will reverse merge into Tesla and I think Elon will use it as a moment to consolidate control and power of his two seminal assets into one cap table.

57:26 Sacks got a contrarian belief for 2026. I said that AI will increase demand for knowledge workers, not decrease it. I would refer you to Jevons paradox for knowledge workers. The point is that as the cost of a resource goes down, the aggregate demand for it actually increases because you discover more and more use cases. Take a field like radiology that’s frequently cited as a profession that AI is going to put out of business. That’s not what the data shows. The number of radiologists is increasing because the number of scans is increasing.

1:03:05 Best performing asset. Sacks, what do you got? It’s getting a little bit redundant for me, but I just said the expanding super cycle in tech. Let me show you some data that literally just came out. US productivity just surged 4.9%, the strongest reading in nearly 6 years. And the Atlanta Fed, their forecast for Q4 GDP just climbed to 5.4%. Closing the border plus adding productivity lifts through AI have created a growth dynamic in the United States that will really start to show itself in 2026.

1:08:02 Worst performing asset. Sacks, worst performing asset of 2026. I just said California luxury real estate because of the overhang of the wealth tax. Now, what I’m hoping for is a dead cat bounce. If you guys are right that the ballot initiative fails, then the overhang will be lifted and maybe I can clear some real estate.

1:09:57 Chamath, worst performing asset? I think a very poor performing asset will be hydrocarbons. The trend in oil is inexorable and it’s down. The reason it’s down is irrespective of your thoughts on climate change, the trends on electrification and energy storage are just unstoppable. Does oil see $65 or $45? I would say it’s more likely to see 45 than 65.

1:15:17 Most anticipated trend. Freeberg, go. Iran becoming an independent democratic state. There’s an uprising in the streets. There is a weakening of the Ayatollahs and there seems to be a moment underway. Demographics are destiny. There’s a lot of young people in Iran and they do not want to live under the current rule. They want to be free. There is a major economic problem in Iran in terms of affordability. That’s why they are taking to the street.

1:17:31 Sacks, most anticipated trend of 2026? Auditing government spending at all levels. Decentralized Doge. Let a thousand Nick Shirleys bloom. Audit everything. We need to normalize independent audits across the board. It is not acceptable for Gavin Newsom to prohibit audits as he did with homeless spending. All government spending needs to be opened up and audited by the public.

1:21:18 Most anticipated media. Sacks, you got any media you’re looking forward to? The new Christopher Nolan movie is coming out. The Odyssey looks interesting. That’s mine. I also like Avengers Doomsday. Robert Downey Jr. as Dr. Doom setting up secret wars and then you’re going to tie up all the previous Marvel strings.

1:26:47 Hey, besties. Here’s a little something. I think we’re about to hit today 1 million YouTube subscribers before we do our Netflix deal and take the show off of YouTube. You know why we didn’t hit it a year and a half ago? Because we never tell our subscribers to hit the like button or smash the subscribe button. Every other podcast I watch on YouTube, they’re always like, “Hit the like button.”

1:28:31 Listen, it’s been a great year. Great job. Besties, we kept the band together for one more year. Let’s do a Polymarket. Chances the All-In Podcast makes it to 2027. Honestly, it’s not 100%. We’ll do the best we can. You guys love the show, smash the like button, comment, link, subscribe, whatever you want to do. Write a review. Tell everybody how much you love Chamath’s sweaters and we’ll see you next week on another amazing All-In.