Jan 10, 2026 · 1h 31m · allin
All-In's 2026 Predictions
Jason Calacanis · 30m spoken Chamath Palihapitiya · 18m spoken David Sacks · 17m spoken David Friedberg · 12m spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of the All-In Podcast, hosts Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Friedberg, and David Sacks deliver their comprehensive 2026 predictions across politics, macroeconomics, tech disruption, asset classes, and cultural shifts.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 99.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 6.8 Guest teaching 3.3 Guest disagreement 3.3 The hosts pushing back 3.1
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 27:08 Sacks rejects Jason's neocon label
Sacks forcefully rejects Jason's claim that Trump acted like a neocon in Venezuela, laying out distinct definitions around invasion, occupation, and nation-building.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 15:47 Jason challenges Sacks' economic optimismJason refuses Sacks' framing of a universal Trump economic boom by highlighting inflation metrics, military budget expansion, and the rise of socialist candidate Mamdani.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 46:37 Friedberg reframes Gen Z job market issuesFriedberg counters Jason's assumption that AI automation is driving Gen Z unemployment by reading direct CEO feedback attributing hiring issues to post-COVID educational and cultural standards.
The host holds their own ▶ 43:03 Chamath deconstructs the SaaS revenue modelChamath demonstrates deep domain expertise by dissecting the $3-4 trillion SaaS economy into three distinct revenue buckets to explain why AI agents threaten legacy software maintenance models.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debate on California Wealth Tax and Capital Flight | 6 | 3 | 3 | 3 | The panel debates the mechanics and unintended consequences of the proposed California wealth tax. Sacks highlights how super voting shares would artificially inflate founders' taxable net worth beyond liquid value. | |
| Predictions on California Wealth Tax Ballot Measure | 5 | 2 | 4 | 3 | Jason prompts quick predictions on whether the California wealth tax measure will reach the ballot and pass. Sacks points out how political commentary from Ro Khanna swung Polymarket odds significantly. | |
| 2026 Prediction for Biggest Political Winner | 7 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Sacks presents strong macroeconomic data predicting a massive Trump economic boom. Jason pushes back aggressively, arguing Trump's military interventions and inflation metrics fuel a socialist Mamdani backlash. | |
| 2026 Prediction for Biggest Political Loser | 7 | 5 | 6 | 7 | The debate intensifies over foreign policy when Sacks forcefully rejects Jason's characterization of Trump as a neocon. Sacks contrasts the rapid Venezuela operation against prolonged nation-building occupations like Iraq. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Biggest Business Winner – Huawei and Polymarket | 7 | 4 | 3 | 2 | Friedberg picks Huawei and Polymarket while Chamath makes a supply-and-demand case for copper. Chamath cites structural supply deficits facing global energy and hardware needs by 2040. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Biggest Business Winner – Tech IPO Market | 6 | 2 | 3 | 3 | Sacks predicts an IPO resurgence while Jason picks Amazon based on autonomous robotics deployment. The panel banters about Jason's track record and Amazon's same-day logistics efficiency in Austin. | |
| Sachs' Government Service Sacrifice & xAI/Grok Divestments | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | The co-hosts discuss Sacks' mandatory divestments from Grok and xAI to serve in government. Chamath and Friedberg point out that media claims of self-dealing ignore Sacks' massive lost opportunity costs. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Biggest Business Loser – State Governments & Pension Obligations | 7 | 3 | 2 | 3 | Friedberg identifies state government financing and unfunded pension liabilities as major financial risks. He advocates shifting from defined benefit obligations toward defined contribution models like Australia's. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Biggest Business Loser – Software Industrial Complex (SaaS) | 8 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Chamath analyzes the software industrial complex, explaining how AI agents threaten the maintenance and migration revenues that compose 90% of SaaS earnings. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Biggest Business Loser – Gen Z White-Collar Job Market Debate | 7 | 6 | 6 | 5 | Jason argues Gen Z white-collar workers face displacement from AI automation. Friedberg counters with input from corporate CEOs attributing hiring drops to lowered academic standards and work culture issues. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Biggest Deal – AI Coding Assistants & Tool-Use Agents | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Sacks highlights AI coding assistants and tool-use capabilities as the premier deal category of 2026. Friedberg separately predicts a diplomatic resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Biggest Deal – IP Licensing Workarounds Replacing Mega-M&A | 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Chamath predicts traditional mega-M&A will be replaced by massive IP licensing workarounds due to cross-border regulatory scrutiny. Jason argues a $50B+ traditional deal will still take place. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Most Contrarian Belief – Post-Ayatollah Middle East Regional Friction | 7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Friedberg outlines a contrarian geopolitical view where a collapse of Iran's regime uncovers latent conflicts among remaining Gulf states rather than stabilizing the region. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Most Contrarian Belief – AI Increases Demand for Knowledge Workers (Jevo | 8 | 4 | 3 | 2 | Sacks presents Jevons paradox to argue AI efficiency will increase total demand for knowledge workers rather than decrease it, pointing to radiology as a prime example. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Most Contrarian Belief – SpaceX-Tesla Reverse Merger & Privacy-Centric C | 7 | 3 | 3 | 2 | Chamath offers contrarian takes predicting a SpaceX reverse merger into Tesla and central banks seeking privacy-centric cryptographic reserve assets. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Best Performing Asset – Polymarket & Critical Metals | 8 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Friedberg selects Polymarket and Chamath picks critical metals, while Sacks reviews breaking economic data showing Atlanta Fed GDP projections jumping to 5.4%. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Best Performing Asset – Retail Wagering & Prediction Platforms | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Jason selects consumer wagering platforms as top assets in a rate-cut environment. Chamath elaborates on how lower interest rates and corporate home-buying restrictions could spark a housing expansion. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Worst Performing Asset – California Luxury Real Estate | 8 | 3 | 3 | 3 | Sacks targets California luxury real estate as a poor asset due to punitive transfer and mansion taxes. The conversation pivots to how 100% accelerated depreciation rules drive capital equipment investment. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Most Anticipated Trends and Economic Shifts | 8 | 5 | 4 | 4 | Chamath and Friedberg debate nuclear energy economics, with Chamath arguing solar, storage, and long build times render nuclear non-viable economically despite demand increases. | |
| 2026 Predictions: Most Anticipated Media and Pop Culture | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | Friedberg highlights the rise of citizen investigative journalism and auditors. Chamath facetiously criticizes Homer's Odyssey, leading to comedic banter with Jason and Sacks over Christopher Nolan's film adaptation. |
Statements from this episode (55)
David Sacks signs lease for Craft Ventures office in Austin
“I signed a lease for an Austin office for craft.”
Chamath: California wealth tax will cause flight of half its taxable wealth
“I think a lot of other people will leave. It's probably half the total wealth that the budget estimated would be available to be taxed will be gone.”
Sacks predicts a rush for exits if California wealth tax reaches ballot
“If it gets on the ballot, You know, again, we'll know in just a few months, there's going to be a huge freak out. 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. So I think there's going to be a ru…”
Sacks: Persistent threat of wealth tax pushed him to leave California
“I think a lot of people expect that some version 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 bomb is going away.”
Friedberg predicts California wealth tax will not reach the ballot
“I don't think it's going to get on the ballot.”
Friedberg: Democratic Socialists of America will solidify takeover of Democratic Party in 2026
“Democratic Socialists of America, the DSA, just like the MAGA movement took over the Republican Party, I think the DSA is taking over the Democrat Party, and I think that's the move we'll see solidified in twenty-twenty-six.”
Sacks: Federal Reserve will cut rates by 75-100 basis points by June 2026
“And by June, I predict we will see more rate cuts. Possibly, 75 to a hundred basis points, and big tax refunds are coming in April, thanks to a bigger standard deduction and no tax on tips overtime and Social Security.”
Sacks predicts US GDP growth will reach 5% in 2026
“I'm gonna go for five percent. Within a rounding year, I believe five percent.”
Chamath predicts US GDP growth will hit 5% to 6.2% in 2026
“I think the lower bound is five. I think the upper bound is six, two.”
Chamath predicts the Monroe Doctrine will be 2026's biggest political loser
“What I would say is the biggest loser of 26 is the Monroe Doctrine.”
Friedberg predicts the tech industry will be 2026's biggest political loser
“My biggest political loser of 2026 is the tech industry.”
Calacanis predicts centrist Democrats will be 2026's biggest political losers
“So I'm going to just align with Sachs here that the centrist Democrats are going to be this year's biggest political losers.”
Friedberg: Huawei will outperform Western expectations in 2026
“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. I do think keep an eye on Huawei over the next year. It's going to o…”
Chamath predicts copper prices will go absolutely parabolic
“And if you look through that lens, the asset that is set up to go absolutely parabolic is copper.”
Chamath: Global copper supply will be short 70% by 2040
“And right now, Jason, we are on a path by 2040 where we will be short about 70% of the global supply at current course and speed.”
Sacks: 2026 will see a major IPO boom creating trillions in market cap
“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.”
Calacanis: Amazon will be 2026's biggest business winner through robotics
“My prediction for 20, 26 is that Amazon is going to have a massive year. As they continue to replace humans. With robots. That's why. Here's a chart for you. I've been talking about this a little bit. I think this is the most important company to watch because…”
Sacks divested his Grok shares upon joining the government
“I divested my Grok shares as part of joining the government back in like February or March.”
Sacks: xAI raised an up round at double its previous valuation
“XAI just raised an up round at twice the valuation from the last round and we had to divest that too.”
Chamath: Sacks' government service will probably cost him over $1B
“The economic cost to Sachs will probably exceed a billion dollars by the time he leaves.”
Friedberg: State pension liabilities will trigger a crisis in 2026
“I think the other thing that's going to hit the fan this year in state governments is all of these unrealized pension liabilities. I think when these numbers start to come out this year, and a lot of people are now digging deep into it, Folks are going to wake…”
Chamath: Maintenance and migration represent 90% of software revenue
“Those last two buckets represent 90% of all the dollars in revenue that's generated in software.”
Chamath: AI agents will cause the enterprise software market to contract aggressively
“And because of the advancement of these models and the advancement of these technological techniques that we are all uncovering, building agents, building systems, I think you're going to see that total economic opportunity shrink and contract aggressively.”
Chamath: 8090 pivoted to disrupting software maintenance and migration
“Our entire business, eighty-nineties business, has basically migrated to disrupting maintenance and migration patterns.”
Sacks: California will be the biggest business loser of 2026
“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.”
Sacks: California refinery closures by spring will drive up gas prices
“Regardless, there's two major refineries closing by the spring. Higher gas prices will be the result.”
Calacanis: Young white-collar workers will be 2026's biggest business losers
“And I went with Young white collar workers in America. I think they're going to be the biggest business loser. I think it's getting really hard for them to get entry level jobs. I'm seeing that all over the place because companies are having an easier job just…”
Friedberg: Youth employment challenges stem from culture, not just AI automation
“I do not think, and I think a lot of people are echoing this J Cal that challenges that young people are having finding employment is purely rooted in, in an AI and automation phenomenon, but it may be a cultural phenomenon.”
Friedberg predicts the Russia-Ukraine war will settle in 2026
“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 mor…”
Chamath: IP licensing workarounds will reach hundreds of billions as M&A stalls
“I think that M&A cannot happen. And 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.”
Chamath: Meta attempted to acquire Manus for $2.5 billion
“Well, if you just look at what Facebook tried to do, they tried to buy Manus for two and a half billion dollars.”
Calacanis: Big Tech will make a $50B+ AI acquisition in 2026
“For twenty-twenty-six, I think we're going to see some massive M&A. It doesn't matter to me how it occurs, but I do think we're going to see a fifty billion plus deal, and I think it could be, ah, one of the Mac seven, an Apple, a Meta, a Microsoft, or an Amaz…”
Chamath: Big Tech acquiring an AI lab faces 3+ years of antitrust review
“If any of those companies tried to buy, let's just say Anthropic, I think it's three years of antitrust minimum.”
Friedberg: Middle East conflict will increase among Gulf states if Iranian regime falls
“That there may be more conflict brewing in the Middle East than anyone anticipates for this year that will not necessarily involve Israel and or Iran. It will actually be amongst the other Gulf states as they vie for influence and power, and that the contraria…”
Sacks: AI will increase demand for knowledge workers, not decrease it
“AI will increase demand for knowledge workers, not decrease it.”
Chamath: SpaceX will reverse merge into Tesla instead of IPOing
“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: Central banks will create a new private cryptographic currency beyond Bitcoin
“I think the central banks will realize that there are limitations to gold and limitations to Bitcoin and will, as a result, seek out a completely new cryptographic paradigm That they can control on their balance sheet, that is fungible, that is tradable, and t…”
Chamath: Quantum computing will challenge existing encryption within 5 to 10 years
“If you're going to own a currency, you need to hedge against the Eventual risk in the next five to 10 years that there's a quantum chip that can challenge the existing cryptographic schemes that are used.”
Calacanis: OpenAI will continue losing market share to Google and xAI
“And for my contrarian, I was thinking about going with OpenAI losing their lead and not being the number one company again, because I do think that will be the trend that they will have the, they'll continue to give up Their market share to other players, incl…”
Calacanis: US-China standoff and Taiwan issues will be largely resolved under Trump
“I think the standoff with China is going to be largely resolved. And I think president Trump's, when he makes his visit there, I don't know if you're going to go on that one. Sax, but I think it should be included in it, obviously because of the AI race. I do …”
Friedberg: Polymarket will be the best performing asset of 2026
“Polymarket. Polymarket's on a tear. Network effects. Replacing media. Replacing markets.”
Chamath: A basket of critical metals will be 2026's best performing asset
“I would pick a basket of critical metals.”
Sacks predicts the expanding tech supercycle will be 2026's best performing asset
“I just said the expanding super cycle in tech.”
Calacanis: Retail gambling and prediction market platforms will be 2026's top asset
“My pick for best performing asset will be the Robinhood Polymarket prize picks, gambling, wagering space because people will be able to have a little cash around to make some bets. You could buy Coinbase in there too, I guess.”
Calacanis: Per-seat SaaS models fail when customer headcount expansion stalls
“If you have a static number of employees or less employees, like many of these companies do, There's just less seats to sell. So their whole growth was based on land and expand. You land the client and then you expand the client because they're adding staff. I…”
Sacks predicts California luxury real estate will be 2026's worst performing asset
“Well, I just said California luxury real estate because of the overhang of the wealth tax and all the things we're talking about.”
Sacks claims LA's 5% mansion tax has killed local real estate market
“The five percent, you know, quote unquote mansion tax has just killed LA real estate.”
Chamath: Hydrocarbons will perform poorly, oil more likely to hit $45 than $65
“I won't say the worst performing, but I think a very poor performing asset will be hydrocarbons. I just think that the trend in oil, Is inexorable and it's down. And the reason it's down is irrespective of your thoughts on climate change, the trends on electri…”
Calacanis: US dollar will perform poorly in 2026 due to growing national debt
“I went with the U.S. Dollar in different permutations of how you can buy it because our debt continues to grow unabated and, you know. I just think it's gonna be hard for, you know, the USD because we're talking about, we've been adding, I think we're gonna ad…”
Chamath: Marginal cost of electricity will hit zero by 2032-2035
“By the time that they deliver working SMRs at scale, the problem is that the marginal cost of electricity will effectively be zero, and it'll have gone to zero because of a combination of solar and storage, as well as coal and oil.”
Calacanis: At least two major tech unicorns will file IPOs in 2026
“Anticipate one of the following two will file. SpaceX, Android, Stripe, Anthropic, and OpenAI. I think two of those file, and it is going to be gangbusters.”