ALL INPredictions
Last updated Nov 29, 2025
Episodes / E34: Wuhan lab leak theory, India's "traceability" law, Coinbase's fact check, Big Tech's Hollywood takeover
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Sacks @ 00:53:50Inconclusive
techmarkets
From roughly 2021 onward, major Hollywood studios and their content libraries acquired by large technology companies (e.g., Amazon, Apple, Google) will remain under big-tech ownership permanently, rather than being bought and sold every decade, and big tech will ultimately acquire and retain most of the remaining major Hollywood content libraries.
we're reaching an end state of digital convergence, where the, um, where, where content and the digital distribution are now reaching their kind of final state. And so I don't expect these studios, once they're owned by big Tech, to ever go anywhere. And I don't think they're going to be trading again every ten years. I think this is the end state. Um, Amazon wants this library for their streaming service. And I think that big tech is going to gobble up the rest of these libraries, and that's where they're going to stay.View on YouTube
Explanation

Summary of what was predicted
Sacks argued that (a) once major Hollywood studios/content libraries are acquired by big‑tech platforms (Amazon, Apple, Google, etc.), they will effectively never change hands again (no more trading every ~10 years), and (b) big tech will ultimately "gobble up" most of the remaining major Hollywood content libraries and keep them.

What has actually happened (through Nov 30, 2025)

  • Amazon completed its acquisition of MGM in March 2022 and continues to own it; there has been no sign of Amazon flipping or selling MGM’s library. (washingtonpost.com)
  • Other major Hollywood studios and libraries (Disney, Comcast/NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, Paramount Global, Lionsgate) have not been acquired by big‑tech platforms. Instead, the most significant post‑2021 reshuffling has been within legacy media and telecom:
    • AT&T spun off WarnerMedia and merged it with Discovery to form Warner Bros. Discovery in April 2022 – a media/telecom-to-media transaction, not a big‑tech takeover. (ir.wbd.com)
    • Warner Bros. Discovery later announced plans to split into two publicly traded entities, again a restructuring among traditional media assets, not a sale to big tech. (reuters.com)
  • Apple, Google, and others have invested heavily in original production and streaming, but as of late 2025 they have not acquired most of the legacy studio libraries.

Why this is not yet clearly right or wrong

  • The permanence part of the prediction (that once big tech owns a studio it will never trade again) cannot realistically be tested only a few years after Amazon–MGM closed; we have no counterexample yet, but also no proof this will hold over decades.
  • The “gobble up the rest” part has not materialized so far: outside of MGM, big tech has not acquired the other major Hollywood libraries. However, Sacks did not give a specific deadline, framing it instead as a long‑run “end state.” The absence of these acquisitions by 2025 is evidence against the speed or inevitability of his scenario, but it does not decisively falsify a multi‑decade structural prediction.

Because (1) no major big‑tech divestitures have occurred to clearly disprove the “they’ll never be traded again” claim, and (2) the time horizon for “big tech will ultimately gobble up the rest” is open‑ended, the available evidence is insufficient to declare the prediction definitively right or wrong at this point. Hence the result is inconclusive (too early).