E109: 2022 Bestie Awards Live from Twitter HQ

Donald Trump did run in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. He officially announced his 2024 candidacy on November 15, 2022, and then actively campaigned through the 2024 primary season, ultimately securing the Republican nomination.

Ron DeSantis did not maintain the same polling strength against Trump that he had in late 2022. Through 2023, national Republican primary polls showed Trump opening up and then sustaining a large lead over DeSantis and other GOP contenders, and DeSantis’s relative position weakened rather than strengthened. Nonetheless, the key outcome in Sacks’s prediction — that Trump might not run again in order to avoid risking a primary loss — clearly did not occur: Trump chose to run despite any such risks and won the primary.

Because the observable real-world outcome (Trump ran and won the 2024 GOP primary) is directly contrary to the implied forecast that he would likely not run under the scenario being discussed, this prediction is best scored as wrong.

Jason’s core prediction was that Trump would still be viable in 2024, would be a central player in the Republican primaries, and had a real chance to beat Ron DeSantis and win the nomination. That central thesis proved correct, though one specific detail (that Trump would debate DeSantis) did not.

Evidence:

• Donald Trump ran in the 2024 Republican primaries, dominated the field, won 54 contests, and far exceeded the 1,215 delegates needed for the GOP nomination, ultimately becoming the Republican presidential nominee at the 2024 convention. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Ron DeSantis did in fact challenge Trump in the 2024 Republican primary, entering as his main rival but suspending his campaign on January 21, 2024 after a disappointing showing in Iowa, and explicitly endorsing Trump—confirming that Trump, not DeSantis, emerged as the party’s standard-bearer. (abc17news.com)
• Trump clinched the nomination early in the calendar (by mid-March 2024) by surpassing the delegate threshold, confirming that he not only remained viable but decisively won the GOP primaries. (forbes.com)
• However, Jason also said Trump was “going to have to debate DeSantis.” In reality, Trump skipped all official 2024 Republican primary debates; DeSantis appeared in those debates, but Trump never shared a debate stage with him. (en.wikipedia.org)

Taken together, Jason was right about the substantive outcome he cared about—Trump’s continued viability and real chance to win the 2024 GOP nomination over DeSantis—while being wrong about the specific mechanism (a head‑to‑head primary debate) through which that contest would play out. On balance, the prediction is best scored as right, with a notable but secondary detail incorrect.

Looking at performance from roughly late December 2022 through late December 2023 (well‑approximated by full‑year 2023 returns), the named U.S. defense contractors substantially underperformed the broader U.S. equity market:

• Lockheed Martin (LMT): 2023 total/price return about –4.3%. (financecharts.com)
• Northrop Grumman (NOC): 2023 annual % change about –12.8%. (macrotrends.net)
• RTX Corp (RTX, Raytheon): 2023 return about –16.6%. (slickcharts.com)
• General Dynamics (GD): 2023 return about +7–7.1%. (companiesmarketcap.com)

Over the same year, the S&P 500 total return was about +26.3% in 2023, driven largely by a strong rally in large‑cap U.S. stocks. (slickcharts.com) This means all four contractors lagged the broad market badly over that first year after December 2022, with three of them actually negative while the index gained over 25%.

Since the normalized prediction specified that these defense contractors would "continue to perform well in the stock market for at least the next year" relative to the broader market, and they instead underperformed the S&P 500 by a wide margin during that period, the prediction did not come true.

1. Did Microsoft release the predicted product? – Yes

• On February 7, 2023, Microsoft unveiled the “new Bing” and a revamped Edge browser that integrated an OpenAI GPT‑4–based chatbot directly into Bing search, offering a ChatGPT‑like conversational experience alongside traditional search results. (techcrunch.com)
• This chat experience (initially Bing Chat, now Microsoft Copilot) is explicitly described as a built‑in feature of Microsoft Bing and Edge, powered by OpenAI’s GPT‑4/5 models. (en.wikipedia.org)

On the narrow question of “Will Microsoft release a search engine with OpenAI that offers ChatGPT‑like capabilities?” the prediction clearly came true in early 2023.

2. Did it have a “significant impact” / “materially erode or threaten” Google’s core search business? – Evidence cuts both ways

Market‑share and revenue impact (weak so far):

• Despite the AI “new Bing,” Bing’s worldwide share remains only around 3–4%, while Google is still near 90% of global search as of 2024–2025. (en.wikipedia.org)
• A StatCounter‑based analysis found that from Feb 2023 to Jan 2024, Bing’s U.S. share rose modestly from 6.35% to 7.87%, and worldwide from 2.81% to 3.43%, while Google lost only 1.5–1.9 percentage points—described as little real change. (searchengineland.com)
• Ars Technica and other outlets noted that Microsoft’s AI infusion “may have helped Bing on the margins, but [hasn’t] meaningfully eroded Google’s search market share.” (arstechnica.com)
• Recent coverage still describes Google’s search business as extremely strong and dominant, with Google’s parent Alphabet approaching a $4T valuation and search/ads remaining its core profit engine. (en.wikipedia.org)

On a strict, numerical view of “materially erode”, the data show only a small share shift from Google to Bing; Google’s core search franchise remains overwhelmingly dominant in usage and revenue.

Strategic and competitive impact (clearly significant):

• The combination of ChatGPT’s rise and Microsoft’s GPT‑powered Bing triggered what multiple reports describe as “Code Red” inside Google, with management treating generative AI as a serious threat to its search empire and rushing AI‑powered search products (Bard → Gemini) to market. (forbes.com)
• Analyses of the “new Bing” launch say Microsoft “put pressure on the search industry,” forcing Google to accelerate its own AI search experiences and making search more expensive to operate (AI overviews, etc.), which could compress Google’s search margins even without massive share loss. (forbes.com)
• Regulators and courts have also begun to cite generative‑AI tools (including OpenAI/Microsoft offerings) as emerging competition that slightly weakens Google’s monopoly position, showing that policymakers now see Microsoft/OpenAI as a genuine, if still small, competitive threat in search. (reuters.com)

On a strategic/qualitative view of “significant impact” or “threaten,” Microsoft’s OpenAI‑integrated search clearly forced Google into a defensive posture, reshaped its product roadmap, and influenced antitrust assessments of Google’s dominance.

3. Why the overall verdict is ‘ambiguous’

• The prediction has two parts: (1) Microsoft will release an OpenAI‑integrated search engine (this is clearly right); and (2) that product will “have a significant impact” / “materially erode or threaten” Google’s search franchise within a few years.
• As of late 2025, Google’s actual search share and revenue have only modestly budged, so a strict, numbers‑only reading of “significant impact” or “materially erode” would say the prediction overstated the damage. (searchengineland.com)
• At the same time, Google and the wider industry have behaved as though the Microsoft–OpenAI move represents a serious, strategic threat, triggering code‑red responses, accelerated launches (Bard/Gemini, AI Overviews), and regulatory arguments that generative AI is finally creating real competition in search. (forbes.com)

Because reasonable observers can credibly argue either (a) that the impact on Google’s business metrics has not yet been “significant,” or (b) that the strategic threat and forced responses are a significant impact on its franchise, the truth of the prediction depends heavily on how you interpret “significant impact” / “materially erode or threaten.”

Given this genuine interpretive disagreement—despite sufficient elapsed time and data—the fairest classification is “ambiguous.”

Jason made his comment on the Dec 24, 2022 “Bestie Awards” episode, when Disney (DIS) was trading in the mid‑$80s; for example, it closed at about $86.6 on December 23, 2022 and ended 2022 at $85.46. (statmuse.com)

From that level, Disney’s stock has materially appreciated:

• In 2023 it fluctuated, hitting lows around the high‑$70s in September but finishing the year at about $89.1, modestly above the late‑2022 level. (statmuse.com)
• In 2024 it rallied strongly, closing the year near $110.9, roughly 30% above the $85–87 range where he was bullish. (macrotrends.net)
• As of late November 2025, Disney trades around $103–104, still about 20%+ above its late‑2022 price despite some pullback from 2024 highs. (macrotrends.net)

The normalized prediction is that Disney’s stock would appreciate enough in the future to make adding to the position in 2023 look justified. Based on public price data, buying in late 2022 or during 2023 at those depressed levels would leave an investor with a clear gain by 2024–2025. That outcome is consistent with Jason’s bullish view.

We cannot directly verify his personal trading activity, but the market outcome itself — substantial appreciation from the time of the call — supports the economic content of the prediction. Therefore, the prediction is best judged as right.

Available evidence shows that, following the FTX/FTT collapse in late 2022, the SEC under Chair Gary Gensler did launch a broad wave of additional enforcement actions against other crypto tokens, lending products, and exchanges it claimed were fraudulent or unregistered securities, over the subsequent years.

Key post‑FTX actions include:

• Genesis & Gemini (Gemini Earn) – In January 2023 the SEC charged Genesis and Gemini for the unregistered offer and sale of securities through the Gemini Earn crypto lending program, explicitly framing it as part of an ongoing crackdown on crypto lending platforms and intermediaries. (sec.gov)
• Kraken staking program – In February 2023 the SEC charged Kraken entities for failing to register their crypto “staking‑as‑a‑service” program as a securities offering, forcing Kraken to shut the program for U.S. customers and pay $30M.(sec.gov)
• Bittrex exchange – In April 2023 the SEC charged Bittrex, its former CEO, and Bittrex Global for operating an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency dealing in crypto assets alleged to be securities.(sec.gov)
• Coinbase – In June 2023 the SEC charged Coinbase with operating an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency and with conducting an unregistered securities offering via its staking‑as‑a‑service program, alleging billions in unlawful crypto‑securities trading.(sec.gov)
• Binance / BNB / BUSD / staking products – Also in June 2023 the SEC filed 13 charges against Binance, its U.S. affiliate, and founder Changpeng Zhao, including operating unregistered exchanges and the unregistered offer and sale of Binance’s own crypto assets (BNB, BUSD, lending and staking products). Gensler characterized this as another example of evasion in the crypto markets.(sec.gov)
• Further follow‑through – The SEC later announced a settlement with Genesis in 2024 over the same Earn program and brought additional crypto‑related actions (for example, against crypto‑focused bank Silvergate for misrepresentations tied to its crypto clientele), underscoring a sustained enforcement push in 2023–2024 rather than a one‑off response to FTX.(sec.gov)

These actions, launched after the FTX/FTT case and explicitly framed as part of a broader crackdown on crypto "unregistered securities" and misconduct, match the prediction that Gensler’s SEC would "go down the list of other tokens" and pursue more prosecutions of crypto "grifts" over the next few years. Therefore, the prediction is right.

Jason’s timeframe of “another 6 to 18 weeks” from late December 2022 corresponds roughly to early February through late April / early May 2023. In that window, Twitter did ship a number of visible features, such as making the “For You” algorithmic feed the default on iOS, adding side‑by‑side “For You” and “Following” tabs (and then partially rolling this back after backlash), as well as launching 4,000‑ and later 10,000‑character tweets for Twitter Blue subscribers.(macrumors.com)

However, contemporaneous coverage and user discussion in that same period were dominated by transitional and operational turmoil, not by enthusiasm for these features. In January–February 2023, Twitter abruptly cut off many third‑party clients and announced the end of free API access, widely reported as breaking apps and angering developers.(en.wikipedia.org) On March 28, 2023, TechCrunch ran an analysis titled “Twitter is dying,” arguing that Musk’s moves—like turning verification into pay‑to‑play and reinstating banned extremists—were destroying the service’s value, underscoring that the narrative was about chaos and decline rather than product improvements.(techcrunch.com)

In April 2023, the biggest Twitter stories were the “state‑affiliated” / “government‑funded media” labeling fiasco that led NPR, PBS, CBC and others to quit the platform, and the messy removal of legacy blue checks and ensuing #BlockTheBlue backlash against Twitter Blue subscribers.(en.wikipedia.org) Coverage in May 2023 around Elon Musk naming Linda Yaccarino CEO likewise framed his tenure up to that point as “chaotic” and focused on advertiser flight and moderation problems, not on a successful feature renaissance.(english.elpais.com)

Because the predominant public and media conversation 6–18 weeks after December 2022 still centered on layoffs, broken APIs, verification chaos, labeling controversies, and leadership turmoil—with new features mostly discussed in that negative context—Jason’s prediction that people would be “talking about all the great features in Twitter, not any of the transitional issues” during that timeframe did not come true.

The prediction referred to Twitter/X rolling out custom organizational affiliation badges so that the All‑In podcast and its hosts would have distinctive “All‑In” badges on their profiles.

Evidence:

• In late December 2022, Elon Musk discussed on the All‑In podcast the new organizational affiliation concept, explicitly crediting David Sacks with the idea and describing a system where organizations verify people and an org badge appears next to those affiliates’ accounts. A contemporaneous write‑up of that conversation notes this as “Twitter for Business/Organizations” and ties it to organizational verification under Twitter Blue for Business. (whatsuptwitter.com)
• On December 12, 2022—just days before E109’s Dec 24, 2022 release—Twitter launched Blue for Business, a corporate tier that gives organizations a gold check and (per internal docs reported by TechCrunch) the ability to give employees additional badges next to their names to mark affiliation. This is exactly the custom affiliation‑badge product Sacks was describing. (techcrunch.com)
• X’s current help page defines “affiliation badges” as badges that show the profile photo of a Verified Organization and are applied to all that organization’s affiliates, appearing on profiles, posts, timelines, and more. (help.twitter.com)
• Today, The All‑In Podcast has a dedicated Affiliates page on X (x.com/theallinpod/affiliates) listing the hosts’ handles as affiliates of the All‑In organization. That status implies the hosts’ accounts carry the All‑In organization’s badge as their affiliation badge, matching Sacks’s “All‑In badges” description. (x.com)
• Episode E109 itself is dated December 24, 2022, so the corporate/affiliation system began rolling out essentially immediately after the timeframe of the episode, i.e., within weeks to a few months of the prediction. (metacast.app)

Putting this together: the organizational affiliation feature Sacks described was launched publicly within days of the episode, and All‑In is now a Verified Organization on X with its hosts listed as affiliates, which by X’s own rules means they carry the org’s custom affiliation badge. While we don’t have an exact public timestamp for when the All‑In org and hosts were enrolled, the feature itself shipped almost immediately and functions today exactly as Sacks predicted. On that basis, the prediction that they would have “All‑In badges really soon” is best classified as right.

Macroeconomic data do not show a clearly defined global or U.S. recession lasting into mid‑2024. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook in January and April 2024 described steady but below‑trend growth (~3.1–3.2% globally in 2023–2025) with falling inflation and a plausible “soft landing,” rather than an ongoing recession that would “end” around mid‑2024. (meetings.imf.org) An IMF economist also said in April 2024 that the risk of a global recession was “fairly minimal,” again implying no clear recession to end at that time. (cnbc.com) Major banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley similarly framed 2024 as a normalization/soft‑landing scenario, not an exit from recession. (goldmansachs.com)

For startups and venture funding, the picture is different but still mixed. After a severe “funding winter” starting in 2022, VC investment fell sharply through 2022–2023. (spglobal.com) In 2024 there was a partial recovery: global VC funding ticked up slightly versus 2023 and U.S. VC deal value rose about 30%, but activity remained more than 50% below 2021 levels and was heavily concentrated in AI and top‑tier firms, leaving many startups and sectors still capital‑constrained. (reuters.com) Some regions (notably African tech) saw further funding declines in 2024, with analysts only talking about “cautious recovery” in 2025, which contradicts the idea of a broad recovery beginning by mid‑2024. (disruptafrica.com)

By Q1 2025, U.S. VC reports describe “bright spots” and “hope on the horizon” with the strongest exit values since late 2021, yet still low liquidity and weak fundraising overall, consistent with a gradual, uneven thaw rather than a clearly completed recovery. (pitchbook.com)

Because:

• there was no officially recognized macro recession to “end” in mid‑2024, and
• the startup funding downturn and its recovery timing varied widely by sector and geography, with only a partial, uneven improvement around 2024–early 2025,

it isn’t possible to map Chamath’s “recession ends mid‑2024, then you can raise with runway to Q1 2025” prediction cleanly onto the actual data. His runway advice turned out to be conservative and broadly reasonable, but the specific timing and notion of a single recessionary period ending in mid‑2024 do not line up neatly with how the economy and funding markets evolved. Overall, the call is best characterized as ambiguous rather than clearly right or wrong.

Chamath framed the situation in late 2022 as a current recession that he expected to last until roughly mid‑2024, and he advised companies to get to breakeven or have runway through Q1 2025.

Using standard macroeconomic definitions for the U.S., this did not happen:

• The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the official arbiter of U.S. business cycles, shows the last recession ending in April 2020, with no new recession at any point from 2022 through at least Q3 2025. (nber.org)
• Revised GDP data removed even the earlier “technical recession” story: updated Commerce Department figures show that U.S. real GDP in Q2 2022 actually grew at a 0.3% annual rate rather than shrinking, meaning the two‑quarters‑down rule of thumb never applied. (axios.com)
• On an annual basis, real U.S. GDP rose 2.1% in 2022, 2.5% in 2023, and 2.8% in 2024, a pattern of continued expansion rather than a multi‑year recession. (bea.gov)
• The labor market stayed historically tight: the unemployment rate averaged about 3.6% in 2023 and 4.0% in 2024, with BLS describing 2024 as a year where unemployment edged up modestly but remained low by historical standards—not the surge in joblessness typical of a recession. (bls.gov)
• Contemporary commentary on 2023–24 macro conditions repeatedly characterized the outcome as a soft landing in which the U.S. “easily skirted a recession” while inflation fell and growth remained solid. (presidency.ucsb.edu)

You can argue there was a "recession" in specific risk assets or venture funding, but in the usual macroeconomic sense Chamath was talking about (guiding CEOs around a broad downturn), the U.S. did not experience a recession running into mid‑2024. Since the underlying recession he anticipated never materialized, it cannot be said to have "ended" around mid‑2024, making his timing call wrong by the standard macro data.

Chamath suggested after the 2022 Bestie Awards that there might be no "turnaround" award until 2025. However, in the 2023 Bestie Awards episode (E159, released December 29, 2023), the show explicitly includes a “Best Turnaround” segment at 47:07 in the chapter list. (podcasts.apple.com) In the transcript for that segment, the Besties actively debate and award Best Turnaround to several cases (e.g., Novo Nordisk, Solana, Uber/Dara, Sam Altman), demonstrating that they did find clear turnaround stories well before 2025. (podscripts.co) This directly contradicts the prediction that there would be no turnaround award until 2025.

The prediction’s key claims are explicitly about what will happen “over the next decade or two” (roughly 2022–2032 or 2022–2042):

1. Energy costs: It asserts that the marginal cost of energy generation and storage will be in the low single-digit cents per kWh and make energy effectively free and abundant. While utility-scale solar and wind PPAs in many regions are indeed in the low single-digit cents per kWh range and battery costs have continued to fall, the global energy system is still far from “effectively free and abundant” in 2025; fossil fuels remain significant, and retail electricity prices for consumers are much higher than a few cents/kWh in most markets. (Multiple, evolving data sources on levelized costs of energy and storage would be needed to fully validate, and this transition is ongoing beyond 2025.)

2. Foreign policy / national security impact: The more substantial, time-sensitive part of the prediction is that this cheap, abundant energy will create a “massive peace dividend” and “rewrite our foreign policy” and “rewrite national security” over that 10–20 year horizon. As of late 2025, only about three years have elapsed since the prediction. U.S. foreign policy and national security priorities are still heavily shaped by geopolitical competition (e.g., with China and Russia), supply-chain security, and traditional defense concerns. It is too early in the 10–20 year window to judge whether cheap energy will eventually produce the kind of structural, durable “peace dividend” effect he forecasts.

Because:

• The prediction’s main horizon (10–20 years) has not yet elapsed, and
• The transformative outcomes (free/abundant energy + fundamental re-write of U.S. foreign policy and national security) are long-run structural claims that cannot reasonably be confirmed or falsified after only ~3 years,

this forecast cannot yet be fairly evaluated.

Therefore, the appropriate status as of November 30, 2025 is: it is too early to tell whether this prediction will prove correct.

Available evidence by late 2025 indicates that Friedberg’s prediction has largely played out as described.

• Prompt-based, “narrate what you want” interaction has become the standard for generative AI. Academic and industry work now explicitly defines AI-generated content as systems that automatically create text, images, etc. based on user prompts, and even proposes architectures and frameworks whose core optimization variable is the prompt/narration supplied by the user. (arxiv.org)
• Mass consumer and enterprise adoption shows this narrator-style usage has indeed “emerged and grown.” By 2024–25, ChatGPT alone had over 100 million weekly active users and was reportedly adopted in some form by more than 90% of Fortune 500 companies, while the broader AI boom is characterized specifically by generative models like large language models and image generators. (investopedia.com) This reflects exactly the behavior he described: ordinary users and workers typing natural-language instructions to generate content, code, designs, and more on demand.
• Business operations and product creation are being re-shaped around generative AI. Research on firms integrating GenAI into online retail workflows finds statistically significant sales and productivity gains when generative features are embedded into business processes, directly tying prompt-driven generation to measurable operational changes. Conceptual enterprise frameworks published in 2025 focus specifically on how organizations adopt and integrate GenAI – including prompt engineering and model orchestration – into strategy, workflows, and governance, indicating that this mode of working is now a serious management and IT concern rather than a fringe experiment. (arxiv.org)
• Cultural and creator behavior has shifted toward a “narrator / prompt economy.” Commentators now explicitly use terms like “narrator economy” and “prompt economy” to describe an environment where economic and creative leverage comes from the ability to prompt and frame ideas for AI systems, not from traditional technical production skills. These pieces highlight that with tools like ChatGPT and image generators, anyone can create apps, art, or content by narrating what they want, and that prompting has become a central creative and economic skill. (medium.com)

Taken together, these developments match the core of Friedberg’s prediction: a rapidly growing, prompt‑driven "narrator economy" that is changing how people entertain themselves, behave as users, and how businesses operate and create products. The trend is still evolving, but enough has already materialized to judge the prediction as essentially correct.

Evidence since late 2022 shows both pillars of Sacks’ prediction playing out:

• Trust in legacy/corporate news has kept falling to record lows. Gallup trend data summarized in multiple outlets shows U.S. trust in “mass media such as newspapers, TV and radio” dropping from the mid‑30% range in 2022 to 31% in 2024 and then 28% in 2025 saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust—its lowest level in over 50 years. Roughly 70% now say they have not very much or no trust in these outlets. (breitbart.com) This directly matches his claim that more people see corporate media as failing and agenda‑driven.

• A growing share of people are “opting out” toward independent or non‑traditional media.

  • A 2024 Pew report finds about 1 in 5 U.S. adults (21%)—and 37% of adults 18–29—regularly get news from news influencers on social media, and 77% of those influencers have no affiliation with a news organization, i.e., they are independent creators. (pewresearch.org)
  • A 2025 Reuters Institute analysis and related coverage report that social and video networks have overtaken TV as Americans’ primary news source, with people increasingly turning to online personalities and podcasters like Joe Rogan instead of traditional news brands. (reuters.com)
  • The “independent journalism era” is documented as rapidly expanding: platforms like Substack grew from ~1 million paid subscriptions in 2021 to over 3 million by early 2024 and around 5 million paid subscriptions by early 2025, with politics and news as leading categories and many high‑profile journalists leaving legacy outlets to build independent businesses there. (axios.com)
  • Podcast and creator‑driven content consumption is at all‑time highs, with a majority of Americans now monthly podcast consumers, and podcasts—often independent—serving as a major news/opinion channel. (edisonresearch.com)

Across roughly three years since the prediction, the directional trend is clear: trust in corporate/mass media keeps deteriorating, while independent/creator‑led and influencer‑driven outlets capture a growing share of news consumption, especially among younger audiences. That aligns closely with Sacks’ forecast that more people would recognize corporate media as biased and would shift toward independent media “over the coming years.”

Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced on March 28, 2024 in U.S. federal court to 25 years in prison, plus supervised release, following his conviction on seven criminal counts related to fraud at FTX. Multiple reputable outlets (e.g., major U.S. newspapers and wire services) report the sentence length as 25 years, not 35.

Since Jason’s prediction set an over-under line at 35 years, and the actual sentence was significantly below that (by about 10 years), the prediction that the sentence would be “approximately 35 years” is incorrect.

(Key sources: contemporaneous news reports on the March 28, 2024 sentencing by major outlets such as the New York Times, Associated Press, and others, all consistently stating a 25-year sentence.)

Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced on March 28, 2024 in U.S. federal court to 25 years in prison for fraud and related charges, according to multiple reputable sources including major news outlets and the U.S. Department of Justice reporting. This is substantially less than 35 years and far from Bernie Madoff’s 150-year sentence, which is often cited as the benchmark for a de facto life sentence in large financial fraud cases.

Because Chamath explicitly said he would "take the over" on 35 years and compared it to "Madoff level" sentencing, his prediction that SBF would receive a sentence longer than 35 years and effectively Madoff-level was not borne out by the actual 25-year sentence.

Therefore, the prediction is wrong.

Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced in U.S. federal court on March 28, 2024, to 25 years in prison, far below the “hundreds of years” term Friedberg predicted. (theguardian.com) Under federal rules and the Bureau of Prisons’ current calculations, he is expected to serve a bit over 20 years, with a projected release date in December 2044 after good-conduct credits and other adjustments. (washingtonpost.com) Bankman-Fried was in his early 30s at sentencing, so a 25-year term with projected release in his early 50s is neither a sentence in the hundreds of years nor an effective life sentence. Appeals are ongoing, but there is no realistic path evident in the record or current reporting toward a “hundreds of years” sentence replacing the 25-year term. (ft.com) Therefore, Friedberg’s prediction that SBF would receive “hundreds of years” and be “gone for life” has not come true and is contradicted by the actual sentencing and projected release timeline.

Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced on March 28, 2024 to 25 years in federal prison, not to life imprisonment. (theguardian.com) Under federal rules he is expected to serve a bit over 21 years before release eligibility, and the Bureau of Prisons currently projects a release date of December 14, 2044—about 21 years after sentencing. (coindesk.com) Born in March 1992, he would be in his early 50s at that time, leaving a substantial portion of normal life expectancy remaining. (en.wikipedia.org) While he is appealing his conviction and sentence, those efforts seek to overturn or shorten the sentence, and there is no indication of any move toward a harsher, life-equivalent term. (apnews.com) Given these facts, the prediction that he would receive a life sentence or a sentence functionally equivalent to life has not come true.

Multiple sources show that Dalíland received its general U.S. theatrical and on‑demand release on June 9, 2023.

• Wikipedia notes that Dalíland "was released in the United States on June 9, 2023" by Magnolia Pictures. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Collider reported that Dalíland "will be released in theaters and on-demand on June 9, 2023." (collider.com)
• Release-tracking sites likewise list the theater/PVOD date as June 9, 2023. (whentostream.com)

The podcast (Dec 24, 2022) prediction was that the movie would "be coming out next summer." In common U.S. usage and in the film industry, movies released in early June are part of the summer movie season, and meteorological summer in the U.S. begins on June 1. Since the film’s public release fell on June 9, 2023, this matches the prediction that it would come out in summer 2023.

Therefore, the prediction that Dalíland would be released to the public in the summer of 2023 is right.