Available market data indicates that a long‑hyperscaler / short‑SaaS trade in 2024 would have been attractive in roughly the way Friedberg described.

1. Hyperscale cloud/AI providers materially outperformed most software/SaaS in 2024

• A December 2024 analysis of the “Big Three” clouds (Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet) shows they added about $1.8T of market cap in 2024, a combined ~29% increase, with Amazon +49%, Google +36%, and Microsoft +18%. Over the same period, the BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index (67 leading public SaaS companies) rose only 14.3%. This directly shows hyperscaler stocks materially outpacing a broad SaaS basket. (newsletter.partnerinsight.io)
• Barron’s notes Amazon’s stock was up ~44% in 2024, attributing the move significantly to AI‑driven growth in AWS and related businesses. (barrons.com)
• An Evercore/TipRanks review of Microsoft states that in 2024 MSFT rose ~12%, underperforming the S&P 500 (+25%) and a software ETF (+30%), but still positive and benefiting from cloud/AI expectations. (nasdaq.com)
• Alphabet’s 2024 stock performance was also strong: its shares were up roughly 25% for the year by December 10, 2024, with AI and advanced computing (e.g., its Willow quantum chip) flagged as key drivers. (en.wikipedia.org)

Taken together, a simple long basket in MSFT/AMZN/GOOGL would have returned roughly the mid‑20s% in 2024—clearly ahead of broad SaaS indices.

2. Public cloud/SaaS (including many vertical names) lagged hyperscalers in 2024

• The same Big‑Three vs BVP Emerging Cloud comparison above shows 29% combined hyperscaler market‑cap growth vs 14.3% for top SaaS names in 2024, i.e., SaaS underperformed large cloud platforms by roughly half on this proxy. (newsletter.partnerinsight.io)
• A May 2024 review of SaaS & enterprise software funding reports that the Bessemer Cloud Index was in negative territory for 2024 YTD and underperforming both the Nasdaq and S&P 500, underscoring relative weakness in listed cloud/SaaS names early in the year. (ctol.digital)
• Sapphire Ventures’ mid‑2024 “Broad Software Index” (133 enterprise software stocks) gained only 4% in 1H 2024, while the S&P 500 rose 14%, the Nasdaq 18%, and the Magnificent 7 (mega‑cap AI/tech, including the big clouds) 32%. (sapphireventures.com) This further confirms broad software/SaaS stocks lagged the mega‑cap cloud/AI leaders.

3. Vertical SaaS specifically did not generally lead equity performance

• Detailed, public, 2024‑only performance data for a pure "vertical SaaS index" is sparse, but sector work is consistent with vertical SaaS being part of the broader SaaS underperformance: Software Equity Group’s 2024 SaaS report shows the “Vertically Focused” cohort’s median growth had fallen and was weighed down by a very weak bottom quartile, indicating investor pressure and uneven performance in public vertical names compared with a handful of strong outliers. (scribd.com)
• A 2025 sector review by First Analysis notes that in a later period (June 2025 quarter), vertical SaaS stocks in their universe gained only ~5% on average and underperformed both the overall SaaS universe and the market, suggesting that even where fundamentals held up, vertical SaaS share performance remained relatively muted compared with hotter categories like cybersecurity and data visibility. (firstanalysis.com) While that reference is for 2025, it reflects a continuation of the same multi‑year pattern of SaaS/vertical SaaS lagging mega‑cap cloud/AI leaders.
• There were notable individual exceptions: for example, Toast, a restaurant‑focused vertical SaaS company, “nearly doubled in value” in 2024 according to Investor’s Business Daily. (investors.com) But Friedberg talked about going short the bucket of vertical software relative to hyperscale cloud stocks; a few big winners do not overturn the aggregate picture from the indices.

4. Does this match Friedberg’s claimed trade?

• His prediction was directional: “short vertical SaaS/vertical software companies and long cloud providers that have AI tools and platforms.”
• The best available proxies show that:
  • Hyperscalers (MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL) and similar cloud/AI leaders had strong double‑digit returns in 2024, with a combined market‑cap gain near 30%. (newsletter.partnerinsight.io)
  • Public SaaS—including many vertical names—materially underperformed both those hyperscalers and the main equity indices, with key SaaS indices flat to low‑teens for the year and even negative earlier in 2024. (newsletter.partnerinsight.io)

In other words, an investor who was broadly long the big cloud platforms and short a basket of vertical/cloud SaaS stocks through 2024 would, on net, have profited from the spread.

Because the prediction is qualitative (“underperform/outperform, making the trade attractive”) rather than a precise numerical hurdle, and the relative performance gap is large and well‑documented at the index level, it is reasonable to treat the prediction as having come true overall—despite a few standout vertical SaaS winners.