Evidence from mid‑2024 through mid‑2025 shows exactly the kind of turbulent, sorting-out period Chamath described:

• Volatile and selective capital markets for AI startups:

  • In Q2 2024, funding for Indian AI startups collapsed 91% quarter‑over‑quarter and 82% year‑on‑year, even as US AI funding surged – a clear sign of instability and regional selectivity right as his predicted window began. (economictimes.indiatimes.com)
  • Globally, AI appeared “hot” in headline dollars, but funding became highly concentrated in a few mega‑rounds (OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, xAI), while overall VC activity remained far below 2021 and exits were sparse, indicating a difficult backdrop despite the top‑line boom. (barrons.com)
  • By 2025, PitchBook data shows the number of AI‑related deals falling to a five‑year low even as AI takes a record share of VC dollars, with investors “prioritizing scale over diversity” and warning of high failure rates and an exit crunch—classic signs of a shakeout rather than an easy market. (ainvest.com)
  • Major investors and analysts openly warned of an AI valuation bubble and overinvestment risk in early 2025, underscoring that capital markets were nervous and uneven, not smooth. (reuters.com)

• Visible shakeout of weak or overhyped AI companies within ~1 year of his July 2024 call:

  • Multiple high‑profile, well‑funded AI or AI‑branded startups either shut down, entered insolvency, or were forced into fire‑sale style outcomes in late 2024 and 2025: Ghost Autonomy (autonomous driving, shut April 2024), Humane (AI Pin hardware startup, effectively wound down and acquired by HP after a failed product), Builder.ai (once a unicorn, in insolvency proceedings and 80% layoffs by mid‑2025), and Sunshine (Marissa Mayer’s consumer AI startup, shut down with assets sold to a new vehicle). (aimresearch.co)
  • Regional reports document smaller AI startups in India and elsewhere simply running out of runway or pivoting away from their original AI theses (e.g., Subtl.ai shutdown; InsurStaq.ai closing after a year; Unikon.ai burning cash, failing to raise follow‑on, and shutting down). These are precisely the “overfunded or weak” players being exposed. (theoutpost.ai)
  • Even strong, well‑capitalized AI infrastructure companies like Scale AI had to lay off staff and sharply restructure their generative‑AI efforts in 2025, citing overexpansion and “market shifts,” another sign that easy money and unchecked headcount growth were no longer being rewarded. (businessinsider.com)
  • A widely cited market analysis in late 2025 explicitly describes a deflating AI startup bubble and a selective correction, with Tier‑1 hyperscalers and a small set of unicorns surviving, while a broad Tier‑3 of AI startups is failing or struggling—very close to Chamath’s “reckoning” and “sorting out who’s actually real.” (marketwatch.com)

Putting this together, from roughly Q3 2024 through at least mid‑2025 there were multiple “complicated quarters”: funding highly uneven and concentrated, deal counts and exits weak, and a growing list of shutdowns, insolvencies, and capitulations among AI startups. That pattern matches Chamath’s forecast of 2–3 tough quarters and about a year of turbulence and shakeout in AI‑related startup and capital markets, so the prediction is best judged as right.