E51: Supply Chain Shortages, Inflation, DeSantis, Ted Sarandos Netflix Memo, Cancel Culture, Fan Q&A

Data since late 2021 show that the U.S. did enter a multi‑year period of elevated inflation, and research finds that supply‑side factors—including labor shortages and higher input/commodity costs—were key drivers, not just a brief post‑Covid blip.

1. Multi‑year elevated inflation, not a short blip

   • Year‑over‑year CPI inflation rose sharply in 2021 and stayed well above the Fed’s 2% target and pre‑pandemic norms for several years: about 4.7% in 2021, 8.0% in 2022, 4.1% in 2023, and roughly 3.0% in 2024. (bls.gov)
   • Monthly CPI data show inflation surging from mid‑2021 and remaining elevated through 2022–23, only gradually easing but still running around 3% into 2024–2025—above the Fed’s 2% goal. (officialdata.org)
   • The period is widely characterized in the literature as the “2021–2023 inflation surge,” recognizing it as a sustained, multi‑year event rather than a brief spike. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Forecasts and surveys in 2025 still expect inflation to remain modestly above target for some time, underscoring that the period of elevated inflation has lasted multiple years. (bankrate.com)

   This matches Chamath’s core claim that starting in late 2021, the U.S. would experience a sustained period of higher inflation, not just a couple of quarters of transitory price increases.

2. Role of labor shortages and raw material / input costs

   • A Congressional Research Service analysis notes that broad‑based price increases were tied to a supply‑demand imbalance, highlighted by a tight labor market and labor shortages—with employers struggling to fill openings because labor supply remained low by historical standards even as demand surged. (congress.gov)
   • The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in late 2021 pointed to supply bottlenecks and labor shortages raising material input costs and being passed through into consumer prices, and explicitly framed these as complicating and prolonging the inflation problem. (chicagofed.org)
   • Work summarized by the World Economic Forum found that supply constraints (bottlenecks) significantly magnified U.S. inflation, estimating that U.S. inflation would have been about 6% instead of ~9% at the end of 2021 without these supply bottlenecks—showing a large supply‑side contribution beyond pure demand. (weforum.org)
   • The 2021–2023 period saw a global supply chain crisis and a global energy/commodities crisis that raised raw material and energy costs (oil, gas, electricity) and constrained production, contributing to worldwide—and U.S.—inflation. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Analyses of the inflation surge also emphasize that input cost increases and supply chain disruptions were unusually large contributors to U.S. inflation compared with the pre‑2019 period, consistent with Chamath’s focus on persistent cost and supply issues rather than only excess demand. (fr.wikipedia.org)

Overall, from late 2021 onward the U.S. did experience several years of above‑normal inflation, and persistent supply‑side issues—tight labor markets, labor shortages, and higher energy/raw‑material and input costs—were major, well‑documented contributors. That aligns well with Chamath’s prediction that inflation would be "here to stay" for multiple years and driven by those factors rather than being a short, purely transitory post‑Covid blip.

Between the October 16, 2021 episode and roughly mid‑2023 (12–18 months later), U.S. consumer prices did in fact rise substantially, and research attributes a large share of that run‑up to global, supply‑driven shocks originating in other economies:

• The CPI index for all urban consumers rose from about 276–278 in October–December 2021 to about 303–305 by April–June 2023, an increase of roughly 9–10% over that period, showing a clear further rise in U.S. consumer prices after the podcast date. (officialdata.org)
• Annual U.S. inflation hit about 8.0% in 2022 and remained elevated at around 4.1% in 2023—well above pre‑pandemic norms—so the 12–18 months following late 2021 were characterized by unusually high consumer price inflation. (officialdata.org)
• A 2023 Economic Letter from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco finds that global supply chain disruptions after COVID—measured using a Global Supply Chain Pressure Index that aggregates data from major foreign manufacturing economies such as China, the euro area, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.K.—accounted for about 60% of the above‑trend surge in U.S. inflation in 2021–2022. These disruptions raised import prices and intermediate input costs that were then passed through into U.S. consumer prices. (frbsf.org)

Taken together, the data show (a) a pronounced further increase in U.S. consumer prices over the 12–18 months after October 2021, and (b) strong evidence that supply‑driven inflation pressures from abroad and global supply chain problems transmitted into U.S. inflation. That matches Chamath’s prediction that inflation in supply‑driven economies abroad would “come on shore” and push U.S. prices up during that horizon.

Two different parts of Sacks’s conditional prediction are hard to score cleanly.

1. Did Biden "step in" and move LA/Long Beach to 24/7 operations?
   Within days of the podcast, the White House announced an agreement for the Port of Los Angeles to expand to 24/7 operations, joining the Port of Long Beach, after negotiations with port directors, the longshore union and major shippers.(bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov) However, reporting at the time noted that only some terminals and shifts actually ran 24/7 and industry figures called the initiative incomplete or largely symbolic.(washingtonpost.com) So whether Biden "steps in to solve this" and creates "true 24/7" ports is a judgment call rather than a clear yes/no.

2. Did the US enter a recession within a year (by October 16, 2022)?
   Initial GDP data showed real GDP falling in both Q1 2022 and Q2 2022, leading many outlets and analysts to say the US had entered a technical recession (two consecutive quarters of negative growth).(icis.com) But the official arbiter, the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, never declared a 2022 recession, and its chronology still shows the last recession ending in April 2020.(nber.org) Then, in 2024, a comprehensive GDP revision from the Commerce Department/BEA showed Q2 2022 had in fact grown at about a 0.3% annual rate, eliminating even the earlier two‑quarter contraction; later commentary explicitly noted that the supposed 2022 technical recession was a data illusion.(axios.com)

Putting this together:

• On one reading, Biden did intervene on port operations and no official 2022 recession occurred, so the conditional ("unless he steps in, we will have a recession") was never tested.
• On another, his intervention was too limited to count as "solving" the port issue, and contemporaneous data showed two quarters of GDP decline that many labeled a recession, which would make the prediction look roughly right.
• With later data revisions and the lack of an NBER recession call, even the outcome (recession vs no recession) is contested.

Because both the policy condition (what counts as stepping in and true 24/7) and the economic outcome (whether 2022 counts as a recession) are genuinely disputed given current evidence, the prediction cannot be cleanly marked as simply right or wrong; it is best classified as ambiguous.

Evidence from late 2021 onward shows that China quickly reversed the coal-usage and energy‑intensity constraints that had contributed to power rationing and factory slowdowns, and it did not allow those climate/clean‑energy‑driven limits to cause a prolonged, multi‑year industrial shutdown.

1. The 2021 problem really did stem partly from clean‑energy/dual‑control targets. In September–October 2021, many provinces restricted power to energy‑intensive, high‑emissions industries in order to meet strict “dual‑control” targets on total energy use and energy intensity, which were a key tool for meeting carbon and pollution goals. Analyses note that these dual‑control targets and their over‑implementation were a major driver of the widespread industrial power rationing in 2021. (jorae.cn)

2. Beijing rolled those constraints back very quickly by pivoting hard to coal. Within weeks, central authorities ordered major coal‑producing regions (Shanxi, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia) to restart and expand mines and to "release advanced production capacity" to ease the shortage, and eased conditions on mine extensions. (adamtooze.com) By November 2021, China’s coal output hit a record monthly high as miners were told to run at maximum capacity; official data show coal production in October–November 2021 at unprecedented levels and coal stocks at power plants rising rapidly as supply tightened constraints eased. (investing.com) For full‑year 2021, China’s coal production reached an all‑time record (about 4.07 billion tonnes), explicitly because the state “encouraged miners to ramp up their fossil fuel output to safeguard the country’s energy supplies.” (sej.org) This is the opposite of letting clean‑energy‑motivated coal limits persist.

3. Policy design was changed so that those energy‑caps wouldn’t keep biting growth. Subsequent policy documents reworked the dual‑control system: a previous national cap on total energy consumption was scrapped, annual energy‑intensity targets were relaxed in favor of a more flexible five‑year goal, and no hard caps were placed on coal consumption or coal‑power capacity—explicitly to give more room to support economic growth and energy security while still pursuing long‑term decarbonization. (asiasociety.org) That institutional change is consistent with Sacks’s view that Beijing “woke up” and would not keep restrictive clean‑energy constraints that risked throttling industry.

4. After 2021, China doubled down on coal for energy security instead of maintaining tight coal limits. In 2022–23, China approved roughly 218 GW of new coal‑fired power capacity and started construction on large amounts of new coal plants, making up the overwhelming majority of global coal‑power construction. (bworldonline.com) In 2024 alone, construction began on about 94.5 GW of new coal plants, the highest in nearly a decade. (reuters.com) Parallel analyses note that coal remains central to China’s energy security strategy and that coal‑fired capacity and coal‑mine development have continued to expand. (chinapower.csis.org) This sustained expansion further confirms that the late‑2021 coal restrictions were not allowed to persist as a binding clean‑energy constraint.

5. There was no multi‑year, climate‑policy‑driven shutdown of large parts of China’s industrial economy. The 2021 power rationing and factory curbs lasted weeks to a few months and were largely resolved by the end of 2021 as coal supply and pricing policy were adjusted. (investing.com) Later disruptions to power supply (e.g., during the 2022 Yangtze drought) were handled by leaning more on coal as the "bedrock of energy security," not by maintaining coal‑usage caps that suppressed industry. (global.chinadaily.com.cn) Over 2022–2024, China’s industrial output and exports continued at large scale despite other headwinds (COVID policy, real‑estate downturn, external demand), and the main energy‑policy trend was ensuring reliability—often by increasing coal capacity—not intentionally shutting down industry for clean‑energy reasons.

Putting this together: the specific late‑2021 clean‑energy/dual‑control‑linked coal constraints were indeed rolled back quickly, and China chose to prioritize energy security and industrial continuity over keeping those limits in place. The feared scenario—multi‑year shutdown of significant portions of the industrial economy because Beijing stuck with those clean‑energy‑motivated coal caps—did not occur. Sacks’s prediction is therefore right.

Evidence from 2022 shows that the U.S. did not experience a 1970s‑style stagflationary recession:

• Inflation: Consumer inflation was very high in 2022, averaging about 8.0% for the year, the highest since the early 1980s. (theworlddata.com) This matches the “high inflation” part of the prediction.
• Real growth: However, real GDP grew by about 2.1% in 2022, rather than showing stagnant or contracting output for the year. (bea.gov) While real GDP fell in Q1 2022 and was near‑flat in Q2, growth rebounded in the second half, leaving the year as a whole in expansion, not recession. (sidedumpindustries.com)
• Unemployment: The unemployment rate returned to its pre‑pandemic low levels in 2022, averaging a little over 3% by quarter—very far from the elevated unemployment that characterized 1970s stagflation. (bls.gov)
• Recession status: The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is the standard arbiter of U.S. business cycles, has not dated any new recession after the brief COVID recession ending in April 2020; subsequent years, including 2022, are treated as part of an ongoing expansion. (nber.org)

Because 2022 featured high inflation but continued real growth, low unemployment, and no officially recognized recession, the “1970s‑style stagflation type recession” that Sacks warned about did not occur. Therefore, the prediction is best judged as wrong.

Over the 2–3 years after October 2021, the US did experience a sustained period of higher inflation, tight labor markets, and elevated wages versus pre‑Covid, with no quick reversion to 2019‑style conditions, which matches the core of Chamath’s prediction.

Inflation and prices
• CPI inflation surged to about 7–8% in 2021–2022 and remained elevated in 2023 (~4%) before cooling toward ~3% in 2024–2025, above the ~2% norms of the 2010s. This implies a multi‑year inflation episode rather than a brief “transitory” bump. (bls.gov)
• Because inflation stayed positive throughout, the overall price level (consumer prices and many input costs) kept rising over those years, even as the rate of increase slowed later.

Labor shortages and tight labor markets
• Job openings far exceeded unemployed workers from May 2021 through at least December 2023, with the unemployed‑per‑opening ratio at or below 0.9 that entire time and as low as 0.5 at the peak—clear evidence of a sustained labor shortage relative to pre‑Covid norms. (bls.gov)
• A February 2024 analysis notes that in December 2023 there were still 2.76 million more job openings than unemployed people, confirming that shortages persisted years after Covid’s onset rather than snapping back to 2019 conditions. (usafacts.org)
• Business surveys into 2024–2025 report ongoing difficulty recruiting, with over a third to nearly half of firms saying they are short‑staffed or facing labor shortages at least weekly, indicating that tightness remained a material issue even as the market cooled from its 2022 extremes. (prnewswire.com)

Wage growth
• BLS data show average hourly earnings gains in 2020–2024 were nearly double the annual increases seen from 2015–2019 (about $1.46 vs. $0.75 per year), reflecting structurally higher nominal wage growth post‑Covid. (bls.gov)
• Real (inflation‑adjusted) average hourly earnings began rising again in 2023–2024, with year‑over‑year real earnings growth of roughly 1–1.5% in late 2023 and 2024, consistent with employers “having to pay people more” in a tight labor market. (bls.gov)

Energy prices
• Average US gasoline prices jumped from about $2.17 in 2020 and $2.60 in 2019 to $3.01 in 2021, then nearly $4.00 in 2022, and have since settled into the mid‑$3 range (roughly $3.30–3.50 in 2023–2025). That’s a clear step‑up relative to pre‑pandemic norms, even though prices peaked in 2022 and then eased somewhat. (news.usgasprice.com)

Why this is counted as ‘right’ despite some cooling later
By late 2023–2024, both inflation and labor tightness had moderated from their 2022 peaks, and some measures (like job openings and quits) moved closer to normal. But Chamath’s key claim wasn’t that conditions would worsen monotonically every single year; it was that we were entering a multi‑year regime of high inflation, rising wages, and tight labor, rather than quickly reverting to pre‑Covid conditions. Looking at 2022–2023 in particular, that is exactly what happened: inflation stayed high for years, wage growth ran hotter than in the 2010s, labor markets remained unusually tight, and energy/overall price levels moved to a higher plateau. On net, the prediction’s main thrust was borne out, so it is best judged as right.

Evidence from both central banks shows that by Q4 2022 they had clearly begun hiking rates and were in a much tighter stance than in October 2021.

• Starting point (Oct 2021):

  • The Federal Reserve kept the federal funds target range at 0–0.25% and was still buying $120B/month of Treasuries and MBS (though it had just announced a gradual taper starting November 2021). This is an explicitly “accommodative” stance. (bankrate.com)
  • The ECB kept its main refinancing rate at 0.0% and the deposit facility at –0.50%, and continued large-scale asset purchases under PEPP and APP, which it described as a “highly expansionary” / very accommodative policy. (focus-economics.com)

• Status by roughly Q4 2022:

  • The Federal Reserve began raising rates on March 16, 2022, lifting the target range to 0.25–0.50%, and then hiked at every subsequent meeting. By September 21, 2022 the range was 3.00–3.25%, and by December 14, 2022 it reached 4.25–4.50%. This is a dramatic tightening versus near‑zero rates in October 2021. (aol.com)
  • The ECB delivered its first rate hike in over a decade on July 21, 2022, raising key rates by 50 bps (deposit rate from –0.50% to 0.0%, main refi to 0.50%). It followed with further hikes in September, October, and December 2022, bringing the deposit rate to 2.00% and the main refi rate to 2.50% by year-end—a large move from deep negative territory. (ecb.europa.eu) The ECB itself characterized these moves as “substantial progress in withdrawing monetary policy accommodation.” (ecb.europa.eu)

Given that by late 2022 both the Fed and the ECB were actively hiking and had shifted from ultra‑easy policy (near‑zero/negative rates plus heavy QE) to clearly tighter stances, Chamath’s prediction that “this time next year” they would be raising and in a “really, really tighter posture” is borne out by the data.

Evidence strongly supports Chamath’s prediction that, as interest rates rose from near‑zero starting in early 2022, high‑growth, no‑cash‑flow tech stocks suffered a major drawdown over the following 12–24 months.

• Rates did in fact rise sharply after his October 2021 comment. The Federal Reserve began hiking from 0–0.25% in March 2022 and raised the federal funds rate in rapid steps to 5.25–5.50% by July 2023, all within roughly 5–21 months after October 2021. (bankrate.com)
• Speculative / unprofitable tech cratered. AllianceBernstein notes that during the 2022 growth‑stock rout, the Goldman Sachs Non‑Profitable Technology Index—a basket of high‑growth, loss‑making tech names—"tumbled nearly 70% from its peak" by the end of August 2022, well within 12 months of his October 2021 prediction. (alliancebernstein.com)
• Constituent performance confirms valuations were “in the toilet.” A review of the 20 largest stocks in that Goldman index shows that in 2022, 19 of 20 had negative returns, and 14 of 20 lost more than 50% of their market value; even the one winner (Pinduoduo) still had a market cap 59% below its February 2021 peak. (investidorfrugal.com) This is exactly the kind of high‑growth, low/negative‑cash‑flow cohort he was referring to.
• Flagship high‑growth ETF example. ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), heavily tilted toward unprofitable growth tech, suffered a maximum drawdown of about −81% from its February 12, 2021 high to December 28, 2022 and had not fully recovered by 2025, remaining roughly 49% below its peak—again, a collapse well within the 12–24 month window. (assetsanalyzer.com)
• Broader tech also had a severe bear market in that window. The Nasdaq Composite, dominated by growth tech, fell about 33% in 2022—its worst year since 2008—before rebounding in 2023, meaning that by late 2022/early 2023 tech valuations were dramatically below their late‑2021 highs. (en.wikipedia.org)

Because (1) interest rates did rise substantially, and (2) high‑growth, unprofitable tech stocks experienced 50–80%+ drawdowns and much lower valuations within roughly 12–24 months of October 2021, Chamath’s qualitative prediction that such tech stocks would be “in the toilet” as rates rose is right in both direction and magnitude.

The prediction matches what actually happened in the 2022–2024 rising‑rate regime.

1. There was a clear, extended rising‑rate cycle.
   The Fed held rates at 0–0.25% through 2021, then began hiking in March 2022 and raised the federal funds target 11 times to 5.25–5.50% by July 2023. Cuts didn’t start until late 2024 and 2025, so policy was in a sustained “higher for longer” posture from 2022 onward. (en.wikipedia.org)

2. Unprofitable / no‑cash‑flow growth stocks were hit extremely hard as rates rose.

   • A basket of “unprofitable technology” stocks tracked by Goldman Sachs suffered an over 60% drawdown once rates began normalizing and central banks tapered support.(denkercapital.com)
   • A detailed review of the 20 largest names in the Goldman Sachs Non‑Profitable Technology Index found that in 2022 19 of 20 had negative returns, every one of those 19 lagged the S&P 500, and 14 of the 20 lost more than 50% of their market value (the sole gainer, Pinduoduo, was still ~59% below its 2021 peak).(investidorfrugal.com)
   • A Wall Street Journal analysis noted that in early 2022, as investors priced in higher rates, the Russell 1000 Growth Index was down about 12% year‑to‑date versus only –3.6% for the Russell 1000 Value Index, and small‑cap indices heavily populated by unprofitable firms were hit especially hard.(livemint.com)
   • Another report highlighted that Goldman’s basket of unprofitable tech stocks “tumbled over 60% in 2022”, underscoring how speculative, no‑profit growth names bore the brunt of the rate‑shock.(moneycontrol.com)

   These are exactly the kind of “no cash flow growth stocks” Chamath was talking about, and they dramatically underperformed.

3. Dividend‑paying / yield‑oriented equities held up much better and often outperformed.

   • A Nasdaq study of high‑dividend equity ETFs found that in 2022 these funds were typically down only 3–6%, versus –16% for the S&P 500, making them “one of the few outperformers” during the aggressive rate‑hike year, as investors rotated to income and defensives.(nasdaq.com)
   • An analysis of factor ETFs in mid‑2022 reported that low‑volatility and high‑dividend strategies were the best‑performing equity factors year‑to‑date, with an Invesco high‑dividend/low‑vol ETF outperforming the S&P 500 by roughly 26.6 percentage points.(etfstream.com)
   • WisdomTree later noted that its U.S. High Dividend Fund (DHS) produced a –3.5% YTD return versus –13.6% for the S&P 500 in early 2025, attributing the gap to its tilt toward stable, cash‑generating sectors and away from high‑momentum growth, in a still‑high‑rate, volatile environment.(wisdomtree.com)

4. What about later rebounds in speculative growth?
   There were sharp risk‑on rallies after the initial crash (e.g., Goldman’s unprofitable tech basket rebounding ~21% early in 2023 and later big percentage moves off depressed lows).(moneycontrol.com) But even after those bounces, these names remained far below their pre‑hike peaks and continued to show much larger drawdowns and volatility than dividend and income‑oriented ETFs, which experienced only mild declines or were roughly flat over the rate‑hike period.

Given:

• a well‑defined rising‑rate cycle beginning in 2022, and
• severe, sustained underperformance of non‑profitable/high‑duration growth stocks,
• alongside relative resilience and, in 2022, outright outperformance of dividend and high‑yield equity strategies,

Chamath’s directional claim that “no cash flow growth stocks” would fare poorly relative to dividend/yield equities in a rising‑rate environment is borne out by subsequent data.

Most standard definitions of stagflation require three things at the same time: high inflation, stagnant/negative real growth, and high unemployment.(britannica.com)

From 2022 through 2025, the U.S. clearly had high inflation for a time, but growth and the labor market never fit a stagflation profile:

• Real GDP growth was positive and reasonably solid after the pandemic rebound: about 2.5% in 2022, 2.9% in 2023, and 2.8% in 2024; 2.0% in 2025.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Inflation peaked around 9.1% in June 2022 but then fell steadily; by late 2024 it was around 3%, and mid‑2025 readings were in the 2–3% range, much closer to the Fed’s target than to “stagflation” territory.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Unemployment stayed low by historical standards, around 3.5–3.7% in 2022–2023, rising only to roughly 4–4.4% in 2024–2025, still far below the high joblessness characteristic of past stagflation episodes.(en.wikipedia.org)

There was a brief two‑quarter GDP contraction in early 2022 while inflation was high, which led to talk of a “technical recession,” but even then job growth was strong and unemployment remained very low—conditions Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and others explicitly contrasted with a typical recession or stagflation scenario.(wfae.org) Many analysts at the time emphasized that the U.S. had “two of the three ingredients for stagflation” (high inflation and weak growth) but not high unemployment, and therefore did not meet stagflation criteria.(investor.vanguard.com)

By 2024–2025, major central‑bank and market commentary was still treating stagflation mainly as a risk or a potential future scenario, not as something that had already occurred. The Cleveland Fed, for example, notes that the last major U.S. stagflation episode remains the mid‑1970s, not the 2020s.(clevelandfed.org)

Given the prediction’s time frame (“within the next few years” from late 2021) and the data through late 2025, the U.S. has not actually experienced a renewed stagflation episode. High inflation did materialize, but it was accompanied by continued real growth and relatively low unemployment. On that basis, Sacks’s forecast that the U.S. was on a trajectory to produce stagflation in the near term is best judged wrong.

Chamath was directionally right that inflation would not be a brief blip, but the regime and asset‑allocation call he described did not materialize by 2023.

Macro regime vs. “late 1970s”
• In the late 1970s/early 1980s, U.S. CPI inflation ran persistently in high single to double digits: about 7.6% in 1978, 11.3% in 1979, and 13.5% in 1980, and the misery index (inflation + unemployment) approached 20. (officialdata.org)
• Post‑podcast, U.S. annual inflation did spike but then fell: roughly 4.7% (2021), 8.0% (2022), and 4.1% (2023), with year‑over‑year CPI down to about 3.4% by December 2023—elevated vs. the Fed’s 2% target but far from a sustained late‑70s‑style double‑digit regime. (theworlddata.com)
• Real GDP grew 1.9% in 2022 and 2.5% in 2023, and the national unemployment rate was about 3.6% in 2022–2023—near multi‑decade lows, not the weak‑growth, high‑joblessness environment of the Carter/Volcker era. (apps-fd.bea.gov)

So the U.S. did experience a sharp but relatively short‑lived inflation episode with solid real growth and very low unemployment, rather than a late‑1970s stagflationary regime.

Risk assets vs. “risk off” by 2023
• For broad U.S. equities, the S&P 500 total return was −18.1% in 2022 but +26.3% in 2023; over the two calendar years combined that’s a modest positive cumulative return (~+3–4%). (slickcharts.com)
• High‑beta tech did not turn into a multi‑year disaster: the Nasdaq‑100 dropped about 33% in 2022 but then surged roughly 54–55% in 2023, leaving investors who held through both years slightly ahead overall. (slickcharts.com)
• Short‑term “risk‑off” assets like 3‑month Treasury bills returned roughly 1–2% in 2022 and about 5% in 2023 (as proxied by the ICE BofA 3‑month T‑bill index and the TBIL ETF), so over 2022–23 cash‑like instruments slightly outperformed the S&P 500—but only by a small margin, and 2023’s huge equity rally sharply contradicted the idea that you generally “don’t want to own risk assets.” (sec.gov)

Netting this out: we did not enter a late‑70s‑style macro regime by 2023, and while risk‑off assets were somewhat competitive (or marginally better) over the specific 2022–23 window, risk assets—especially high‑beta tech—rebounded strongly rather than being a persistently poor strategy. On balance, that makes the prediction wrong rather than right or merely ambiguous.

Chamath’s core claims were that (1) inflation and related macro problems were not transitory and would really show up within roughly 8–18 months, and (2) this would cause a significant downturn in risk assets after a window in which investors could still reposition.

What actually happened:

• Risk‑asset downturn: The S&P 500 peaked on January 3, 2022 and then fell about 25% to its October 2022 low; it finished 2022 down 19%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 33% that year.(en.wikipedia.org) That is a clear, broad correction/bear market in equities and especially growth/tech "risk assets," materializing about 3–12 months after his October 2021 comments—well inside his 8–18‑month window.
• Inflation / stagflation problem: US CPI inflation surged to a 40‑year high of about 9.1% in June 2022 and remained elevated through 2022; by mid‑2023 it was still around 4.9%, above the Fed’s 2% target.(en.wikipedia.org) The Fed responded with rapid rate hikes in 2022, putting monetary policy into the “really, really tighter posture” he anticipated.(podscripts.co) Real GDP was negative for two consecutive quarters in early 2022, a common shorthand for recession, occurring alongside very high inflation—fueling widespread discussion of a stagflation‑like environment.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Timing and the ‘window’: Markets stayed near highs into late 2021 and only rolled over decisively after the start of 2022, giving investors several months after his October 2021 warning to reposition before the worst of the drawdown and rate‑hike cycle.(en.wikipedia.org)

While the US never had classic 1970s-style stagflation (unemployment stayed relatively low), the combination of a sharp risk‑asset selloff and a very clear, historically large inflation problem emerged squarely within his 8–18‑month horizon. On that basis, the prediction is best judged as right.

By late 2022, U.S. policymakers—especially the Federal Reserve—had shifted decisively away from monetary expansion and toward aggressive monetary tightening, contradicting Friedberg’s expectation that they would "keep inflating our way out" for at least the coming year.

Key facts:

1. Rapid interest-rate hikes instead of keeping money easy. In March 2022 the Fed began raising the federal funds rate from near zero and kept hiking throughout 2022, reaching 4.25%–4.50% by the December 14, 2022 meeting—the fastest tightening cycle in decades, explicitly to fight inflation rather than tolerate it.

   • A Forbes summary of FOMC moves shows rate increases at every meeting from March through December 2022, taking the target range from 0.25%–0.50% in March to 4.25%–4.50% in December. (forbes.com)

2. End of QE and start of quantitative tightening (QT), not ongoing balance-sheet expansion. Official summaries and Congressional Research Service analysis note that:

   • The Fed tapered its asset purchases starting November 2021 and ended new purchases in March 2022.
   • In June 2022 it began reducing its balance sheet (QT) by allowing capped amounts of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities to roll off each month—directly reversing the earlier monetary expansion. (congress.gov)

3. Policy goal shifted from “inflating away” problems to disinflation. Fed communications throughout 2022 framed the priority as restoring price stability, not using inflation to ease debt burdens. The late‑2022 rate level (4.25%–4.50%) and ongoing QT are characteristic of restrictive policy aimed at slowing demand and lowering inflation, not “continuing to inflate our way out.” (forbes.com)

While it’s true that there were no dramatic, sudden cuts in federal spending over that period, the core of Friedberg’s prediction was that U.S. policymakers would continue to rely primarily on monetary expansion and tolerance of inflation rather than sharply raising interest rates. In reality, 2022 featured a sharp pivot to monetary tightening and disinflation, so the prediction did not hold.

As of November 30, 2025, the U.S. federal top marginal individual income tax rate remains 37%, the rate set by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act effective from 2018; it has not been raised to anywhere near the 70–80% range mentioned in the prediction. Various reputable tax references and IRS summaries confirm that 37% is still the top federal bracket through tax year 2025, with current law only scheduling a reversion to pre‑2018 rates (a 39.6% top bracket) in 2026 unless Congress acts, which is still far below 70–80%. However, the prediction’s explicit time window is “within the next decade from 2021,” i.e., roughly by 2031, and that date has not yet arrived. Because the forecast allows until the early 2030s for top marginal rates to reach 70–80%, and we are only in 2025, it is too soon to declare the prediction definitively right or wrong. Therefore, the correct assessment at this time is that the outcome is inconclusive (too early).

As of November 30, 2025, the U.S. has not enacted a federal wealth tax, and the top federal marginal income tax rate remains 37%, not anywhere near 70–80%.

• The current 2025 federal individual income tax brackets show a top marginal rate of 37% for high-income filers; rates and structure follow the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act framework.(taxfoundation.org)
• The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Trump’s second-term tax package) permanently extends the existing TCJA individual tax rates instead of raising them, locking in the 37% top rate rather than moving it toward 70–80%.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Proposals for taxing large fortunes—such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act of 2021 and President Biden’s proposed “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax”—have been introduced and debated but have not passed into law.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Tax guides and comparative descriptions of the U.S. system continue to note no federal net wealth tax; only certain states consider limited wealth‑style taxes, and property/estate taxes persist but are not new broad wealth taxes of the sort implied in the prediction.(moore-global.com)
• Even Democratic tax plans framed as hitting the rich (e.g., Biden’s budgets) have at most sought to restore the top rate to 39.6%, far below the 70–80% range predicted.(budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu)

Given that (1) no broad federal wealth tax has been enacted and (2) policy has moved away from very high top income tax rates (with 37% now made permanent) rather than toward 70–80%, Friedberg’s prediction has not materialized in the "coming years" since 2021 and is best classified as wrong.

Evidence since 2021 shows that Friedberg’s directional claim has largely played out.

First, low‑income labor did become scarce and more expensive.

• The "Great Resignation" disproportionately hit hospitality and other low‑wage, in‑person sectors, with very high quit rates and persistent worker shortages in accommodation, food service, and retail.(en.wikipedia.org)
• By mid‑2025, wage growth in leisure and hospitality was still outpacing overall inflation, driven by ongoing labor shortages, even though pay levels remained relatively low.(businessinsider.com)

Second, adoption of automation and similar “deflationary” technologies clearly accelerated in response, especially in low‑wage sectors.

• Warehouse and logistics surveys in 2022–23 show chronic understaffing (10–25% shortfalls, especially in material handlers and forklift drivers) and report that labor shortage is the top driver of warehouse automation; a majority of executives planned near‑term automation deployments for that reason.(sdcexec.com)
• A 2021 survey of 1,250 business owners found ongoing labor shortages pushing firms toward automation; three‑quarters had considered or invested in automation, and over half of those expected to permanently cut back labor as a result. Retail, hospitality and food service were among the affected sectors.(ppai.org)
• In retail, market research explicitly cites rising labor costs and workforce shortages as the primary driver of the self‑checkout boom; retailers implementing self‑checkout reduced cashier headcount by ~25% while keeping transaction volumes, directly substituting technology for low‑wage cashiers.(emergenresearch.com)
• Restaurants and fast‑food chains have scaled kitchen and ordering automation (robots like Flippy/Chippy, AI drive‑throughs, partially automated/“mostly automated” restaurants, and robotics for specific prep tasks such as Chick‑fil‑A’s lemon‑squeezing system), all framed as efficiency and cost responses in a tight labor market.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Globally, fully unattended AI kiosks and robotic systems in retail and food service are being sold explicitly as a solution to a “permanent labor crisis,” operating 24/7 without staff.(worldfoodservicesjournal.com)

Third, self‑driving trucks have moved from concept toward early commercial deployment, motivated by driver shortages and costs, though still at limited scale.

• Autonomous‑trucking firms like Gatik, Aurora, Kodiak, and Waabi/Volvo have launched or are ramping commercial driverless freight routes (e.g., Dallas–Houston in Texas, middle‑mile retail/grocery routes), presented as solutions to driver shortages and high operating costs.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Industry analysis projects autonomous trucks to grow at ~25% annually through 2044, with hundreds of thousands of Level‑4 “autonomous drivers” expected to support the global trucking fleet, specifically to improve total cost of ownership and address labor‑related challenges.(prnewswire.com)
  While this is still early and not yet a dominant share of trucking, the direction and motivation match Friedberg’s forecast.

Fourth, there is evidence this automation has partially offset wage‑driven cost pressures rather than eliminating them.

• In retail, self‑checkout deployments that cut cashier staffing by ~25% while maintaining throughput mean that total labor cost per transaction can fall even when hourly wages rise—exactly the kind of partial offset to wage inflation he described.(emergenresearch.com)
• At the macro level, U.S. productivity growth picked up in 2023–24 while unit labor costs grew more slowly (around 2% year‑over‑year in late 2024), which economists see as helping to control inflation despite higher nominal wages.(reuters.com)
• Research on AI and automation finds that “automation AI” reduces employment and wages in low‑skilled occupations, consistent with technology substituting for low‑wage labor and dampening some of the upward wage pressure.(arxiv.org)

Taken together, these points show that since late 2021 there has been:

1. sustained scarcity and rising cost of low‑income labor;
2. an acceleration in adoption of software automation and related technologies (including early self‑driving trucking) specifically to address those shortages and wage costs; and
3. evidence that this increased automation has improved productivity and reduced labor needs per unit of output, thereby partially offsetting wage‑driven cost and price pressures in those sectors.

Given that Friedberg’s claim was directional and explicitly about partial mitigation rather than a full cure for inflation, the prediction is best judged as right.

Evidence from 2021–2024 shows that the combination Chamath described did occur within the 1–3 year window after October 2021, especially through 2022–2023:

• Unemployment fell (labor market tightened). In October 2021, the U.S. unemployment rate was 4.6%.【(bls.gov)】 By 2022 it had dropped sharply; the annual unemployment rate was about 3.65% in 2022 and 3.64% in 2023, down from 5.35% in 2021.【(macrotrends.net)】 In July 2022 the monthly rate hit 3.5%, matching the pre‑COVID low, with nonfarm payrolls fully recovering to pre‑pandemic levels—classic signs of a very tight labor market.【(bls.gov)】

• Wages and salaries increased. Average weekly earnings rose steadily: for example, one series shows average weekly wages climbing from about $1,086 in December 2021 to over $1,190 by early 2024, a clear nominal increase over the period.【(unemploymentdata.com)】 Other measures confirm elevated wage growth: the Atlanta Fed’s Wage Growth Tracker shows wage growth around 5.2% in late 2023,【(atlantafed.org)】 and a 2023 labor report noted average wages were roughly 4.4% higher year‑over‑year, reflecting continued pay increases in a tight job market.【(wxxinews.org)】

• Inflation moved higher before later moderating. When Chamath spoke (October 2021), 12‑month CPI inflation was about 6.2%.【(bls.gov)】 Over the following year it rose further, peaking at about 9.1% in June 2022—the post‑pandemic high—before gradually easing in 2023–2024.【(theworlddata.com)】 Thus, within the first 1–2 years after his forecast, inflation did indeed "go back up" from already‑elevated 2021 levels.

Taken together, within roughly 2022–2023 the U.S. experienced simultaneously: very low unemployment (tight labor markets), rising wages, and higher‑than‑2021 inflation (peaking in 2022). Even though inflation later declined, the scenario he described clearly materialized within his stated 1–3 year horizon, so the prediction is best judged as right.

As of November 30, 2025, it is too early to judge this prediction.

Chamath’s timeframe was “over the next, you know, 7 or 8 years” from October 2021, i.e., roughly 2028–2029. That window has not yet arrived.

Current data shows Netflix is far below 1 billion subscribers:

• Netflix reported about 269–270 million global paid memberships in early/mid‑2025, up from ~214 million at the end of 2021.

Because the prediction is explicitly about reaching ~1 billion subscribers by around 2028–2029, and we are still in 2025, we can’t yet say whether it will ultimately be right or wrong, even though progress so far suggests it would require extremely rapid further growth to hit 1 billion by that time.

Therefore the correct status is: inconclusive (too early to tell).

Chamath’s claim is explicitly long‑term: he says cancel culture will “go away in time” over the coming generations as everyone accumulates compromising digital histories and thus faces “mutually assured destruction.” That implies a multi‑decade horizon, which clearly has not elapsed by late 2025.

Empirically, cancel culture is still widely recognized and actively discussed as a social phenomenon. Reference works and surveys in the mid‑2020s describe cancel culture as an ongoing form of public shaming/ostracism, with majorities of Americans aware of it and many saying it has gone too far or affects what they feel comfortable saying, indicating it remains salient rather than having disappeared. (en.wikipedia.org) Media analysis in 2023 notes “no sign of decline” and continued high‑profile cancellations, while 2025 commentary argues that although cancel culture may have lost some impact in terms of permanently ending careers, online outrage cycles and calls to cancel people are still common. (digitalis.com) These mixed signals (persistence of the practice but debate about its changing effectiveness) do not resolve whether it will eventually fade out as predicted.

Because the forecast is about what will happen over generations and we are only a few years out, there is not yet enough elapsed time to judge whether cancel culture will effectively disappear. Therefore the prediction’s accuracy is inconclusive (too early to tell).

Regulators did take action against Tether around the time of the prediction (e.g., the CFTC’s October 2021 order fining Tether $41 million for misleading reserve claims), which is what Jason was reacting to. 【turn0search1】 However, the subsequent trajectory of Tether contradicts the idea that this was the "beginning of the end" of Tether as a viable, dominant stablecoin.

Evidence from 2022–2025 shows:

• Market cap and dominance surged instead of deteriorating. By mid‑2024, USDT’s market cap had risen to about $118 billion and its share of the stablecoin market to ~75%, up from ~55% two years earlier. 【turn0search8】
• By July 2025, Tether was still the largest stablecoin with a market cap around $159 billion, far ahead of USDC and others. 【turn0search2】
• As of October–November 2025, Tether remains the number‑one stablecoin, with market cap estimates in the ~$176–$183 billion range and roughly 59–60% of the entire stablecoin market. 【turn0search0】【turn0search9】
• In the broader crypto market, Tether is the third‑largest cryptocurrency overall by market capitalization, underscoring its continuing central role and liquidity. 【turn0search6】

Tether has continued to face criticism over reserves and transparency, including a 2025 S&P Global downgrade of its reserve quality to the lowest risk tier, but these have not caused a collapse in usage or dominance; USDT is still heavily traded and widely integrated across exchanges and blockchains. 【turn0news12】【turn0news13】

Because Tether’s position and operation have strengthened rather than "significantly deteriorated" since 2021, the prediction that those regulatory moves marked the beginning of the end for Tether as a dominant stablecoin is wrong.

Kyrie Irving did not retire from the NBA over COVID-19 vaccine mandates. In an October 2021 Instagram Live, he explicitly told fans, “Don’t believe that I’m retiring. Don’t believe that I’mma give up this game for a vaccine mandate or staying unvaccinated” and instead chose to sit out rather than retire while the mandates were in force. (cbsnews.com)

New York City later modified its private-sector and venue mandates in March 2022, allowing unvaccinated athletes like Irving to resume playing home games, after which he returned to full participation with the Brooklyn Nets instead of retiring. (netsdaily.com) He subsequently continued his NBA career, was traded to the Dallas Mavericks in 2023, and as of 2025 has signed a new three-year contract extension with Dallas, confirming his ongoing active status in the league. (nba.com)

Since the event in question (“Kyrie retires rather than get vaccinated under the mandates”) never occurred, the implied prediction that there was a substantial chance he would choose retirement over continuing his NBA career is wrong.

The prediction’s timeframe is ~30 years from 2021 (to about 2051), and we are only in 2025, so it is too early to judge.

As of 2025, the state of quantum computing and quantum simulation is:

• Hardware is still noisy and small‑scale. Current quantum computers are in the NISQ (Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum) era: limited qubit counts, high error rates, and no large‑scale error correction yet. This significantly constrains accurate, large, deterministic simulations of complex molecules.
• Quantum chemistry simulations have been demonstrated, but only for small systems. Researchers have used quantum processors to simulate simple molecules (e.g., hydrogen, lithium hydride) and small model Hamiltonians, but not full-scale, high‑accuracy simulations of large, industrially relevant systems like complete catalytic processes for ammonia synthesis.
• Industrial process design is not yet based on fully deterministic quantum simulations. Chemical and materials R&D in practice still relies mainly on classical high-performance computing, density functional theory (DFT), and related classical approximations. Quantum computers are being explored experimentally for quantum chemistry and materials, but have not yet reached the accuracy and scale implied in the prediction (general, deterministic modeling of molecular and atomic behavior for designing new industrial processes).

Because the prediction explicitly allows up to around 2051 for this capability to emerge, and there is no requirement that it be achieved earlier, we cannot class it as right or wrong at this time. It remains a long‑term technology forecast whose outcome cannot yet be determined.

The prediction is explicitly about conditions 100–120 years after 2021, i.e., roughly 2121–2141. As of today (2025), we are only a few years past the prediction date, so the forecast’s target window has not begun yet.

Because the claim is about what “we’ll all have” in typical rooms a century+ from 2021, there is no way to evaluate its truth now. Whether or not current manufacturing, 3D printing, or synthetic biology is progressing toward such “replicator”‑like devices is irrelevant to scoring the prediction itself; the only question is whether that state of the world exists by 2121–2141, and those years are still in the future.

Therefore, the prediction’s accuracy cannot yet be determined and is scored as too early to tell.