Chamath’s claim had two main parts:

1. An inflationary cycle would become distortive and harmful.

   • U.S. inflation did spike sharply: CPI inflation peaked around 9.1% year‑over‑year in June 2022, the highest since the early 1980s, clearly eroding real wages and purchasing power. (cnbc.com)
   • The Federal Reserve then raised the federal funds rate from near 0% in early 2022 to 5.25–5.50% by July 2023, an unusually rapid tightening to counter that inflation. (forbes.com)
   • This combination of high inflation followed by aggressive rate hikes unquestionably created distortions and short‑term pain (real wages fell in 2022, borrowing costs for households, firms and the federal government jumped), so this part of the prediction has some support.

2. Rising interest rates would make servicing U.S. federal debt very difficult and “really hurt” the U.S. economy.

   • Net interest costs on the federal debt rose sharply as rates went up. CBO and related analyses project net interest outlays nearly doubling, reaching roughly $870–$900 billion in FY 2024, and becoming one of the largest line items in the budget, surpassing defense and rivaling Medicare. (epicforamerica.org)
   • Credit‑rating agencies have explicitly cited higher interest costs and rising debt as a growing problem: S&P (2011) and Fitch (2023) had already downgraded U.S. sovereign debt, and in May 2025 Moody’s also cut the U.S. from Aaa to Aa1, pointing to the increasing burden of financing deficits and rolling over debt at higher rates. (cnbc.com)
   • However, despite these pressures, the macro outcomes have not matched a picture of an economy “really hurt” in a systemic sense. Real GDP still grew 1.9% in 2022, 2.5% in 2023, and 2.8% in 2024, and unemployment has stayed around 4%–4.2% through 2024–2025, historically low by past‑cycle standards. Many mainstream analyses describe this as a near‑“soft landing” in which inflation came down without a deep recession. (apps.bea.gov)
   • Inflation itself has largely been brought back toward target: annual CPI/PCE inflation fell from the 2022 peak to roughly 2.4–2.7% in 2024–2025, and the Fed began cutting rates modestly in late 2024/2025 after holding them high, reflecting regained confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%. (usinflationcalculator.com)
   • Crucially, there has been no actual debt‑servicing crisis: the U.S. continues to roll over its debt and service interest, albeit at a growing fiscal cost, and remains the issuer of the global reserve currency. Rating agencies and budget analysts stress long‑term sustainability risks, but not an imminent inability to “print enough money to pay for the debt.” (barrons.com)

Because:

• The mechanical part of the prediction (high inflation → high rates → much higher interest costs and fiscal strain) has largely materialized, but
• The stronger qualitative claim that this would “really hurt” the U.S. economy and make servicing the debt effectively unmanageable has not clearly come true—growth has remained positive, unemployment low, and no debt‑service crisis has occurred—

…the overall assessment is ambiguous. Some aspects are validated (inflation spike, aggressive hikes, growing interest burden and ratings downgrades), but the core, catastrophic implication for the broader U.S. economy and debt service is not clearly borne out by 2025, nor clearly falsified, and depends heavily on subjective judgment about what counts as being “really hurt.”