E89: GDP growth negative in Q2, $SHOP layoffs, Alzheimer's fraud, Ginkgo acquires Zymergen & more

BEA data show that real U.S. GDP did rebound in Q3 2022 after two negative quarters: GDP fell at annualized rates of −1.6% in Q1 2022 and −0.6% in Q2 2022, then rose +2.6–2.9% in Q3 2022, matching the “temporary bounce in Q3” part of the prediction.(bea.gov)(apps.bea.gov)(apps.bea.gov)(apps-fd.bea.gov)

However, the key claim was that this would be a “double‑dip” recession—i.e., the economy would slip back into recessionary conditions after that bounce. Instead, GDP remained positive afterward: BEA estimates show real GDP growth of about +2.6% in Q4 2022 and continued positive growth throughout 2023 (roughly +2–5% annualized each quarter) and into 2024, with Q4 2024 still growing at about +2.3% annualized.(apps-fd.bea.gov)(apps.bea.gov)(apps.bea.gov)(barrons.com)

Most importantly, the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee—the standard arbiter of U.S. recessions—still lists the last U.S. recession as ending in April 2020, with no new recession dated in 2022–2024; subsequent commentary through 2025 notes that the U.S. is not officially in recession, despite some slowdowns and a one‑quarter contraction in early 2025 that was followed by a strong rebound.(nber.org)(ft.com)(investopedia.com)

So while Sacks correctly anticipated the Q3 2022 GDP bounce, his broader forecast of a double‑dip recession starting in mid‑2022 and then returning after Q3 did not occur. Therefore, taken as stated in the normalized prediction, it is wrong.

Chamath said the Fed would "mostly be done" raising rates by the end of 2022 and would "probably" start cutting in the back half of 2023.

What actually happened:

• The Fed kept hiking well into 2023, not just 2022. After the Dec. 14, 2022 hike to 4.25–4.50%, the FOMC raised rates four more times in 2023 (Feb. 1, Mar. 22, May 3, and July 26), ultimately reaching 5.25–5.50%. That means rate increases were not largely finished by the end of 2022; the hiking cycle continued and only peaked in July 2023. (forbes.com)
• There were no rate cuts at all in 2023. From July 2023 onward, the Fed held the federal funds rate steady in the 5.25–5.50% range through its November and December 2023 meetings, while only signaling that cuts were likely in 2024. (cnbc.com)
• The first actual rate cut of this cycle came later, with a 50 bp cut at the September 18, 2024 FOMC meeting—well after the second half of 2023. (cnbc.com)

Because the Fed was not mostly done hiking by end-2022 and did not begin cutting in H2 2023, the prediction is incorrect on both key elements.

U.S. plug‑in EVs (BEVs + PHEVs) were already around the 5% “tipping point” when Chamath spoke: their share of new light‑vehicle sales rose from 4.0% in 2021 to 6.8% in 2022, meaning the 5% threshold had just been passed in that period. (en.wikipedia.org)

After that point, EV share did continue to rise rather than stall or reverse:

• In 2023, plug‑ins reached about 9.1% of U.S. new‑vehicle sales, a clear increase from 2022. (en.wikipedia.org)
• For full‑year 2024, Reuters reports roughly 1.3 million EVs sold out of 15.8 million new vehicles (about 8% share), up from around 7.6% in 2023 on the same data series—again an increase in share, even if growth slowed. (reuters.com)
• Quarterly data from Cox Automotive / Kelley Blue Book show: Q1 2024 EV share at 7.3% (down from Q4 2023 but still slightly up year‑over‑year), and Q2 2024 hitting a record ~330,000 EVs with about 8% of new‑vehicle sales, higher than both Q1 2024 and Q2 2023. (coxautoinc.com)

Into 2025, the pattern of continued (if slower) growth persists rather than a stall or reversal:

• In Q1 2025, U.S. EV sales were nearly 300,000 units, up double‑digits year‑over‑year, with market share around 7.5–8% depending on source. (fintechzoom.com)
• By August 2025, U.S. EV sales hit their best month on record at about 146,000 vehicles, nearly 10% of all auto sales. (marketwatch.com)
• Other analyses describe 2024–H1 2025 as a period of slowing growth and policy headwinds, but still note that EV sales are rising on an annual basis and that the shift is moving into a more mature, market‑driven phase rather than collapsing. (apnews.com)

Meanwhile, the model mix has broadened beyond early‑adopter niches: mainstream crossovers and pickups like the Chevy Equinox EV and Ford F‑150 Lightning have ramped up and become important volume models, consistent with a transition toward more mass‑market segments. (en.wikipedia.org)

Taken together, the data from 2022 through late 2025 show that after crossing roughly 5% share, U.S. EV adoption continued to climb and did not meaningfully stall or reverse, even though growth rates slowed. That outcome matches the essence of Chamath’s prediction about passing a critical tipping point and moving from early‑adopter dominance toward broader mass‑market adoption, so the prediction is best judged as right within the time window we can observe so far.

The prediction concerns the end of the 21st century (around 2100). As of today (2025-11-30), we are less than a quarter of the way through the century, so there is no way to empirically verify whether:

• Animal agriculture, transportation, and energy systems will be "completely rewritten" in market- and technology-driven ways, and
• Their net contribution to climate change will no longer constitute an existential threat.

Current evidence shows:

• Global greenhouse gas emissions remain high and atmospheric CO₂ concentrations continue to rise; the world is not yet on a trajectory consistent with fully resolving anthropogenic climate change.
• However, there is substantial ongoing transition activity (e.g., rapid growth in renewables, EV adoption, alternative proteins, etc.), which speaks to direction of change, not the final outcome by 2100.

Because the claim explicitly targets the state of the world at the end of this century, and that time has not yet arrived, the correctness of this prediction cannot be determined now. It is therefore too early to judge, even though we can say that the prediction is far from realized so far.

Two key parts of Sacks’s prediction can be checked: (1) interest rates and debt‑service costs; and (2) whether the U.S. actually entered a multi‑year period of fiscal austerity extending through and beyond the Biden term (to January 2025).

1. Interest rates and $1T/year in debt service

• The 10‑year Treasury yield was around 3% in mid‑2022, but then rose and stayed mostly in the 3.5–4.5%+ range from late 2022 through 2025, not “around 3%.” Federal Reserve data (series GS10) show monthly averages rising from 2.90% in July–August 2022 to ~4% by late 2022 and roughly 3.5–4.8% during 2023–25.(fred.stlouisfed.org)
• Net interest outlays on the federal debt were $475B in FY 2022, jumped to $659B in FY 2023, and then to about $880B in FY 2024.(crfb.org) CBO’s 2025 budget review indicates net interest surpassed $1T for the first time in FY 2025, in line with projections that interest costs would reach roughly $900B in 2024 and exceed $1T by the mid‑2020s.(congress.gov) So “on the order of $1 trillion per year” did become true by 2025, though at higher rates than his 3% assumption and after a ramp‑up rather than immediately.

2. Did the U.S. enter a prolonged era of fiscal austerity through and beyond the Biden term?

• Fiscal austerity would normally mean sustained cuts in real spending and/or sharply reduced deficits. In reality, federal outlays rose: Treasury data show total outlays growing from $6.14T in FY 2023 to $6.75–6.94T in FY 2024 (depending on the adjustment), with outlays increasing about 10% year‑over‑year and rising from 22.5% to 23.4% of GDP.(home.treasury.gov) CBO and Treasury figures for 2023–24 show deficits of roughly $1.7T–$1.8T per year, historically large for a period of solid growth and low unemployment.(fiscal.treasury.gov)
• The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 did impose caps on discretionary spending in FY 2024 and 2025 and is estimated to reduce non‑interest outlays by about $1.3T over ten years, mostly via slower growth in discretionary spending.(budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu) But this is modest restraint against a high baseline, not a sweeping austerity program; overall spending and deficits continued to rise.
• At the same time, major initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act and expanded clean‑energy tax credits added hundreds of billions in new spending and tax subsidies over a decade, which is inconsistent with a broad, long‑lasting austerity regime.(crfb.org)

Bottom line: Sacks was directionally right that higher rates would drive net interest costs toward $1T/year by the mid‑2020s, but his core claim—that this would push the U.S. into a prolonged era of fiscal austerity lasting beyond 2022 and through the Biden presidency—has not materialized. Federal spending and deficits have remained high and growing, with only limited discretionary caps rather than deep, sustained cuts. Overall, the prediction is wrong.

Sacks predicted that the November 2022 U.S. midterms would be a Republican 'wave election' where party label overwhelmed candidate quality and some MAGA or otherwise 'crazy' candidates would be swept into office who would not win in a normal year. In reality, the 2022 midterms were historically mild for a president's party: Republicans gained only about nine U.S. House seats and a narrow majority, while Democrats gained one Senate seat and a net two governorships, an outcome widely characterized as the expected red wave failing to materialize. (en.wikipedia.org) Analyses of the results also emphasize that candidate quality and extremism mattered a great deal: Trump-aligned or election-denying Republicans underperformed in key statewide races in states like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and others, costing the GOP winnable Senate and governor contests rather than being carried to victory by a national partisan surge. (fivethirtyeight.com) While some strongly pro-Trump or hard-right candidates did win in safely Republican areas, that is typical partisan sorting and not evidence of an unusual nationwide wave. Because there was no Republican wave election and candidate quality clearly affected outcomes instead of being swamped by party affiliation, Sacks's prediction did not come true.

Jason’s conditional prediction had two key components:

1. Condition: Trump runs in 2024 GOP primary.
   Donald Trump formally ran for president in the 2024 cycle as a Republican.

2. Main claim: If he runs, he will win / “lock up” the GOP nomination.
   On March 12, 2024, major outlets and the Associated Press reported that Trump had secured more than the 1,215 delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination, after winning primaries in states including Georgia, Mississippi, and Washington. (forbes.com) Nikki Haley had already suspended her campaign on March 6, 2024, effectively clearing the field and leaving Trump as the last major Republican candidate. (apnews.com) This confirms that he did in fact “lock up” the nomination.

The timing language in the quote (“a year from now… or, you know, 18 months from now, whenever it is that he locks it up”) is casual and approximate, not a precise deadline. The core, falsifiable part of the prediction is that if Trump runs, he will secure the GOP nomination, which happened. Therefore, the prediction is best scored as right.

David Sacks said Trump would not secure the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. In reality, Donald Trump announced his 2024 campaign on November 15, 2022, went on to dominate the Republican primaries, became the presumptive GOP nominee on March 12, 2024, and was then officially nominated as the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 15, 2024.(en.wikipedia.org)

Since Trump did in fact secure the 2024 Republican nomination, Sacks’s prediction is wrong.

Available evidence shows that Jeff Bezos has not been a candidate for U.S. president and has not received the Democratic Party’s nomination. In the 2024 cycle, the Democratic nominee was Vice President Kamala Harris, formally nominated at the Democratic National Convention; Bezos played no candidate role in that race.【1search12【1search18【turn1search17】 Bezos’s biography and recent political coverage likewise show business and media activities (including his controversial decisions regarding Washington Post endorsements and interactions with Donald Trump) but no presidential campaign or pursuit of a Democratic nomination.【2search17【2search4【2news14】

However, the prediction is framed as essentially "never"—that the Democratic Party would not nominate Bezos in any foreseeable future election cycle. Future cycles such as 2028 and beyond have not yet occurred and no nominee has been selected for them.【1news21】 Because the relevant future elections have not all taken place, the claim cannot yet be definitively judged, even though it is consistent with events so far. Therefore the status of the prediction is inconclusive (too early).

The prediction explicitly sets a time horizon of “within a generation” (~20–30 years) for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to see a dramatically improved economic situation from oil revenues invested in health care and education. That puts the evaluation window roughly in 2042–2052, far beyond the current date (late 2025), so the core outcome cannot yet be judged.

Some relevant facts so far:

• The DRC did launch a major auction for 27 oil and 3 gas blocks in July 2022, intending to tap large reserves and boost development. (energycapitalpower.com)
• However, in October 2024 the government canceled the licensing round for 27 oil blocks, citing late or irregular bids and lack of competition, with plans to restart the process later. (africanews.com)
• By 2025, the government is again moving to reopen or expand oil and gas auctions across large swaths of rainforest and peatlands, but this is still in flux and heavily contested, and there is no evidence yet of large, sustained oil revenues being cleanly channeled into health and education at a scale that would validate or falsify Chamath’s long-run scenario. (theguardian.com)

Because (1) the time frame has barely begun (only ~3 years into a 20–30 year horizon), and (2) the necessary preconditions (successful, corruption-free monetization of oil resources and large-scale, sustained investment of that revenue into health and education) are themselves still unsettled, it is too early to say whether the predicted generational transformation of the DRC’s economy and productivity will occur.

Therefore, the prediction’s accuracy is inconclusive (too early to tell) at this time.