ALL INPredictions
Last updated Nov 29, 2025
Prediction
Chamath
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Chamath @ 00:17:28Ambiguous
marketstech
Over the next 4–5 years, a market-neutral spread trade within mega-cap big tech—being long the strongest names (particularly Google and Microsoft) and short the weaker mega-cap tech names (such as Apple, Facebook/Meta, Amazon, and Netflix)—will outperform the overall market by profiting from the relative performance gap between the two baskets, while largely neutralizing general market volatility.
Here's so obvious is within big tech. Figure out which ones you want to be long. Which ones you want to be short. That's a spread. Trade that over the next 4 or 5 years where if you expect a lot of market volatility, it makes sense to maybe put some of this kind of stuff onView on YouTube
Explanation

Using an illustrative version of the trade—long Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet Class A (GOOGL) and short Apple (AAPL), Meta (META), Amazon (AMZN), and Netflix (NFLX), sized dollar‑neutral from the podcast date (Nov 5 2021 close) to late Nov 2025—here’s what the data show:

  • Entry prices on Nov 5 2021 (split‑adjusted)

    • MSFT ≈ $324.57
    • GOOGL ≈ $147.81
    • AAPL ≈ $148.28
    • META (then Facebook) ≈ $339.04
    • AMZN ≈ $175.95
    • NFLX ≈ $64.57
      These are from StatMuse-style historical pages listing daily closes for each ticker in Nov 2021. (statmuse.com)

  • Current prices (Nov 28 2025) from live market data:

    • MSFT ≈ $492.01
    • GOOGL ≈ $320.18
    • AAPL ≈ $278.85
    • META ≈ $647.95
    • AMZN ≈ $233.22
    • NFLX ≈ $107.58
    • SPY (S&P 500 ETF) ≈ $683.39

  • Approximate price returns, Nov 5 2021 → Nov 28 2025 (ignoring dividends):

    • MSFT: +51.6%
    • GOOGL: +116.6%
    • AAPL: +88.1%
    • META: +91.1%
    • AMZN: +32.5%
    • NFLX: +66.6%
    • SPY: +45.9%

From these:

  • Long basket (MSFT + GOOGL) average return ≈ +84%.
  • Short basket (AAPL + META + AMZN + NFLX) average return ≈ +70%.
    → In a dollar‑neutral long/short, you gain roughly the difference, about +14–15% total over four years (~3–4% annualized) from the relative spread.
  • The overall market (SPY) is up about +46% over the same period, starting near 468.5 in early Nov 2021 and ending around 683.4. (reddit.com)

Why this is ambiguous rather than clearly right or wrong:

  1. The trade is modestly profitable but not a home run. The long basket has indeed outperformed the short basket by ~14–15 percentage points, so the basic idea of some positive spread has worked, but only mildly.
  2. It has not obviously beaten a simple market long. SPY’s +46% absolute gain over the same window is far larger than the roughly +14–15% you’d earn from the market‑neutral spread, so in straightforward absolute‑return terms the spread did not “outperform the overall market.”
  3. Risk and exact construction are under‑specified. Chamath spoke generically about “figuring out which ones you want to be long [and] short” in mega‑cap tech; he did not lock in this exact basket or weighting scheme, nor define what “outperform” means on a risk‑adjusted basis. Other plausible baskets (e.g., including Nvidia on the long side) could have looked very different. (fr.advfn.com)
  4. The horizon isn’t fully elapsed. He gave a 4–5 year window; we’re a bit past 4 years from Nov 2021, but not yet at 5 years, so the final outcome could still change meaningfully.

Given these points, the evidence so far neither clearly confirms nor clearly falsifies the normalized prediction. The specific long/short described has been somewhat profitable on a relative basis but has not clearly delivered the strong, market‑beating, volatility‑neutral payoff the statement implies, and there is still time left in the upper end of the forecast window. Hence the label “ambiguous.”