ALL INPredictions
Last updated Nov 29, 2025
Prediction
Chamath
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Chamath @ 00:52:30Right
economy
Global supply-chain disruptions that were acute in early 2022 will mostly be resolved by late 2022 to early 2023, with major companies such as Apple and Tesla back to normal or near-normal supply conditions by early 2023.
I'm less worried. Yeah. And the reason I'm less worried is when you actually talk to the companies that that are spending enormous amounts of money on CapEx, they've actually guided to the fact that by the end of this year and the beginning of next year, most of these things will be worked out... And they were pretty clear in the last few days that this will be done by 2023, early 2023.View on YouTube
Explanation

Evidence from multiple macro indicators and company‑level data lines up with Chamath’s timeline.

1. Global supply chains normalized around early 2023

  • The New York Fed’s Global Supply Chain Pressure Index (GSCPI) fell from a peak of over 4 standard deviations above normal in December 2021 to -0.26 in February 2023, its first move below the pre‑COVID average since 2019. The Fed and multiple commentaries explicitly described this as supply chains having "returned to normal" by March 2023. (mdm.com)
  • Industry analyses in early 2023 similarly reported that logistics networks and supplier delivery times were back to or better than normal by Q1–Q2 2023, especially in manufacturing and electronics. (reshoringmfg.com)
  • The 2020–2023 global chip shortage is generally dated as having “mostly subsided” by 2023, with the auto industry largely recovered and global car production up, indicating a major bottleneck for electronics and autos had eased by then. (en.wikipedia.org)

Taken together, this supports the claim that the acute phase of the global supply‑chain crisis of 2020–2022 was largely resolved by early 2023, which is within the late‑2022 / early‑2023 window Chamath gave.

2. Apple and Tesla specifically

  • Apple suffered severe iPhone 14 Pro shortages in late 2022 due to China’s zero‑COVID policies and Foxconn disruptions, costing an estimated $1–1.5 billion in lost Black Friday sales and leading to widespread stockouts. (macrumors.com) On Apple’s earnings call discussing that period, Tim Cook said they had “significantly less” iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max supply than planned but that “production is now back where we want it to be,” indicating that by early 2023 the worst of those constraints had been resolved and supply was back near normal. (tomsguide.com)
  • Tesla ramped production to 1.37 million vehicles in 2022 and guided to 1.8 million in 2023. By early 2023, analysts were explicitly writing that Tesla and the broader EV market had “pivoted from being supply‑constrained to being demand‑constrained,” with price cuts used to stimulate demand rather than to clear constrained supply. (livemint.com) This shift implies that supply (factories, parts, logistics) was no longer the binding constraint by early 2023.

Given that: (a) global supply‑chain stress indices and sector reports show conditions back to normal or better by roughly February–March 2023, and (b) both Apple and Tesla were describing production and supply as essentially back in balance around that time (with Tesla even facing demand, not supply, as the main issue), Chamath’s prediction that the acute supply‑chain disruptions “will be worked out” by late 2022 / early 2023 for major firms like Apple and Tesla is substantively correct in timing and outcome.