Evidence from the 2024 Republican primary shows that Chamath’s envisioned late-stage non-Trump field never materialized in the way he predicted.

What he predicted
He said the late non-Trump field (when only 3–4 candidates were still "meaningfully competitive") would be: Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and either Tim Scott or Nikki Haley.

What actually happened

1. Tim Scott exited very early.
   Tim Scott suspended his presidential campaign on November 12, 2023, well before any voting began and long before the race reached a late, narrowed stage. (en.wikipedia.org)
   → He was not part of any late-stage field.

2. Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out immediately after Iowa.
   Ramaswamy suspended his campaign on January 15, 2024, the night of the Iowa caucuses, after finishing fourth, and endorsed Donald Trump. (en.wikipedia.org)
   → He did not remain in the race into the later, winnowed phase.

3. Ron DeSantis exited before New Hampshire.
   DeSantis suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump on January 21, 2024, two days before the New Hampshire primary, after a poor showing in Iowa. (cnbc.com)
   → He also did not persist into a true late-stage multi-candidate field.

4. The actual late-stage non-Trump field was essentially just Nikki Haley.
   After DeSantis and Ramaswamy exited, coverage and polling described the race as effectively a two-person contest: Trump vs. Haley. (apnews.com) Haley then suspended her campaign on March 6, 2024, following Super Tuesday, leaving Trump with no major opponents. (en.wikipedia.org)
   → By any reasonable definition of the “later stages” of the primary, the only serious non-Trump contender remaining was Haley alone, not a trio of DeSantis, Ramaswamy, and Haley/Scott.

5. Brief early-voting moment doesn’t save the prediction.
   Just before and at Iowa, the principal non-Trump candidates were DeSantis, Haley, and Ramaswamy, with others (e.g., Chris Christie) either already out or polling in the low single digits. (en.wikipedia.org) However, that phase was immediately followed by Ramaswamy and then DeSantis suspending their campaigns, after which only Haley remained as a meaningful non-Trump alternative. This rapid collapse means his scenario of a late-stage, enduring non-Trump field composed of DeSantis, Ramaswamy, and Scott/Haley did not actually characterize the later primary.

Because Tim Scott exited well before the late stage, and because both DeSantis and Ramaswamy dropped out early in the voting calendar—leaving Nikki Haley as the lone substantive non-Trump challenger—Chamath’s specific prediction about the composition of the late-stage non-Trump field was wrong.