ALL INPredictions
Last updated Nov 29, 2025
Prediction
Sacks
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Sacks @ 00:47:12Wrong
economyventure
By roughly one year after June 2022 (around mid-2023), the U.S. will be in the middle of a recession, and the amount of available venture capital funding for startups will have fallen by about 75% compared to the prior period, making 3–4 years of runway necessary instead of the previously standard 2 years.
one of the speakers said that he said that when it comes to runway for startups, 3 to 4 years is the new two years, because if you just have two years of runway, you're going to need to raise in a year, and in a year from now, we're going to be in the middle of a recession. They're predicting they're forecasting that capital availability is going to decline about 75%.View on YouTube
Explanation

The prediction had two key parts: (1) that by roughly mid‑2023 the U.S. would be “in the middle of a recession,” and (2) that venture capital availability would be down about 75%, implying startups needed 3–4 years of runway.

1. U.S. recession call (mid‑2023)
By standard benchmarks this did not happen:

  • The NBER recession indicator is 0 (no recession) for every quarter from 2021 through at least the end of 2023, including Q2 2023 and Q3 2023. (ycharts.com)
  • Real GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.0–2.1% in Q1–Q2 2023 and 5.2% in Q3 2023, indicating solid expansion rather than contraction. (bea.gov)
  • For the full year 2023, real GDP grew 2.5% and unemployment averaged 3.6%, with commentators explicitly noting that widely expected 2023 recession fears “proved unfounded.” (en.wikipedia.org)

So the core timing claim that the U.S. would be “in the middle of a recession” about a year after June 2022 is clearly false.

2. Venture capital availability down ~75%
There was a sharp VC downturn, but the size was smaller than the predicted 75% in broad aggregates:

  • Globally, Q2 2023 venture funding was down about 49% year‑over‑year, and total funding in H1 2023 was down about 51% vs H1 2022. (news.crunchbase.com)
  • Another analysis using PitchBook data reports global VC funding in H1 2023 down 48%, with the U.S. and Europe each down on the order of ~65–70% from earlier levels, depending on the comparison baseline. (benzinga.com)
  • By 2024, global VC activity was still ~55% below its 2021 peak, showing a prolonged but not 75% collapse from the high‑water mark. (barrons.com)
  • U.S. VC fundraising in 2023 was reported at under $70B, roughly a 60% drop from peak levels rather than 75%. (reddit.com)

So the direction (big funding crunch) was correct, but the ~75% figure is an overstatement for the market as a whole.

Overall evaluation
Because the prediction hinges on both being in the middle of a U.S. recession by mid‑2023 (which clearly did not occur) and on a roughly 75% drop in capital availability (where the actual decline was large but closer to 50–65% in broad measures), the combined forecast did not come true. Hence the result is “wrong.”