All-In's 2026 Predictions
Speakers
Chamath Palihapitiya
— CEO, Social Capital
Jason Calacanis
— Angel Investor / Founder, LAUNCH
David Sacks
— General Partner, Craft Ventures
David Friedberg
— CEO, The Production Board
Summary
The All-In hosts deliver their 2026 predictions across biggest political and business winners and losers, biggest deal, most contrarian belief, best and worst performing asset, most anticipated trend and media, after opening on California's proposed wealth ('asset seizure') tax and David Sacks's move to Texas. Market-relevant calls include Chamath's long copper and critical metals against short oil, nuclear and enterprise SaaS; Jason's Amazon and Robinhood/Coinbase picks and his dollar-debasement view; Sacks's Trump-boom thesis with roughly 5% GDP growth, 75-100bp of rate cuts and a tech super cycle; and Freeberg's bearish Netflix / traditional-media call plus worries about state government solvency. Deal and geopolitical predictions cover IP-license deals replacing M&A, a big IPO year, a possible SpaceX reverse merger into Tesla, Iran's turnover and a US-China detente.
- Hosts debate California's proposed wealth tax; Sacks has relocated to Austin and Chamath is exploring a move; most doubt the measure reaches the ballot.
- Sacks predicts a 'Trump boom' with about 5% GDP growth, 75-100bp of rate cuts by June, big tax refunds and an expanding tech super cycle; Chamath sees 5-6% growth.
- Chamath: long copper and a basket of critical metals on supply shortages; hydrocarbons/oil trend down (more likely $45 than $65); massively short nuclear.
- Chamath names the SaaS 'software industrial complex' 2026's biggest business loser as AI agents compress maintenance and migration spending.
- Jason: Amazon has a massive year replacing humans with robots; the Robinhood/Coinbase/Polymarket wagering space is his best asset; the US dollar is his worst (debasement trade).
- Freeberg: Netflix underperforms if the Warner Bros deal fails, otherwise traditional media stocks; state governments face financing trouble from fraud exposes and pension liabilities.
- Deal calls: IP-license-plus-talent deals replace blocked M&A (Chamath), a big IPO year (Sacks, Jason), SpaceX reverse-merging into Tesla rather than an IPO (Chamath).
- Geopolitics: Iran regime turnover and Gulf-state friction (Freeberg), Russia-Ukraine settlement (Freeberg), US-China/Taiwan standoff resolved (Jason); tech seen as a populist political target.
Ideas
Copper goes parabolic on structural supply shortage.
Chamath's biggest business winner for 2026 is copper, which he says is set up to go absolutely parabolic. The world is still completely underestimating how short it is of a handful of critical elements, and in the Trump-doctrine world that is no longer multilateral, each country needs unilateral national security of supply. Copper is the most useful, cheap, malleable, conductive material available and shows up everywhere from data centers to chips to weapon systems; at current course and speed the world will be roughly 70% short of global copper supply by 2040.
Amazon wins as robots replace workers.
Jason predicts Amazon will have a massive 2026 as it keeps replacing humans with robots: its human headcount is essentially flat while robot deployment is surging, Zoox self-driving is working and making great progress, and Amazon could become the first 'corporate singularity' - the first company with more robots than humans driving its bottom line. He adds that the delivery business, once a dog, now delivers same day thanks to dense depot networks (as in Austin) while AWS is crushing it, and he says he is placing a bet on the stock.
State government debt faces solvency doubts.
Freeberg's biggest business loser for 2026 is US state governments, which he thinks will have a real problem finding financing. Ongoing exposes of waste, fraud and abuse in state agencies will make investors question long-term solvency and operations, especially because the political response will be to keep the spending going rather than cut the fraud; on top of that, unrealized pension liabilities will start coming to light this year and reveal a ginormous hole in state obligations. He worries a lot about state governments' ability to borrow and access capital markets.
AI shrinks SaaS maintenance and migration revenue.
Chamath's biggest business loser for 2026 is the 'software industrial complex' - companies selling licensed SaaS to corporate America, a $3-4 trillion a year economy. Only 5-10% of that is initial licensing; roughly 90% of the dollars are maintenance and migration of bulky licenses. Advances in AI models and agent-building techniques will let customers do that work themselves, so the total economic opportunity will shrink and contract aggressively: incumbents keep their business but at much lower incremental revenue, upstarts get opportunity, and public SaaS companies in particular will be hit quite severely in 2026. He notes he is talking his book, since 8090 is built around disrupting maintenance and migration.
SpaceX reverse-merges into Tesla instead of IPO.
Chamath's contrarian belief is that SpaceX will not IPO. Instead it will reverse-merge into Tesla, and Elon Musk will use the moment to consolidate control and power over his two seminal assets into a single cap table - a holding-company structure he has talked about for years. Chamath is specific that there will be no SpaceX IPO and that the path is a reverse merger, which would make Tesla the public vehicle for SpaceX exposure.
Critical metals basket outperforms on supply shortages.
For best performing asset of 2026 Chamath picks a basket of critical metals rather than a single commodity. It broadens his copper call: global demand-supply dynamics for a handful of critical elements are badly underestimated, and the shift from a multilateral world to unilateral national-security priorities under the Trump doctrine forces countries to secure their own supply of these materials, which feed data centers, chips and weapon systems.
Tech super cycle expands with Trump boom.
Sacks's best performing asset for 2026 is the expanding super cycle in tech, which he frames as another facet of the Trump boom he expects to be the year's biggest political winner. Supporting data: US productivity just surged 4.9% (strongest in nearly six years), the Atlanta Fed's Q4 GDP nowcast jumped to 5.4%, inflation is 40bp below expectations, the trade deficit is the lowest since 2009 and the S&P 500 keeps making record highs. He predicts around 5% GDP growth in 2026, 75-100bp of further rate cuts by June and big April tax refunds from the bigger standard deduction and no tax on tips, overtime and social security.
Wagering platforms win as consumers get cash.
Jason's best performing asset for 2026 is the Robinhood / Polymarket / PrizePicks gambling-and-wagering space, and he includes Coinbase as well. His reasoning: the US economy is a coiled spring - the border closure has rebased payrolls, AI is lifting productivity, and lower-quartile earnings growth is off the charts - so one should not be short the US economy; in a rate-cut environment with continuing tailwinds and tax cuts, people will have spare cash to place bets on these platforms. Polymarket and PrizePicks are private, so Robinhood and Coinbase are the public expressions.
Oil drifts toward $45 on electrification.
Chamath names hydrocarbons as a very poor performing asset for 2026. The trend in oil is inexorable and down, irrespective of one's views on climate change, because the trends in electrification and energy storage are unstoppable and keep shrinking the surface area where oil is useful - not a cataclysm but a melting iceberg. On a per-barrel basis he thinks oil is more likely to see $45 than $65.
Dollar debasement favors gold and silver.
Jason's worst performing asset for 2026 is the US dollar in the various permutations of how you can buy it - what Chamath calls the debasement trade. US debt continues to grow unabated (he expects about $2 trillion added this year), and if the military budget is increased 50% as Trump wants, that goes straight to the debt line, so it gets harder and harder for the dollar. America can still do great, but the value of the dollar will be challenged, which is already visible in people moving into gold and silver and perhaps copper.
Dollar debasement favors gold and silver.
Jason's worst performing asset for 2026 is the US dollar in the various permutations of how you can buy it - what Chamath calls the debasement trade. US debt continues to grow unabated (he expects about $2 trillion added this year), and if the military budget is increased 50% as Trump wants, that goes straight to the debt line, so it gets harder and harder for the dollar. America can still do great, but the value of the dollar will be challenged, which is already visible in people moving into gold and silver and perhaps copper.
Netflix underperforms if Warner deal fails.
Freeberg's worst performing asset for 2026 is Netflix if it fails to close the Warner Bros deal. Netflix's service is being challenged from all sides by competitors with deep content libraries and streaming is commoditizing; he has heard directly from Hollywood creators that they now prefer not to work with Netflix because it only pays cost plus 10%, so its content library will shrink under natural economic forces. If the Warner deal does close, the added library gives Netflix good runway and it will be fine.
Traditional media loses to independent creators.
Freeberg's alternative worst performing asset - if Netflix does close Warner Bros - is traditional media stocks, which he expects to underperform. An incredible variety of high-quality content is emerging from independent creators who use their own distribution through YouTube and other platforms, and the rise of citizen journalism in news shows that traditional media will continue to be deeply challenged.
Capital equipment sellers win on bonus depreciation.
In the hosts' exchange about assets benefiting from the big beautiful bill's 100% first-year accelerated depreciation on capital equipment, the point is made that the real winners are not planes but the sellers of industrial capital equipment - Caterpillar-type machinery, tractors, generators and Siemens, whose stock is described as through the roof. Because businesses can write off such equipment 100% in year one, it is creating a massive US infrastructure build-out and a surge in business investment that is one of the reasons GDP is rising.
Short nuclear; it missed the economic window.
Chamath says he is massively short nuclear. The industry is in a very delicate part of the cycle and has missed its window: by the time large-form-factor reactors get through Byzantine permitting and construction (2032-2035) and SMRs are delivered at scale, the marginal cost of electricity will effectively have gone to zero thanks to solar plus storage (and coal and oil), so large reactors make zero economic sense and SMRs may not be able to meet the market either. The problem is not scientific but economic - it does not hang together mathematically.
Nuclear needed when US power demand inflects.
Freeberg pushes back on Chamath's short-nuclear view, arguing it assumes no shift in the demand curve. China is heading toward about 8 terawatts of generation while the US sits at roughly 1 TW and is not moving, so the US faces a huge catch-up of 2-3 TW of new generation; the land required makes him doubt everything can be pinned on solar (China is even ripping up some big solar builds), so the mix must include nuclear. Near term nuclear may be economically challenged, but at some point there is an inflection in demand that has to be met.
Up Next
This All-In Podcast video, published January 10, 2026, features Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Friedberg, David Sacks discussing COPPER, AMZN, MUB, IGV, TSLA, Critical Metals, XLK, HOOD, COIN, WTI, USD, GLD, SILVER, NFLX, Traditional media, SIEMENS, CAT, URA. 16 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers: Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Friedberg, David Sacks · Tickers: COPPER, AMZN, MUB, IGV, TSLA, Critical Metals, XLK, HOOD, COIN, WTI, USD, GLD, SILVER, NFLX, Traditional media, SIEMENS, CAT, URA