2026 Disruptive Script: Four Tech Titans Predict Copper Soaring, Oil Crashing, and New Crypto Assets Rising

Original Source: All-In Podcast

Original Compilation: Yuliya, PANews

The "All-In Podcast" is one of the world's most popular technology and business podcasts, co-hosted by four top-tier venture capitalists and close friends. The four hosts are: Jason Calacanis (early investor in Uber and Robinhood, podcast host, responsible for moderating), Chamath Palihapitiya (billionaire, founder of Social Capital, known as the "SPAC King," known for sharp opinions), David Friedberg (founder of The Production Board, possesses a deep scientific background, known as the "Sultan of Science"), and David Sacks (America's first "AI and Cryptocurrency Czar," close friend of Elon Musk, co-founder of Craft Ventures, former PayPal executive, recently deeply involved in U.S. political activities). In this episode, the four delve into predictions for 2026 regarding politics, business, and technology trends, covering topics such as California's wealth tax, Trump economics, AI's impact on employment, geopolitics, and specific investment advice.

Below is a detailed compilation of this conversation by PANews:

Prologue: Fleeing California and the Wealth Tax Crisis

Jason Calacanis (hereinafter Jason): Welcome back to the world's number one podcast. David Sacks, everyone wants to know, how are you settling in after moving to Texas?

David Sacks (hereinafter Sacks): I love the 70-degree Fahrenheit (approximately 21 degrees Celsius) weather here. I completed the move in December, bought a new house, went to the DMV, and signed a lease for Craft Ventures' Austin office. Everything is sorted.

Jason: Chamath, what about you guys?

Chamath Palihapitiya (hereinafter Chamath): We're coming to check it out, but haven't made a final decision yet.

Sacks: The funniest part is, when we were discussing the California wealth tax in our group chat, Chamath was still acting, saying "I'm going to stay and fight, I won't leave my home." Then I got a call from my realtor saying she was helping Chamath look for a house.

Jason: Wow! Is Chamath doing a "backdoor deal"?

Chamath: I'm just hedging my bets! If you look at our friends who have clearly already left, their combined net worth is about $500 billion. This is very bad for California's long-term budget. If you add in those who are still on the fence but might be forced to leave, roughly half of California's projected taxable wealth could be lost.

Sacks: I predict this (California wealth tax) will be the topic of the year. They are collecting signatures, needing about 850,000 to get the proposal on the ballot. If it's confirmed for the ballot in April, it will trigger massive panic, and many people will leave because they can't afford the risk. Even if it doesn't pass in 2026, everyone expects some version to come back in 2028. This is precisely why I decided to leave.

Chamath: If you're an entrepreneur with a good idea, it's very difficult to start a business here. Because once you succeed, holding a large amount of illiquid stock, you'd have to pay 5% of that stock's valuation as tax, which could bankrupt your own company.

Sacks: And what if your company goes to zero the next year? You still owe the tax bill. Also, one reason Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google founders) might leave could be the super-voting rights clause in the proposal. This clause states that if you have super-voting rights, the tax authority will value all your shares based on a multiple of those super-voting rights. For example, they own 52% of Google's voting rights, Google's market cap is $4 trillion, so their net worth might be considered as $1 trillion each, not the actual $200 billion. For them, the 5% tax effectively becomes a 25% or even 50% tax.

Jason: Lightning round prediction, will this "asset seizure tax" pass?

David Friedberg (hereinafter Friedberg): I think it won't make it onto the ballot.

Chamath: I think it won't pass, but it will make it onto the ballot.

Sacks: Previously, Polymarket predicted its chance of making the ballot was only 45%, but it soared to 80% after Ro Khanna and Bernie Sanders got involved. There are only two scenarios where it doesn't make it: one, the union (SEIU) runs out of money to collect signatures, or two, Gavin Newsom (Governor of California) can negotiate to get them to withdraw.

Chamath: But if it makes it onto the ballot, the probability of it passing is 40%.

2026's Biggest Business Winners

Jason: Next up, business winners. Last year's predictions: Friedberg picked robotics and autonomous driving hardware, Chamath picked the U.S. dollar stablecoin, Gavin picked large companies leveraging AI well, and I picked Tesla and Google. You could say we all predicted quite accurately. Friedberg, who do you pick this year?

Friedberg: I have two choices.

• First is Huawei. I think Huawei, in deep collaboration with SMIC in the chip sector, is going all out, and their performance this year will exceed Western expectations.
• Second is Polymarket. It has evolved from a quirky niche market into a platform providing insights on current events. I expect it to explode this year. Following its partnership with the NYSE, I expect all exchanges, including Robinhood, Coinbase, and even Nasdaq, to make moves this year. Prediction markets won't just become markets; they'll become news.

Chamath: I choose copper. In a world increasingly moving towards unilateralism and emphasizing national economic resilience, we still severely underestimate the gap between global demand and supply for a few key elements. In this context, the asset most likely to "take off" is copper. It is currently the most useful, cheapest, most malleable, and conductive material, found everywhere from data centers to chips to weapons systems. At the current rate, by 2040, there will be an approximately 70% gap in global copper supply.

Sacks: I believe 2026 will be a huge year for IPOs. There will be a large number of companies successfully going public, creating trillions in new market capitalization. For a while, people worried about the shrinking number of public companies, with many going private. 2026 will be a major reversal of this trend, and it's part of the "Trump Boom."

Jason: I was right about Google last year; this year my choice is Amazon. I think they will become the first "corporate singularity," meaning robots will contribute more profit to the company than humans. Their autonomous driving company Zoox is progressing well, and they are massively replacing human employees with robots. In Austin, we can now get same-day delivery for anything ordered on Amazon, supported by a huge automated warehouse and logistics network.

Sacks: I think Jason will ultimately be right about Amazon, but for reasons completely unrelated to the ones he gave.

2026's Biggest Business Losers

Jason: After winners, let's look at losers. Last year's predictions, we had strong consensus: Friedberg, Chamath, and Gavin all pointed to enterprise SaaS (Software as a Service), and I chose traditional auto companies and real estate. It turned out enterprise SaaS indeed performed poorly in 2025, with stocks like ServiceNow, Workday, DocuSign all declining. Friedberg, what's your prediction for business losers this year?

Friedberg: I think state governments will face immense financing difficulties. As more exposure of waste, fraud, and abuse in state agencies emerges, people will start questioning their long-term solvency. More seriously, the massive unfunded pension liabilities of states will be exposed this year, making people realize there's a huge black hole in state finances.

Chamath: I choose the software industrial complex, meaning those companies selling licensed SaaS to American businesses. This is a $3-4 trillion annual economy, but 90% of its revenue comes from "maintenance" and "migration." With the advancement of AI models and technology, I think the economic opportunity in these two areas will shrink and contract dramatically. Businesses will still need software, but incremental revenue will be much lower, severely impacting listed SaaS companies.

Sacks: I still choose California. Because the shadow of the wealth tax and the harsh regulatory environment are driving business and capital out of the state. I sincerely hope you are right and this bill ultimately doesn't make the ballot. If it does, there will be panic-driven flight.

Jason: My choice is young white-collar workers in America. I think it's increasingly difficult for them to find entry-level jobs now because companies find it easier to automate with AI than to train fresh graduates. I see many companies using AI to replace lower-level repetitive tasks, which are typically done by recent graduates. This isn't to say young people have no opportunities, but they need to become more resilient, self-reliant, and must learn to use AI tools.

Friedberg: I have a different take on this. I've heard from some CEO friends that hiring fresh graduates is difficult now, not because of AI, but because of cultural issues. Many Gen Z graduates seem to lack work motivation, organizational skills, and executive function. This might be a pandemic-era phenomenon or a deeper cultural shift. So I think the difficulty for young people finding jobs is a result of both cultural factors and AI automation.

Jason: I think both are right. Maybe these young people are either spoiled or their parents have enough money for them to coast. But I also see many companies telling me that they can replace the bottom third of tasks, which are typically done by recent graduates.

2026's Most Significant Deal

Jason: Next, let's predict the most significant deal of 2026. Sacks, what are your thoughts?

Sacks: I don't want to name specific companies, but I think there will be a major breakthrough in the field of Coding Assistants and Tool Use. Just like chatbots at the end of 2022, this area is heating up rapidly, and I think it will become increasingly important this year.

Friedberg: I think the Russia-Ukraine conflict will be resolved this year. Many economic and political factors are pushing this process, bringing more stability to the region.

Chamath: I think it's not a specific deal, but a change in deal-making style: IP licensing deals will replace traditional M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions). Due to increasingly strict antitrust scrutiny, large-scale M&A has become extremely difficult. So companies will turn to large-scale IP licensing agreements to acquire technology and talent. Collaborations like Google with Character.AI, Microsoft with OpenAI, and Nvidia with Grok exemplify this model. I think this type of deal will become more common and mature in 2026.

Jason: I think we will see a mega-acquisition exceeding $50 billion. It could be one of Apple, Meta, Microsoft, or Amazon acquiring an AI upstart like XAI, Mistral, Perplexity, or Anthropic. I know most of these AI companies want to go public independently, but I think an offer they can't refuse will eventually appear. President Trump might instruct the government to "make M&A great again," which is crucial for America to maintain global competitiveness.

2026's Boldest Contrarian Prediction

Jason: Next is everyone's favorite part: the boldest contrarian prediction. Last year, I said OpenAI would lose its lead, which indeed happened; Chamath predicted a crisis in major banks; Gavin predicted over 5% annual GDP growth; Friedberg predicted a resurgence of socialism. You could say the predictions were quite forward-looking. Friedberg, what's your contrarian prediction this year?

Friedberg: My prediction is based on a premise: a revolution will happen in Iran, and the Ayatollah regime will fall. But that's not my contrarian view; I think that will happen. My contrarian view is: Iran's fall will not bring stability to the Middle East; instead, it will trigger more conflict. Many think Iran is a destabilizing force, but I believe it actually provides a certain kind of "stability." Once this regime disappears, other Arab countries (like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc.) will erupt into new conflicts vying for power and influence, especially after a Palestinian "two-state solution" emerges. The Middle East situation will be worse than anyone expects.

Sacks: My contrarian prediction is: AI will increase, not decrease, the demand for knowledge workers. I'll reference "Jevons' paradox": when the cost of a resource decreases, the total demand for it actually increases because people find more use cases. For example, lower costs for generating code will lead society to create a massive amount of software; lower costs for radiology scans will make scanning more ubiquitous, requiring more radiologists to interpret and validate AI results. The so-called "unemployment narrative" is not only wrong; we will actually see job growth.

Chamath: I have two contrarian predictions.

• First: SpaceX will not have an IPO but will instead reverse-merge into Tesla. I think Elon Musk will take this opportunity to consolidate his two most important assets into one equity structure to solidify his control.
• Second: Central banks will realize the limitations of gold and Bitcoin and seek a brand new, controllable crypto paradigm. To maintain national sovereignty, they need a tradable, secure, and completely private asset that is not easily surveilled by other countries (whether friends or foes). And technically, it must be able to withstand potential quantum computing challenges to existing encryption systems in the next 5 to 10 years.

Jason: My contrarian prediction is: The confrontation between the U.S. and China will be largely resolved. I think this could become a signature achievement of President Trump's second term. Both sides will reach a win-win working relationship, not a zero-sum game where one side loses.

2026's Best Performing Asset

Jason: Last year, Gavin's prediction for high-bandwidth memory manufacturers (like Micron) saw stock prices surge 230%, and Friedberg's prediction for Chinese tech stocks also performed excellently. This year, what asset do you think will perform best?

Friedberg: I choose Polymarket again. Its network effects are emerging; it's replacing the functions of traditional media and markets, with huge potential.

Chamath: I choose a basket of critical metals. This aligns with the logic for copper mentioned earlier. Against the backdrop of geopolitics and supply chain restructuring, demand for these basic materials will be rigid.

Sacks: I choose the expansion supercycle in the tech sector. This is still part of my "Trump Boom" theory. And, just today as we record this show, the Atlanta Fed just raised its Q4 GDP growth forecast to a staggering 5.4%.

Chamath: People aren't realizing a few things.

• First, due to immigration issues, non-farm payroll data has been reset, and income growth for low-income groups is very rapid.
• Second, productivity gains from AI.
• Third, tax cuts set to take effect in 2026.

All these factors combined create a huge growth engine. Don't short the U.S. economy; it's ready to take off. 6% GDP growth is not unrealistic.

Jason: In this environment of an impending economic takeoff, potential interest rate cuts, and people having more disposable income, my choice is the speculation and gambling sector, including platforms like Robinhood, Polymarket, PrizePicks, and Coinbase. People will have more spare money for betting and speculation.

2026's Worst Performing Asset

Jason: Last year, our predictions for the worst-performing asset were remarkably consistent, almost all pointing to enterprise SaaS and traditional auto/real estate, which proved accurate. Sacks, which asset do you predict will perform worst this year?

Sacks: I think it's high-end luxury homes in California. Under the continuous influence of wealth tax rumors, this market will face immense pressure. I even hope that if the wealth tax proposal ultimately fails, there might be a "dead cat bounce" so I can offload my