Four Tech Billionaires Chart 2026: David Sacks Projects IPO Boom While Peers Eye Copper and Crypto Innovation

On the latest episode of the All-In Podcast, four prominent venture capitalists and tech entrepreneurs—Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Friedberg, and David Sacks—delivered comprehensive forecasts for 2026, touching on macroeconomic trends, geopolitical developments, and specific asset allocation strategies. Among them, David Sacks, the former PayPal executive and co-founder of Craft Ventures, offered particularly notable predictions centered on a resurgent IPO market and tech sector expansion, positioning himself as a key voice in tech investment discourse.

The California Capital Flight Crisis: Wealth Tax as Economic Watershed

The discussion opened with California’s proposed wealth tax dominating the conversation, a theme that David Sacks highlighted as pivotal to 2026’s investment landscape. According to Sacks, the threat alone is already triggering significant capital relocation—he relocated to Texas in December, establishing Craft Ventures’ new Austin office, exemplifying the broader migration pattern.

Chamath Palihapitiya estimated that friends and associates of the four hosts collectively represent approximately $500 billion in net worth poised to leave California if the wealth tax advances. The proposal’s mechanics are particularly punitive for entrepreneurs: a 5% tax on illiquid equity holdings could effectively bankrupt growing companies. For shareholders with super-voting rights—like Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin—the effective tax rate could climb to 25-50%, turning the wealth tax into what Sacks termed an “asset seizure mechanism.”

The panel consensus: even if the proposal fails in a 2026 vote, its psychological impact is already reshaping capital flows. Prediction markets indicated an 80% passage probability following endorsements from progressive figures, though panelists estimated only 40% approval in an actual referendum.

Investment Winners: The Copper Boom and IPO Renaissance

The 2026 winners identified by the group reveal a shifting investment thesis distinct from 2025 patterns. Chamath’s bold pick of copper as the year’s top commodity reflects structural supply-demand imbalances: by 2040, the world faces approximately a 70% copper supply shortfall driven by electrification, data center expansion, and military modernization. As the “most useful, cheapest, most ductile, and most conductive material,” copper’s upside trajectory appears structurally sound, making it the asset class most likely to “take off.”

David Friedberg selected Huawei, believing the company’s partnership with SMIC will exceed Western expectations in 2026, while also backing Polymarket—the prediction market platform increasingly functioning as alternative financial infrastructure. Following Polymarket’s partnership with NYSE, Friedberg predicts major exchanges including Robinhood and Coinbase will launch prediction market offerings, transforming prediction platforms from niche tools into mainstream news and insight providers.

David Sacks championed the IPO market, predicting a dramatic reversal of the decade-long trend toward private capital and founder-led governance. The “Trump boom” will catalyze massive IPO activity, with trillions in new market capitalization materializing as public market appetite revives. Calacanis selected Amazon, projecting it will achieve “corporate singularity”—a threshold where robots generate more profit than human employees—through aggressive deployment of Zoox autonomous vehicles and warehouse automation across networks like Austin’s same-day delivery infrastructure.

Business Losers: Enterprise SaaS Decline and Oil’s Long Contraction

The group’s predictions for 2026’s worst performers reflect both technological disruption and policy risk. Chamath identified enterprise SaaS’s “software industrial complex” as the primary victim: this $3-4 trillion annual revenue sector derives 90% of earnings from “maintenance” and “migration” contracts—precisely the functions AI models now commodify. As enterprises deploy AI-native tools, incremental SaaS revenue will collapse despite continued software demand.

Friedberg warned of state government solvency crises, as unfunded pension liabilities and waste exposure threaten long-term financing. Sacks predicted California’s economy faces the steepest decline, driven by wealth tax uncertainty and regulatory friction accelerating business exodus. Calacanis identified young white-collar workers facing automated displacement from entry-level positions, though Friedberg countered that cultural factors—reduced work motivation among Gen Z—contribute equally to hiring difficulties.

Chamath projected oil prices will fall toward $45 per barrel, reflecting irreversible electrification and energy storage adoption trends. Friedberg selected Netflix and traditional media stocks as worst performers, citing content library challenges and creator defection to independent platforms. Calacanis chose the US dollar, noting that ballooning national debt and potential military budget increases will erode currency value, driving investment toward alternative stores of value including copper and precious metals.

Contrarian Predictions: SpaceX-Tesla Merger and Central Bank Crypto Revolution

The panel’s most provocative forecasts centered on structural reorganization rather than marginal shifts. Chamath predicted SpaceX will merge into Tesla rather than pursue independent IPO status, allowing Elon Musk to consolidate voting control across his most strategically important assets.

Even more radical: Chamath expects central banks will recognize gold and Bitcoin’s limitations and develop a “controlled crypto paradigm”—a tradable, quantum-resistant, sovereign-controlled digital asset enabling national economic sovereignty without exposure to surveillance by rival or allied nations. This represents an implicit acknowledgment that traditional monetary frameworks require cryptographic innovation.

Sacks countered prevailing unemployment narratives by invoking the Jevons Paradox: cost reductions in resource production increase aggregate demand. Declining code generation costs will expand software creation; decreasing radiological scan expenses will multiply imaging procedures, requiring more radiologist expertise to interpret AI results. Net employment growth in knowledge work sectors will accelerate rather than contract.

Friedberg predicted Iran’s regime collapse will not stabilize the Middle East but trigger fresh conflicts as Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar compete for regional dominance following Palestine’s two-state resolution. Calacanis forecast US-China tensions will substantially ease under Trump’s second term, producing a win-win working relationship rather than zero-sum confrontation.

Best and Worst Performing Assets: Speculation Vs. Structural Decline

Asset allocation preferences revealed divergent bets on 2026’s winners and losers. Friedberg again selected Polymarket, emphasizing its network effects and displacement of traditional media gatekeeping functions. Chamath doubled down on critical metals baskets centered on copper’s supply crisis. Sacks championed the “tech sector’s expansionary supercycle,” anchored in Trump prosperity economics and driven by Atlanta Fed projections of 5.4% Q4 GDP growth.

The economic engine underlying these forecasts combines three factors: rapid non-farm payroll recovery among low-income groups following immigration data recalibration; AI-driven productivity gains; and 2026 tax reduction implementation. Chamath argued 6% GDP growth remains achievable, positioning US economic performance alongside China’s centrally planned growth rates despite democratic capitalism’s structural constraints.

Calacanis selected speculative platforms—Robinhood, PrizePicks, and Coinbase—anticipating increased consumer discretionary spending as interest rates decline and surplus cash becomes available for speculation and gambling activities.

By contrast, worst performers clustered around structural headwinds. Sacks anticipated California luxury real estate collapse from wealth tax anxiety, despite hoping for a “dead cat bounce” enabling property liquidation. Chamath predicted hydrocarbon continued price decline toward $45 barrels. Friedberg selected Netflix absent a transformative Warner Bros. acquisition, noting harsh creator economics (cost-plus-10%) driving talent defection to independent platforms. Calacanis predicted dollar depreciation as national debt accumulation and potential military budget increases challenge currency value retention.

2026 GDP and Economic Expansion: Competing Growth Forecasts

Economic growth projections reflected the panel’s bullish macro positioning. Sacks predicted 5% GDP growth supported by emerging economic data: inflation at 2.7%, core CPI at 2.6%, Q3 GDP at 4.3%, trade deficit at lowest levels since 2009, layoff declines, S&P 500 new highs, fallen oil prices, and $3,000 reductions in mortgage costs. Real wages have increased over $1,000, while anticipated 75-100 basis point rate cuts by June and April tax refunds will amplify consumption.

Chamath forecast the lower bound at 5% with upper limits reaching 6.2%, noting that sub-7% growth rates require complete federal-state-local coordination—difficult to achieve under democracy and capitalism. Friedberg predicted 4.6%. These divergent estimates reflect confidence in Trump-era economic policy effectiveness despite uncertainty about geopolitical disruptions.

Political Winners and Losers: DSA Ascendance and Democratic Centrist Decline

Political realignment predictions centered on anti-establishment movements capturing both Republican and Democratic parties. Friedberg selected Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as biggest political winner, arguing the movement now parallels MAGA’s takeover of the Republican Party, with 2026 solidifying this shift.

Chamath identified politicians combating waste, fraud, and abuse across federal, state, and local levels as winners, while Sacks predicted the “Trump Boom” economy will drive political realignment through positive economic data creating tailwinds for incumbent administration allies.

Sacks identified Democratic centrism as the primary loser, squeezed by socialist base voters (particularly youth) and redistricting effects that eliminate moderate Democratic primary competition from the center-right, forcing even moderates to shift left. Chamath selected the Monroe Doctrine as 2026’s biggest loser, predicting historians will rewrite Cold War-era hemispheric frameworks when examining Trump’s second-term policies emphasizing transactional relationships, drug cartel suppression, immigration control, and vital asset acquisition over multilateral consensus.

Friedberg warned the tech industry faces unprecedented populist backlash from both left and right—left-wing opposition to tech wealth inequality and right-wing anger over historical content moderation and deplatforming decisions. The 2026 midterm elections, he argued, will become a referendum on the tech sector’s political alignment and values.

The Verdict: 2026 as Inflection Year for Capital, Crypto, and Geopolitics

The panel’s collective forecast positions 2026 as a year of structural realignment: commodity supercycles driven by electrification and defense spending; IPO market resurrection after a decade of private capital dominance; central banks exploring cryptographic innovation to preserve monetary sovereignty; and geopolitical reorientation toward unilateralism and transactional statecraft. For investors and entrepreneurs like David Sacks and his peers, the coming year represents both opportunities in emerging asset classes and significant risks from policy uncertainty surrounding wealth taxation, regulation, and international relations. The consensus suggests positioning for economic expansion while hedging against California’s capital flight, traditional hydrocarbon exposure, and legacy tech incumbents facing disruption from independent creators and AI-native competitors.