All-In's 2026 Predictions

The episode opens with banter before the formal start. The host introduces himself in his own words as Jason Calacanis and presents the rest of the panel by their usual nicknames: Chamath Palihapitiya as "our dictator," David Friedberg as "our sultan of science," and David Sacks as "the czar," who is described as having just moved to Austin.

The relocation talk is light but specific. One participant praises the 70-degree weather. Another, speaking as a resident, says Austin has about ten days of freezing temperatures and roughly eighty days of 100-degree heat, and recommends leaving during the summer. The move is described as finished in December: the participant closed on a new house, moved in, went to the DMV and signed a lease for an Austin office for Craft. The group jokes about a dog named Moose, backgammon and cigars, and says two of the four regulars are now in Texas.

Asked whether the others will follow, one participant says they began "the process" in December and are coming to look around, but have made no final decision. The panel then credits Ro Khanna, mockingly, with "driving everybody out of the state." That remark leads into the main subject of the first segment, a proposed California wealth tax.

The panel jokes that Chamath publicly said he would "stay and fight" while a real-estate broker was reportedly helping him find a place in Texas. Others call this hedging and say many people are doing the same. They point to news reports that Larry Page has a home in Florida, and mention welcome messages from Governor Greg Abbott, Michael Dell and Ted Cruz to the newest Texan. That participant notes that California politicians never gave them a reception like that.

Next comes a rough estimate of the fiscal cost. One participant says friends who have openly left account for about half a trillion dollars of net worth, and that about 25 people come to mind immediately. They say they still intend to stay and fight. They also say an asset tax with unclear methodology has united people on the left and the right, adding that "Even Reid Hoffman thinks this is insane." Their projection is that roughly half of the wealth the budget estimate assumed would be taxable could leave, with consequences for California's social programs and general budget. These figures are the speakers' own estimates. The conversation offers no data to back them.

Another participant sets out the timeline as a prediction. Signature gathering is underway, and whether the measure makes the ballot should be known around April. It needs only about 850,000 signatures. Qualifying could set off a "rush for the exits," followed by a November election and then legal challenges. Even if the measure fails in 2026, this speaker expects a version to return in 2028, and says that expectation is what finally pushed them to leave.

I don't think this is over by a long shot.

The panel's main objection to the design concerns founders and private-company equity. A founder holding illiquid stock who cannot pay 5% of its value would, they argue, have to bankrupt their own company. Another participant adds that if a private company's value falls to zero the following year, the tax bill would still be owed.

The sharpest technical complaint is about super-voting shares. A participant says the proposal values a holder of super-voting stock by multiplying their voting power by the company's market cap, rather than by the market value of the shares they own. The example is Larry Page and Sergey Brin, said to have about 52% of Google's voting power combined, with Google valued at about $4 trillion. On that basis each would supposedly be treated as worth roughly $1 trillion instead of about $200 billion, so a 5% tax would amount to something like 25% of their real net worth. Another participant adds that the effective burden is higher still, because raising $25 billion or $50 billion means selling about twice that amount once taxes on the sales are counted. The participants give these numbers as rough recollections ('ish,' 'whatever,' 'I guess'), and the description of the valuation rule is their reading of the proposal.

It's just totally punitive and vicious.

The panel also discusses alternatives. One participant says they told Ro Khanna and Eric Swalwell, both previous guests, that Democrats must stop fraud before talking about seizing assets or raising taxes. They cite Nick Shirley's investigative work, featured on the show the week before, and describe government spending as a "leaky bucket." Others ask why a new kind of tax is needed instead of adding a point to capital-gains or income tax. They also mention Bill Ackman's suggestion to stop allowing people to live off margin loans, though they add that whether this is a good idea "depending on the asset base you have," and that people would change their approach if tax law changed.

So fix the bucket first, and then let's have an honest discussion about what the right tax rate is.

The host calls an audible and starts the predictions show with a lightning round. He says the show was delayed because news has been moving so fast. He calls the measure a "seizure tax" and splits the question in two: does it make the ballot, and does it pass. The transcript is garbled at this point. One participant appears to say they do not think it will make the ballot, and another seems to agree. Other remarks dispute the claim that qualifying is certain.

A Polymarket contract on whether the measure makes the California ballot is shown, described as lightly traded at 69%. One participant says the price jumped after Ro Khanna raised the issue's profile and it became a cause among progressives, with Bernie Sanders weighing in, going from roughly 45% to 80%. The panel argues over whether this was political suicide for Khanna.

One participant names only two ways the measure could fail to qualify. The first is that the sponsoring union, given in the transcript as "SCIU UHW," lacks the money to collect signatures, which they put at roughly $8 million. They doubt this, because 850,000 supporters could clearly be found if the effort were made. The second is that Gavin Newsom and the party establishment negotiate with the union to drop it. The speaker says they have no insight into Democratic politics, and suggests the others might. The reply is noncommittal: "We're gonna we're gonna leave it at that."

Asked about the odds of passage if the measure qualifies, a participant's answer is garbled but appears to include "40%." They frame the vote as a test of industriousness and agency. The group then cites Zohran Mamdani's line contrasting "the fragility of rugged individualism" with "the warmth of collectivism," and one participant calls collectivism "also known as communism."

A short tangent follows about Mamdani's new housing commissioner. The participants describe, in mocking and partly inconsistent terms, past statements she allegedly made about white people and property rights, and a reported episode in which she broke down in tears after critics pointed out that her parents own a multimillion-dollar home. These are the hosts' characterizations. The transcript gives no source for them, and one participant corrects another's account of what happened. The host then brings the conversation back to the 2026 predictions.

The host first reviews last year's picks for biggest political winner: young candidates; Trump and centrism, chosen by Gavin, who sat in while Sacks was joining the administration; fiscal conservatives pushing for restrained spending; and Gen X and elder millennials, described as the "J. D. Vance, Tulsi Sachs group."

The 2026 picks, as stated in the discussion: - The Democratic Socialists of America. One participant argues that the DSA is taking over the Democratic Party the way MAGA took over the Republican Party, and that this will be cemented in 2026. - Whoever fights "waste, fraud, and abuse at the federal, state, and local level." The participant calls this an open lane and a gambit likely to work in 2026. - "The Trump boom," a bet that good economic news will shape both the economy and political perceptions. - The "Mamdani moment," with JD Vance as the speaker's second choice.