2026 Predictions: AI Grammy Winner, OpenAI Buying Pinterest, and MORE

0:00The team here at Newcomer digs into our favorite predictions for the 2026 parlor game for the tech industry. we decided to look at some of the top predictions from the information from investor Fred Wilson, and we've got some of our own. Lots of speculation about mergers, Elon companies going public, and a shakeup at OpenAI. Stick around for our conversation. I talk with Tom and Madeline about what's going to happen this year in tech. This is the Newcomer Podcast.

0:34Welcome to the Newcomer Podcast. I'm here with Tom Doton and Madeline Renvarger. We are going to spend some time engaging with other people's predictions. We've got a great list. Our favorite three from The Information and our favorite three from investor Fred Wilson, an epic investor in Airbnb and Coinbase. And he always has some spicy, sometimes self-interested predictions about the future. Much more specific, I think, than a lot of venture predictions out there. So we're going to get into it. We're going to tick through these outside predictions, and then maybe Madeline, Tom, and I will offer some of our own.

1:16I was saying before this episode, what uh my my daughter is now three months old i'm like what what do i know about the world outside of my house to to see into the future but maybe i've thought about it some and uh we'll we'll see we'll see what spicy thing i i land on at the end of this but um happy 2026 american empire is back hard power has returned we are deposing leaders this is this is the year of action welcome to the american hemisphere over here we're recording live yeah what does text play in the Don Rowe Doctrine. Yeah, exactly. It's a new era. Anything could happen. Maybe it'll be just an overall wild, wild year.

1:57All right, Madeline, you want to hit us with our first prediction? Sure. Let's start with the information's list because they had, you know, their whole editorial team put together a list of predictions and we picked three that we feel strongly about debating. Eric, when you were there, did you, were you around at the information long enough to do a year-end prediction thing because it's kind of a it's a big tradition there it's like big year-end content cycle i think it might have started in the beginning i mean i was there a year and a half from the very beginning uh harder i don't remember i did one my first year there and i predicted this is a real 2014 moment but i predicted that yahoo was going to buy cnn um and you were never held accountable for getting that wrong you know but not only was not held accountable it was taken seriously by some news outlets as like reported news which we'll get to as a thing that happened the information again um and like business insider of course like aggregated it and they had to like scramble the jets that's cnn and yahoo be like we are not buying cnn you're not getting acquired by yahoo so for whatever reason year end news cycle is slow people take these things far more seriously than they should well this yeah Yeah.

3:09They're things that obviously the reporter doesn't have the sourcing to report as fact. That's why they're predictions. There's a science of predictions of like, I couldn't confirm this. So let me throw it out there. And if it happens. So let me just throw out my hunch. And then some of them are just sort of speculative, wild, out of the blue, like, sure, why not? And they're all in the same list. So you're always like, hmm, which is which? But should we jump into the list? Should we do? Yes, let's do it. Let's do it. Our first prediction from the information, OpenAI buys Pinterest to bring in its shopping and ad businesses in-house.

3:44I appreciate the gumption. That's a good prediction, right? It's two big names. It's an acquisition. It's something you can be proved right or wrong on. So hats off to them for doing that. However, insane. Just completely way off base. Nothing going there at all. Pinterest is like an$18 billion company right now. So that would be the largest acquisition in their history. They're not even sure they want to do ads at the moment because they're fighting on the LLM side. It's a completely adjacent industry. A horrible move for them to do. Just complete nonsense. Again, I appreciate the openness. Bad for open AI, you're saying.

4:21Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In a world in which we're taking that seriously. I would love it. What? Yeah, they're worth$18 billion, which isn't insubstantial, but they're down 61 % over the last five years. Well, yeah, it'd be great for Pinterest. Yeah, sort of a languishing company. They had a window. Microsoft wanted to buy them. I think PayPal wanted to buy them at a time. I don't remember what happened with those deals. They are the perpetual player on the market, it seems. But for OpenAI to do it is just like a mashing of a company that seems to be on the market and a famous company in the news. But logically, eh.

5:03Nope. I do a lot of shopping in OpenAI. Really? Have you found it to be really effective? I haven't tried it as much yet. I feel like it's more window shopping. I don't know that I'm pulling the trigger on a lot of stuff. I was trying to buy my sister a watch for Christmas and it was okay. It was all right. You guys don't use it for shopping at all? I haven't really. I've used it a little bit in some products review, you know, kind of aggregating there, but not really like really in depth for shopping. I should try it out. I should check it out. I mean, I don't think it's good enough. You know, it's the same.

5:44It's like compelling. and you're like, I want a leather band watch that's silver in this price point. Give me some options and it'll give you some, but then it's not rigorous enough to stick to the guidelines. My thing I'm trying to do with it is get it for travel planning. I always want to see if it can pull some unlisted link for some deal at a hotel or a flight or something. So I plug it in specific dates for travel or destinations with cheap flights at this time. And I'm waiting for the day where it actually gets me like a$300 international flight, but not yet. Maybe they're catching on on how to hack around that.

6:18But some people have been able to do that. So that's my shopping use, I guess, is for traveling. I tried a deep research once when I wanted to buy a new bag when I turned 40. I decided I shouldn't be wearing a backpack anymore. And so I had it run down like, you know, nice leather satchel bags and it came with a bunch of stuff and I researched it. And then I was Googling some of these things and there was a sponsored Google ad at the top and I was like oh that looks cool that's way better and i ended up buying that bag so ah google strikes ad dominance yeah they're destroying of search with sponsored content actually worked on me and and i'm enjoying my satchel and page but no all right we're not buying uh the open ai buying pinterest yeah next prediction madeline but hats off good prediction i i appreciate it it's just but great prediction in the spirit of prediction the craft true predictions yes okay moving on prediction number two.

7:11Speaking of predictions, a stock exchange buys a prediction market. Meta. Very meta. I think that this, I'm skeptical, but we've been really seeing the rise of prediction markets in the last few months. And I could see it as a pathway for legitimization if they wanted to take it. But I don't know. What do y 'all think? I think this is going to be the year of prediction markets. There's so much momentum and investor interest in these things. From a personal and moral standpoint, I'm pretty horrified by it. But there's no question that I think this will come away. My prediction is that predictions matter in 26 and the prediction markets.

7:52So I like the idea of it. I don't know for stock exchanges how many acquisitions they make. How often do you see... The real question is, does a stock exchange want to get in the gambling business? Because I think the reality of these prediction markets is that they're gambling sites more and more. That's the real business opportunity. And their brands are eventually – Well, their gambling business is with the occasional insider trading, Eric. They have the occasional insider trading as well. To me, it's the intellectual argument behind NFTs and that side of tokenization put into a trading market.

8:42That's not even that big of an insight. That's literally what it is. And you're kind of seeing that group refunnel around prediction markets as they moved off of kind of NFTs. I think it's more likely a casino buys a prediction market than a stock exchange. Because I feel like a stock exchange doesn't want to get in the gambling business. But if the gambling companies decide, oh, man, this regulatory arbitrage is going to persist, like we can't get the government to stop them, then they might say, we need to get in this business right now. Well, that's definitely like if you can't beat them, join them.

9:19Because so many of these gambling casinos and sports gambling sites are pissed off because they fought so hard. to get regulatory approval in different states. And then prediction markets just barrel through to find a loophole to get them done. So right. If they can't get them banned, you might as well just buy it. I agree. There's definitely going to be juice around prediction markets. Yeah. We love it. No question. Moving on to prediction reaction number three, Ilya Sutskoverse sells safe superintelligence. Smart. I mean, sure. Yeah. I don't know what investors are expecting at this point from them like their their goal is like basically like we need to terraform mars well they also said that they were not going to release a product until they reached super intelligence whatever standard that's measured by but then they have backtracked that and i think in the last couple months have said that they would explore releasing some products before they reach that goal so clearly there's some need to make money of some kind it's not just you know hanging out in that ecosystem.

10:22But whether or not that works in the foundation model race, I'm not sure. This would certainly be the most extreme license and poach, right? It's like, obviously, this would be done in the not an acquisition acquisition when half of the value is probably just hiring Ilya and the other half is getting the team. Yeah, very plausible. We just don't have very much visibility into what's going on over at ssi yeah it's almost like the most cynical argument for a licensing acquihiro because i don't even know what there would be to license at this point we don't even know what ip they have just ilia is ilia is lebron well he's younger but you know he's who's i don't know i'm not watching enough nba these days but he's you know he he's that big so whoever gets he's like he's like kevin durant or like i don't know again that's like i don't yeah i don't know exactly all our narratives are from five years ago we don't we don't have we're on the come on is he luca um oh yeah maybe he's luca but luca's dominant i i'm sort of saying i think he's oh he's post or he's post dominant i don't i don't know he's i don't know you've seen like noam shazier going into google and getting a lot of credit for the gemini turnaround uh let's put it like this there's no question that there is a multi-billion dollar deal just to get Ilya at any point in time.

11:49If he decides one day or his investors push him one day to do this, it's going to be a massive outcome for him. So it's really just up to him and his investors. But it's a smart pick. I could see it happening. All right. Those are three of the information's predictions. We'll link to them maybe in the episode notes. Here, we got Fred Wilson uh epic famous venture capitalist moving on yeah spicy predictions from Fred you like you like Fred's predictions he does them every year and he's he seems like he's much more interested in being a personality than an investor these days right or where do you where do you situate Fred and he's always used his writing um to to stay out there I think he's he's a good writer he's succinct um I think you know he knows to make the predictions spicy and sometimes Sometimes, you know, like many predictions, they're guilty of wish casting a little bit, you know, forecasting what you want to have happen.

12:45But I think he's a smart guy. I think they're interesting. We can we can argue about them. Yeah. Yeah. He has a great history and he is known, I would say, as a VC influencer of sorts with his writing. I think it's pretty influential. So moving on to the first Fred Wilson prediction, we will debate smart glasses finally reach product market fit in 2026. but it won't be meta that delivers the winning approach. I don't think this is true. I think maybe I'm just very bearish on the sort of like VR, AR working anytime soon. And perhaps the glasses are the closest we're going to get to get it to work.

13:19But I just don't think people like stuff on their face. I think AirPods work because they're in ear. I think other devices were wearing glasses. I, but smart glasses and things floating around my cycle of vision, my glasses will look dirty. I just don't see the appeal of that as a lifelong glasses wear. What do y 'all think? I don't see it. Well, I guess the problem I have is like, if there is a product market fit, it almost has to come from meta because they're the only one with any sort of scale. Like who's going to come out of the blue? Well, product market fit is the biggest wiggle room claim because it's like, you know, not that it's market penetration or anything.

14:01It's like, oh, people start to see the value. Yeah, I don't know what company he's even envisioning here. I'm sure he's got one in mind. Yeah, I mean, it's a really, like from a startup perspective, there aren't that many that I think have the cash to compete at the hardware scale. I mean, Snapchat is like, Snap is like kind of still plugging away at this thing really sort of quixotically. You know, like no one really can control Evan as he continues to invest money in this thing that he's done forever. and then I don't know who else there is. Like I will admit I've seen more meta, you know, what are they called?

14:37The smart glasses they have? Well, there's the Ray-Ban glasses, but I don't know. Yeah, the Ray-Ban glasses. Yeah. Whatever. Like I've seen more of them around than I would expect. All right, I've got a prediction. Maybe I'll come up with another one in my official slot, but this is very relevant to this. I think the OpenAI device with Johnny Ive will be a pen. This has been my friend of the podcast, Max Child, has been hammering that it's going to be a pen. I think Bloomberg literally did a column based on Max's conviction. And then there was some sketchy report that seemed to substantiate it.

15:16Max isn't taking a victory lap yet, but I'm listening to them. And so he's bullish on a pen, which, like you're saying, is sort of a different device. And the idea is, you know, you keep the pen on you and it records and maybe when your hand, it takes in all your hand. I was going to say, would it analyze your handwriting as well? Yeah, I think that's part of the goal. Yeah. Lock it in. I mean, that would be. That was the mistake that Humane made. They did a pin, but not a pen. Right. Right. It's like they were off by a letter. You just have to switch the vowel and then multi-billion dollar opportunity.

15:48Oh, no, we meant we were doing a pen, not a pen. I like bringing up the Johnny. AI. We'll get to open AI in a bit, but, but I, you know, something needs to come out of that whole operation this year. So might as well be something, but with the pen, like, does it, does it like you highlight text or something like on paper and it would, well, I just think you're, you're like a doctor. You're like walking around, you have your ambient thoughts, you know, it's, it's all feeding into your model. And then when you're ready to sit in front of the computer, you know you output it and you have all these conversations it's in some ways the dream of ai or you know it's like we all want to get away from screens right so if you're building a device like that allows you to escape a screen so that then when you know ai can digest it i don't know yeah that's interesting having a screen free ai note taker but you would still be taking the notes i don't know interesting could it be the pen from goldeneye and it's like a very tense situation where every time they double click it, it arms the bomb and double click it again.

16:48It unarms it and you have to keep track of it. That's when finally Boris explodes. That's the safe super intelligence pen that they're working on. Moving on. Second Fred Wilson prediction we're going to debate. The SpaceX IPO, the largest ever, marks the market top and we are in a bear market by year's end afterwards. Solid, solid prediction. I'm not going to push too hard against that. That is very reasonable. You guys are starting to look into this more than me. Okay. The SpaceX IPO is apparently going to hinge on space manufacturing, right? So the SpaceX story is obviously we'll build rocket ships, the reusable rocket ships.

17:29Then it's like, okay, we'll build satellites. And that has been a great success. Starlink is generating a lot of money. That's the real business seemingly. But it's an Elon company. He wants the valuation to be what? like 1.5 trillion dollars like the largest ipo ever so you need as elon well understands you always need another story and so it's gonna be space manufacturing so is are people gonna buy like is the space manufacturing thing something that's coherent do people buy it there's a lot of hype right now about it i mean the number of investors who've been talking to me about space data centers is something worth looking into sorry is it space data centers instead of manufacturing all right let me well it's a lot of things i mean i think also it is space manufacturing as well that's that's part of it too yeah no it's just space you know it's all gonna happen everything's everything's in space we're doing shit in space now we're done here we've moved outside the orbit or we're in the orbit but we're off we're off terra terra firma the things that you were doing down here we can now do it up there otherwise it's it's sort of the same we're no longer in the arena but we are in orbit yeah do you think do you think mars is going to be in the prospectus or some of the elon fans are a little disillusioned by everything good prediction i would say 98 likely mars has at least one if you control f on the s1 i hope so right like i hope it's a risk factor risk factor elon's real real reason for building this company is to get us to mars and we might burn endless sums of money like trying to get there i don't know elon fanboys i mean it depends which kind of whether you're trying to make money on his companies or not but worry that he's lost sight of getting to Mars, right?

19:12That that's what he's supposed to be doing and that he's not committed to the cause. Being a public company would definitely hurt that. You're able to get by a lot more with private investors. Having some sort of Mars-like plan, whereas I think having analysts ask you on a quarter-by-quarter basis why there's this much investment in the Mars program is probably frustrating to him. I mean, Elon's been known to tell investors on earnings calls to go fuck yourself um but i i would be shocked if there is not at least some mention of mars uh with within the uh the s1 but for the time being it's just manufacturing in space pills in space we agree largest ipo ever hopefully in 2026 we're gonna waste a lot of energy talking about it if it's not in 2026 and then i think the thing we don't know is is it the top tick i i definitely think there's i don't know it's not we work there's a real starlink business but there's definitely a risk that just like it's a similar founder situation where it's like shout the biggest number you can and hope everybody continues to believe you and you know some of the air could come out of that ahead of the ipo there's already so much speculation in Tesla as to what the future of that company is really about.

20:36I mean, a huge percentage of its value comes from robots right now. And like the optimist program, which hasn't made a cent and isn't even close to real world level production. So yeah, I mean, people just, that's part of the Elon gambit and it's worked for him as a public company is to like have these unrealistic sounding programs that people continue to believe are highly valued. So So yeah, Mars, why not? For our final Fred Wilson prediction to debate today, an AI-generated song is nominated for Song of the Year in the 2027 Grammy nominations. So I guess we're pushing a little ahead there, but I guess the nominations come out the year before.

21:19I don't think this is going to happen. I think there's no way I can't imagine the Recording Academy getting behind AI in this way. Tom, you're the Hollywood whisperer, which is music adjacent. What do you think? I've never really reported the music industry. It's so dirty. He has the right idea, wrong prediction. Awards are the most backward-looking conservative groups out there. They're the last people that would want to willingly accept an anti-artist, anti-creativity technology and give it an award. The only possibility I could see is it gets revealed that a song that everyone enjoyed had more AI composition aspects of it.

21:59The thing that he should have done, which I think is actually a decent prediction, is that an AI-generated song goes number one or charts really highly on the Spotify or Billboard charts. That I could totally see happening. Well, songs have already charted, just not number one. So that's very much in the realm of possibility. Yeah. Yeah. And I love some of the AI songs out there. Most of my music is AI-generated these days uh i think it's it's you know that that we are charlie kirk song have you guys heard that one of course i've heard that one yeah yeah that's a banger and i think more to come it's taken over the nation really yeah yeah it's gonna be sung at the next rnc the uh well that that is a big vacuum for uh ai art it's like republicans who want to be pandered to but don't have any artists in their camp desperate for somebody to make the their their propaganda and i guess joe rogan is is is camp not campaigning he's he likes it he loves ai music he talks about right uh enjoying like ai what is it like ai rap like sort of a melding of rap and motown or something wow a lot of the charting ai music has been in is country western music or country pop so do with that what you will right i think it's very clear what's going on there yeah what's funny is that music probably is not main it's me obviously mainstream but it's charting wise i think it's been a while since like a country song went number one or usually it'll do it if it has like some hip-hop uh influence songs go number one all the time but they're certainly country pop songs it's not you know what we if you're being a genre a purist no it's basically pop with a steel guitar and the right drum beat in the back yeah back to the prediction i think much more likely that there's an ai generated hit than it gets a grammy nomination like i'm not convinced necessarily there'll be you know a top 10 hit this year but i'm surprised he's going with this thing that's gatekept by humans yeah Yeah.

24:10Yeah. Agree. Agree. And by the way, if you want to lean into the dystopia of that, an AI generated number one hit that, you know, that offends a lot of people. That is kind of a concerning concept that we are being entertained by our algorithms in that way. But yeah, I agree. He's slightly off the mark in terms of the body to hang it on.

24:39project you've been dreaming about? Now you can bring any idea to life. No coding background required with Gemini 3 in Google AI Studio. It's called Vibe Coding and we're making it dead simple. Just describe your app and Gemini will wire up the right models for you so you can focus on your creative vision. Head to ai.studio slash build to create your first app. Now it's time for the newcomer predictions. Our house predictions. Now's the well thought out accurate ones. Not just shitting on other people's predictions but yeah take out your pens now right your ai pens you're saying all right tom what's your prediction um i i made a couple um but the ones that we should probably dig into here is going to be a tough year for open ai i think they are facing a ton more competition they've raised so much money in the last year and the thing that i keep wondering about is like executive stability and they have in the last 18 months brought on new cfo new head of products uh johnny ive whatever you want to call that um and some of these people are from the sam altman orbit some of them are just general silicon valley talent but that's a very chaotic environment to work at it's just historically it's just built on you know like a i don't know like a native american tribal ground or something there's just always a sense of unrest and and i I don't know, darkness pervading open AI.

26:03I think there's going to be a big shakeup at some point there as they start slowing down in terms of their growth, as raising money becomes more problematic. And I don't want to name names too much because it's maybe a little unfair to say so-and-so is going to get fired this year. But if open AI does struggle to raise more money, and they will need to raise money this year, there's no question, the finance team will be an interesting thing to look at. Who's to blame? who's the person who made a big public speaking blunder yeah uh in 2025 who's the person who was the ceo of a company but then opening i decided to bring in another former ceo well yeah we're talking about we're not gonna be too cute this is sarah fryer cfo of opening i former next door CEO.

26:54Tom, are you predicting that? Yeah, and also the former CEO of Square. I just think she'll be a person to watch this year. I think if things are going great for OpenAI and they can raise more rounds and their data center deals keep going off without a hitch, then she's probably solid. But I think if things do slow down this year, that's just an area of extreme tension. Though if OpenAI can't fundraise, there is one person responsible. That is Sam Albin. He's sold the world on that company. He is their fundraising machine, but who knows? Yeah. And look, Sarah Fryer is a very well-respected executive in Silicon Valley.

27:34I mean, she really lent a ton of credibility to Square when she was there helping to bring that company public. And Nextdoor was problematic, but that company was problematic. They were struggling in general. So I don't want to say she's anything but an example of the high quality of talent they have at the executive level. That said, there's a lot of pressure on her. And there's often scapegoats when companies struggle. And it just wouldn't surprise me if that is the area of focus. Do you think Anthropic passes opening eye in valuation in 2026? Well, I think that depends on what this supposed round that was coming together at the end of last year, the one that apparently is at the$800 billion plus level.

28:19Like, do I think in which Anthropic, I think is at like three, like late three billions. Like, are they going to more than double their valuation this year? I don't think so. But I think Anthropic's credibility as a company, which is like a non, you know, it's not like an objective metric, but I think their credibility as a company could surpass open AI. Yeah. I think people might. Credibility. Reputation. okay let's put it like this that's a cool factor yeah which way and credibility they're definitely not cool this is the dario company um the guy was like stuffed animals everywhere i i think that well i don't know what's like the objective metric i could i could base this on if his evaluation no is it not a quality of model they've already surpassed them right um i think you answer you're not predicting anthropic to pass open ai evaluation in 2026 no but i do think the general OpenAI has a huge consumer business, which is, you know, can't take it away from.

29:18Right. All right, Madeline, prediction? All right, my prediction. I think defense tech, which was really hot all of this last year, is going to stay hot this year. But the first big wave of M &A of some of these companies will start. And I think the buyers will be more other startups rather than the primes. I think there will be some consolidation on the private side rather than like Lockheed going in and buying some of these companies. I do think that you make boats. I make drones. We both need a huge lobbying operation to win government contracts. Let's let's team up and then we have different boat drone company together.

30:00I think that is no question going to happen. And the piece that I'm skeptical on is if Anduril is really going to buy one of the other big players in the space because they don't need to. So will they buy like one of these one off, you know, satellite or feature companies to do one thing? Possibly. Yes, I could see that being where they become the acquirer. But I do not think they're going to buy. I'm betting against them buying like a Saronic or like a shield. They simply don't need to. Instead, they're going to do it themselves and say, why are you being annoying? Like we're the leader here.

30:32I do think also that if there is a ceasefire in Ukraine, that could be a big slowdown for the market because that has been, you know, the main place where a lot of this tech is being tested and where people are getting contracts to do experimental work there. However, if we go to war with Venezuela this year, then, you know, new markets door wide open. So I don't think that necessarily just Ukraine winding down would lead to a slowdown in the space anymore. I thought you were going to say Taiwan. I thought you were going to say with China or Greenland. Well, I was going to say there's so much more, you know, as we are the American hemisphere and launching our, you know, missions, the defense tech market only grows.

31:18So, yeah, the drumbeat for war escalates in, I don't know, northern Europe and also Central America and also northern South America. Is is Andrew going to go public, you think that I think they could? I think it's possible. I'm not sure if it's going to happen 2026. It might be early 27. It depends on the market. They've, you know, done some looking into that, but I don't think I'm skeptical that it actually happens. Feels like we'd hear the buzz, you know. Yeah, I think, you know, there's always, you know, the Databricks going public conversation if we're talking about equally huge Decacorns.

31:53And Databricks seems to me like one that would be a 27 at least and not 26. So I'm going to stick with that for Anduril as well. All right. I'll end with my prediction. I have a couple now that I'm tying up the loose ends of everything that people didn't see coming in 2026. I mean, I think macro bullish on AI, AI going strong still in 2026. I think two specific bad things happen because AI is going strong. One, I think we're going to get like a huge international hoax enabled by AI. I don't know if you saw the piece, Casey Newton in Platformer. There was this viral screenshot that seemed to be about DoorDash or Uber Eats from a worker, sort of a white collar worker saying, oh, we're doing all these terrible things.

32:52We're giving workers a desperation score. And then Casey Newton reached out to the person who posted that to try and get substantiating documents. And the person apparently sent him like a whole report. And then it turned out the whole thing was fake and it was basically an attempt to substantiate what was basically an AI generated thing. And now you can create an AI generated report to try and substantiate it. In the business, reporters would call this like rat fucking when people go to sort of elaborate lengths to try and con reporters. And whether it's a reporter or not, I mean, I think we're going to see a huge international hoax.