Predictions I Refuse to Make for 2026
Every December, the same people who couldn’t explain what happened last February develop strong feelings about next October.
This custom is called insight.
I am declining to participate.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of predictions I will not be making for 2026. This is not because I lack opinions. It is because I retain a basic respect for causality and still possess a working sense of shame.
I will not predict the end of the AI bubble.
I will not predict its continuation.
Bubblists and non-bubblists alike are in the asylum now. Labeling it a bubble has as much use as being the first person to notice the doors lock from the outside. You’re still wearing the pajamas. You’re not going anywhere.
I will not predict a recession.
I will not predict a soft landing.
I will not predict a hard landing.
The economy is an elderly man who left the house for milk and ended up on a train to Scranton. There are Silver Alerts. Everybody ignores them.
I will not predict interest rate cuts.
I will not predict rate hikes.
I will not pretend the Federal Reserve is a single mind instead of a committee of astrologists relying on natal charts written in Times New Roman. Mercury is in retrograde. Inflation is a Pisces. The dot plot is a Ouija board operated by people who believe in efficient markets but also pray before FOMC meetings. The rate will move when Jupiter aligns with the 2% target. Afterwards, the same people will explain why it was written in the stars all along.
I will not predict the death of venture capital.
I will not predict its revival.
Venture capital cannot die. When returns disappoint, it undergoes mitosis: living firms that still write checks and zombie entities whose sole function is administering legacy positions. The zombies still have websites. They still send holiday cards. Their partners still appear on panels. Nobody can explain what they do all day.
I will not predict that public markets will suddenly begin pricing risk honestly.
That would require memory.
I will not predict the collapse of private credit.
Private credit is what happens when government acts with good intentions and bans one kind of lending. The demand does not disappear. It simply migrates to a room with no windows. The loans are private, the marks are private, the conversations are private, and the losses are beaten with a crowbar and buried in an unmarked grave. The entire structure works as long as no one needs liquidity or the same dollar twice.
I will not predict the next technological revolution.
Anyone announcing one discovered it five minutes ago and immediately started a podcast.
Knowing and talking remain incompatible behaviors.
I will not predict a political realignment.
I will not predict stability.
I will not predict chaos.
Politics now feels like waking up during surgery and being told this was always part of the plan, unless you’re upset, in which case the consent form is missing.
I will not predict the death of traditional media.
It has been dying for two decades and still publishes every morning. At this point it’s operating on spite.
I will not predict when my upstairs neighbor stops renovating at 2am.
This has nothing to do with markets. It has been 11 months. The drilling is constant. I have filed three complaints. The super says there is no renovation. There is no upstairs apartment. I live on the top floor.
I will not predict the triumph of the creator economy.
I will not predict its implosion.
People will continue to post. Platforms will continue to skim off the top. Clickbait will continue to win.
I will not predict that valuations will return to fundamentals.
This assumes fundamentals were ever mattered.
I will not predict what markets do if TikTok is sold, banned, carved up, or sacrificed to a bipartisan panic ritual.
The reaction will be loud and immediately explained by people who learned about it ten minutes earlier.
I will not predict what gold does.
I will not predict what Bitcoin does.
I will not predict what NVIDIA does.
Anyone confident on all three is lying to at least one person, possibly themselves.
What I will predict is simpler.
In 2026, something obvious will be ignored.
Something boring will matter.
Something initially dismissed as irrelevant will make headlines.
After it happens, the same people making predictions now will explain why they always saw it coming.
I will continue making predictions despite everything written above. This is not a contradiction.
The drilling upstairs has stopped.
I don’t know why that feels worse.