ClaimsBalaji Srinivasan

“Biotech of course. But also tech for remote work, autonomy, digital everything.”

Balaji Srinivasan, author of X post 28 March 2020 Post by @balajis on X, 2020-03-28 (X)

Prediction Economics and markets

Biotech and tech for remote work, autonomy and digital services are among the businesses that may survive or even thrive during the pandemic.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Prediction: Statements about events outside the person's control, checked once they fell due: did they come true?

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

Horizon: end-2021, i.e. during the acute pandemic period. The claim names categories that would survive or thrive: biotech; remote-work tech; autonomy (robotics, autonomous vehicles and delivery); and digital services generally. TRUE: sector data (e.g. NASDAQ Biotech/XBI indices, revenues of Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams and similar, growth in e-commerce and digital services, results of autonomy/robotics companies) show that all or nearly all of these categories survived and broadly did well relative to the overall economy in 2020–2021. MOSTLY TRUE: most categories thrived, while one (likely autonomy) merely survived without notable gains. MIXED: about half of the categories thrived while the others did poorly. MOSTLY FALSE: only one category clearly thrived. FALSE: these categories broadly underperformed or saw widespread failures during the pandemic.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 2021 Year in Review, Part 2: What's New with the Innovators of the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index? Nasdaq (NASDAQOMX.COM/INDEXES), Investment Intelligence by Mark Marex

    “NBI finished 2021 with a full-year price performance of -0.6% and a total return of 0.0%, underperforming broader equity market benchmarks such as the Nasdaq-100® (NDX®) and the S&P 500 (SPX) by approximately 26%.”

  2. E2 The Biotech Paradox of 2020: A Year In Review - LifeSciVC LifeSciVC · 4 January 2021

    “The equal-weighted SPDR Biotech ETF $XBI was up nearly 50% during the year, and up well over 110% since March, while the larger-cap biased NASDAQ Biotech Index was up ~25% and ~60% over those periods, respectively.”

  3. E3 Zoom Video Communications Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2021 Financial Results Zoom Video Communications, Inc. via GlobeNewswire · 1 March 2021

    “Fourth quarter total revenue of $882.5 million, up 369% year-over-year; full fiscal year total revenue of $2,651.4 million, up 326% year-over-year”

  4. E4 Slack Announces Preliminary Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2021 Results; Acceleration Caps Off a Record Setting Year Slack Technologies, Inc. · 25 February 2021

    “Total revenue of $902.6 million, an increase of 43% year-over-year.”

Reasoning

The evidence shows strong 2020–2021 revenue growth at two remote-work companies (E3, E4), and biotech index gains in 2020 (E2) followed by underperformance against broader benchmarks in 2021 (E1). No evidence item covers autonomy, and digital services in general are covered only through Zoom and Slack. That is not enough to apply the criteria's category-by-category test.

Cite this claim

Balaji Srinivasan, “Biotech and tech for remote work, autonomy and digital services are among the businesses that may survive or even thrive during the pandemic.” (said 28 March 2020). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_06bd845d5cc3, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_06bd845d5cc3

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Balaji Srinivasan, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

More prediction claims by Balaji Srinivasan

  1. Mixed Prediction 30 March 2020
    “When checks hit, people will spend on consumer staples.”

    When US stimulus checks arrive, people will spend them on consumer staples, after which prices will rise.

  2. Mostly true Prediction 13 March 2020
    “So this is going to do is it's going to force everybody to look at remote work as not a auxiliary, but as a primary.”

    The pandemic will force everybody to treat remote work as primary rather than auxiliary.

  3. Mostly true Prediction 13 March 2020
    “And so this is going to be a gigantic shot in the arm for every diagnostic company in the world, every medical imaging company.”

    The pandemic will be a gigantic boost for every diagnostic and medical imaging company in the world, with defense-budget-level spending.

  4. Resolved true Prediction 13 March 2020
    “Well, I think it's definitely going to cause at least a recession, but likely something more severe than that.”

    COVID-19 will cause at least a recession, likely something more severe.

  5. Mostly false Prediction 25 April 2018
    “I think that’s going to structurally reduce fees over the years to come.”

    Blockchain payment rails will structurally reduce financial fees over the coming years.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.