6 days ago
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Hello! I’m here from the future. And I have some news. 12 months from now, all the Big Tech CEOs are still in their jobs, everybody’s using folding phones, Apple made a TV, and Nvidia is the most valuable company in the history of the universe. Wild year, huh? Or maybe not? It’s hard to remember. Time travel messes with your memory a little.
On this episode of The Vergecast, the second installment of our two-part 2025 preview, we debate some seriously iffy storylines from the end of 2025. David, our resident time traveler, brings us some big stories that either did or didn’t happen in the year to come, and Nilay Patel and Wall Street Journal columnist Joanna Stern have to help figure out what’s real and what isn’t.
Will someone really buy Snap? Is GTA VI going to be the biggest game ever? Will Bluesky continue to ascend and leave Threads in its wake? Nobody knows yet, not even the time traveler, but we have some thoughts and ideas.
As was the case with last week’s episode, we’re keeping score. Here’s how it works: each host has to decide, for each 2025 news story, whether it’ll be real or not by the end of the year. Every correct guess earns you a point; every incorrect guess costs you one. At the end of the year, we’ll total the scores, combine them with last week’s guesses, and buy the winner the coolest gadget of 2025, whatever that turns out to be. (We’re going to need your help deciding, too, but we’ll come back to that.)
Don’t read the below until you’ve listened to or watched the episode, but for the tape, here are our predictions:
- Tim Cook is still the CEO of Apple. In fact, all four Big Tech CEOs are the same. (Nilay, Joanna, and David all say yes.)
- Nvidia is the most valuable company in the world. (Nilay says no, Joanna and David say yes.)
- Somebody acquired Snap. (All say no.)
- OpenAI is officially a for-profit company. (All say yes.)
- OpenAI is a profitable company. (All say no.)
- The government is breaking up one of the big tech companies. (Nilay and David say yes, Joanna says no.)
- We’ve had a huge, society-sized AI scandal. (All say yes.)
- One or more of Max, Paramount Plus, and Peacock no longer exists. (All say yes.)
- Netflix’s live stuff is working, and it basically killed cable already. (All say no.)
- GTA VI is a huge, giant, smashing success. (Nilay and David say yes, Joanna refuses.)
- Folding phones are legit mainstream now. (All say no.)
- The Pixel 10 is by far the best and most successful Android phone. (All say no.)
- The Nintendo Switch came out, and it’s kind of a dud. (all say no.)
- Apple is actually making a TV. (Nilay and Joanna say no, David says yes.)
- The new Alexa? It’s sick. Everybody’s using it. (Nilay and Joanna say no, David says yes.)
- Waymo’s currently having its big moment. (Joanna says yes, Nilay and David say no.)
- BlueSky is more relevant than Threads. (All say yes.)
- BlueSky is actually as big as Threads. (All say no.)
- Apple launched a search engine. (Nilay and Joanna say yes, David says no.)
English (US) ·