3 views: How wrong were our 2022 startup predictions?

What a decade this year has been. While prediction items always come with a big asterisk because literally no one knows anything about what might happen in the future - like massive shocks to major startup sectors - our outlook for 2022 have aged...interestingly.

Last year, Natasha Mascarenhas, Alex Wilhelm, and Anna Heim pitched three different startup theses that could define the next 12 months. Now we check the accuracy of these predictions, as well as what we would change in our outlook. We know. Humble.

For a light holiday riff, we talk about what happened with the M&A space, open source, and usage-based pricing. Let's have fun!

Last year, I predicted that mergers and acquisitions would evolve to include a riskier type of ambition. I cited Twitter's hunger for a Slack competitor and Nike's craze for NFT collectibles. I even reminded the founders that startups need to "stay disciplined even in a cash-rich environment" instead of "running warm weather and web3 strategies because that's what they think their cap table wants. To hear". (And that culture and technology are difficult to integrate at the same time).