The Predictions Scorecard (2006–2015)

From 2006 to 2015 I published tech predictions almost every January, then graded myself the following year. I stopped in 2015, but the posts are still here — and with a decade-plus of hindsight, it felt like time to run the full audit. Every prediction below is scored from a 2026 vantage point: Hit (1 point), Partial (half point — right thesis, wrong timing or details), or Miss (zero, no partial credit for vibes).

Final tally: 90 predictions, 42 hits, 26 partials, 22 misses — a 61.1% lifetime score. Back in 2015 I claimed I was "over 60% winning lifetime." Turns out I wasn't exaggerating. Barely.

Year | Predictions | Hits | Partials | Misses | Score
2006 | 10 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 40%
2007 | 9 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 72%
2008 | 12 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 62%
2009 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 72%
2010 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 60%
2011 | 10 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 70%
2012 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 50%
2014 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 45%
2015 | 10 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 80%
Total | 90 | 42 | 26 | 22 | 61.1%

Went out on a high note, apparently.

The best calls

The influencer economy (2007). "We will have lots of people earning their living from social media... look for the first paid product placement" — written when Lonelygirl15 was the entire creator economy. This is now a $250B+ industry.

Facebook hits 500M by Q3 2010. Called the number AND the quarter. Facebook announced 500M users in July 2010. Booya (his word, 2010's grade stands).

Voice-ordered shopping (Dec 2013). Predicted Amazon's streaming stick at $40-50, with a "secret killer feature: voice recognition — think 'remind me to buy toilet paper' and it actually orders it for you." Fire TV Stick shipped at $39 in November 2014. The Echo launched the same month. That throwaway line was Alexa, a year early.

MySpace fire sale (2011). "Fox sells off Myspace for LESS than it bought it for." News Corp paid $580M; sold for $35M in June 2011.

OS X Lion under $30 (2011). Shipped at $29.99.

OpenID: "widely supported, not widely used" (2008). The most precisely correct dead-technology prediction I ever made.

Square skepticism (2010). Everyone was hyped; I said P2P card payments wouldn't go mainstream that year. Correct — the contrarian calls age best.

Twitter's revenue problem + CEO exit (2014–2015). Called the disappointing post-IPO numbers, then called Costolo losing his job "before June 2015." He resigned June 2015.

The on-demand economy (2015). "If you're looking for ideas on what can be Uber-ized, look at what services only rich people had 20 years ago." That sentence was the pitch deck for half of the 2015–2020 startup class.

Bitcoin won't hit $1,000 in 2015 (2015). Topped out around $460. Which brings us to...

The worst calls

Bitcoin passes $2,500 (2014). It ended the year at ~$260. My buddy Theo never let me forget it. The redemption arc: BTC passed $2,500 in 2017 and $100K by 2024. Wrong year, right asset — but a miss is a miss. (I then turned bearish right before the biggest run in asset history, so let's call the whole thing a wash of humility.)

RIM sells to Microsoft (2012). Microsoft bought Nokia instead. Nobody won that one, including Microsoft.

Snapchat sells to Google or Microsoft for $9-12B (2015). Snap IPO'd at $24B in 2017 and stayed independent. Also predicted "the kids stop sexting using snapchat" post-acquisition, which mercifully never got tested.

LivingSocial catches Groupon (2012). LivingSocial was eventually acquired by Groupon for approximately zero dollars.

A transparent Apple television (2014). A 50-inch clear-glass Apple TV set for $1,000. I'd honestly still buy this.

Engadget print magazine published by Time Warner (2006). The exact opposite of every media trend of the next 20 years. My first year was my worst year — 40%.

The patterns

Scoring 90 of your own predictions teaches you things:

Theses age better than specifics. "Salesforce buys social media companies" — right (Buddy Media, $689M). "Salesforce buys Hootsuite for $30-40M" — wrong. Every acquisition prediction with a named buyer and price missed; nearly every directional market call hit.

Timing is the whole game. Podcasting (called 2006, arrived ~2014), mobile payments (called 2009, arrived 2014 with Apple Pay), bitcoin (don't). Being early is indistinguishable from being wrong, on an annual scoring cycle.

Contrarian calls were my best asset. Square won't take off yet, drones stay toys, wearables stay niche, bitcoin stays flat in 2015 — the "no" predictions hit at a higher rate than the "yes" ones.

The full archive

2006 Predictions — 40%

Y2K7 Predictions — 72% (my 2008 self-grade)

2008 Predictions — 62%

2009 Predictions — 72% (self-grade)

10 Predictions for 2010 — 60% (self-grade: 75% — 2010 Brian was generous)

2011 Predictions — 70% (self-grade)

2012 Predictions — 50%

2014 Internet Industry Predictions — 45% (self-grade)

2015 Tech Industry Predictions — 80%

Methodology: every discrete prediction scored Hit (1), Partial (0.5), or Miss (0) against what actually happened, judged in 2026. Partials are for right-thesis-wrong-details or right-call-wrong-year. Where my original self-grades disagreed with hindsight, hindsight won.