TBPN · Nov 5, 2026 · 2h 15m · 127m saved
With Apoorva Mehta, co-founder and former CEO of Instacart, founder of Abundance · Alex Spiro, trial lawyer and partner at Quinn Emanuel · Anish Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of Traversal · Derek Blasberg, writer
Photo: Gabriel Hutchinson, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Prediction markets called almost every result of Tuesday's midterm elections correctly, with one exception: Texas, where a race held steady for months before flipping in the final hours. TBPN hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays argued the more consequential story was underneath the headlines — about 40 state-level data-center permitting bills, not any single governor's race.
"Although the Texas race is important, the 40-odd data center bills are probably more important in aggregate." — Jordi Hays
That argument came before the panel got to Apoorva Mehta, who spent nine years defending Instacart against skeptics — including a VC who walked out of his pitch meeting — before this year's roughly $17 billion sale to DoorDash, and who told John and Jordi his next company, Abundance, is betting that AI can finally reason about investments the way a fundamental manager does rather than just pattern-matching.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 2 hours 15 minutes of audio, 8 minutes of reading.
Here are the 8 arguments that matter.
Key Takeaways
Prediction markets called almost every midterm result right, except Texas
Roughly 40 state-level data-center permitting bills matter more than any single race, John and Jordi argued
Hedge fund Elliott warns current conditions resemble the run-up to the Great Depression
Elliott is down under 2% for the year against a roughly 13% S&P 500 return
Instacart sold for roughly $17 billion to DoorDash after years of investor skepticism
AI agents save shoppers taps, not hours, Apoorva says, since delivery already removed the friction
For the first time, AI can reason about a company the way Warren Buffett would, not just pattern-match trades
AI will eliminate a layer of legal work, but won't change how a jury gets persuaded
Traversal's AI reliability platform raised $120 million at a $1 billion valuation
1. Markets Called It Right
Jordi Hays opened TBPN's review of Tuesday's midterms by grading the prediction markets against the polls.
Prediction markets called almost every midterm race correctly, except Texas
"Overall, they called almost everything right. I thought that obviously Texas was a bit of a surprise. Prediction markets aren't that helpful if it looks one way for months and months and months, and then in the two hours before results are in, it flips completely." — Jordi Hays
John Coogan backed that up with numbers: Call Sheet, a market-based forecast, ran 81% accurate three months out and 95% once polls opened, against 77% for the polling average Vote Hub. Jordi said the most underreported result of the night was closer to home for tech investors.
California's Prop 40, which Jordi says would have hit the tech-company model, failed
"The craziest thing to me is how little attention it's getting that Prop 40 didn't pass. Prop 40, as it was written, was going to destroy the model for building technology companies in California." — Jordi Hays
He said the 40-odd state data-center permitting bills now moving through legislatures matter more to tech investors in aggregate than any single governor's race.
