Jason’s statement was a conditional warning about what would happen if two policy problems (R&D amortization and tight M&A/antitrust rules) were not fixed "over the next few years." As of late 2025, both the time horizon and the conditions of that hypothetical are not clearly met, so the prediction can’t be definitively judged.

Key points:

• R&D amortization has largely been rolled back for domestic R&D, at least prospectively. Congress restored immediate expensing for U.S.-based R&D, both via earlier relief tied to the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 and then more comprehensively in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) in July 2025, which reinstates current-year expensing for domestic research costs for tax years beginning after December 31, 2024. (globalreporterjournal.com) That means the “fix this tax issue” part of his warning has, in substantial measure, been addressed, at least for domestic R&D.
• Before the rollback, Section 174 amortization was clearly harmful to startups, creating taxable income "out of thin air" and raising cash taxes for early‑stage tech companies, especially those with significant engineering costs. (theregister.com) So his concern about the tax rule itself was grounded in real pressure on startups.
• Antitrust / M&A constraints have not clearly been “eased” in a way that targets startup exits. FTC/DOJ data for FY 2024 show elevated enforcement (more Second Requests and intensive reviews) even as overall deal volume remains strong, and reporting through 2025 describes a still‑tough but functioning review environment—more scrutiny, but not an obvious pro‑startup relaxation. (reuters.com) There’s no decisive policy shift whose primary effect is to make it markedly easier for large firms to buy startups.
• Startup ecosystem outcomes are mixed and hard to attribute to these two levers alone. U.S. startup funding in 2025 has rebounded strongly—driven heavily by AI—suggesting robust capital for at least one large segment of tech. (reuters.com) At the same time, data on Series A conversion shows a harsh environment: only a small fraction of recent seed‑stage startups are reaching Series A, and timelines between rounds have lengthened, which implies elevated startup attrition. (wsj.com) However, those dynamics are affected by macro conditions, interest rates, and the AI platform shift—not just R&D tax policy and antitrust.
• Timeframe: Jason said "over the next few years." From April 2024 to late 2025 is only partway through that window, and we don’t yet have a full multi‑year picture of post‑reform startup formation and survival.

Because (1) one of his key conditions (the R&D tax problem) has been substantially addressed for domestic R&D, (2) the antitrust/M&A side has not seen a clearly defined, large pro‑startup easing, and (3) the ecosystem data is mixed and causally entangled with many other factors, we can’t cleanly say whether his specific conditional prediction—that failing to fix both issues would "kill a lot of startups" and materially damage U.S. startup formation—has come true. It’s simply too early and too confounded to judge either as clearly right or clearly wrong.