As of November 30, 2025, the full conditional scenario Friedberg described has not clearly played out, and there is no explicit time horizon in his prediction.

Precondition – broader retail access: In 2025 the SEC did take meaningful steps toward expanding ordinary investors’ access to private markets. Most notably, it stopped enforcing a staff policy that had capped registered closed‑end funds’ investments in private funds at 15% unless sales were limited to accredited investors with a $25,000 minimum. This change now allows such funds to invest more heavily in private funds (including private‑equity and venture strategies) while being sold to non‑accredited retail investors, effectively broadening indirect retail access to private markets.

• SEC staff and industry commentary describe this as providing greater access for non‑accredited investors to private equity and private credit through retail closed‑end funds and related vehicles. (wssllp.com)

However, this is primarily fund‑mediated access to diversified private funds, not unfettered direct investing by non‑accredited individuals into individual private startup equities at large scale. So even the precondition (“can broadly invest in private startup equity”) is only partially met, and only recently.

Downstream effects (losses and backlash): I find no evidence of a major, widely reported wave of non‑accredited retail investors losing “substantial” amounts of money specifically because of this new access regime to private startup/PE style equity. Commentary and SEC advisory work emphasize potential risks and the need for safeguards, not an already‑materialized retail wipe‑out. (barrons.com)

Elizabeth Warren’s response: Senator Elizabeth Warren has continued her long‑standing criticism of private equity and private markets – e.g., letters and legislation targeting private‑equity buyouts (Walgreens/Sycamore), the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, and concerns about private equity and private credit in retirement accounts. (warren.senate.gov) But these positions predate and are not clearly a new political backlash tied to a fresh wave of losses by newly empowered non‑accredited startup investors, nor have they yet resulted in enacted rules that specifically roll back the 2025 retail‑access expansions.

Given:

• the enabling policy changes are relatively recent and only partially match the “broad” direct startup‑equity access condition;
• there is no documented large‑scale loss event among that new investor cohort; and
• Warren’s ongoing push for stricter private‑equity regulation is part of a long‑running agenda rather than a clearly new, loss‑triggered backlash to these 2025 access changes,

there isn’t enough evidence yet to say that Friedberg’s full causal chain has either definitively occurred or definitively failed. It remains too early to judge, so the prediction is best classified as inconclusive.