Available data on private‑equity take‑private activity in software/tech shows nowhere near ~100 buyouts of the kind Friedberg envisioned within 18–24 months of November 2022, especially not concentrated in a universe of ~200 public software names.

Key points:

• PitchBook data cited by TechCrunch shows 136 total PE‑led take‑private deals across all sectors in 2023, and 97 such deals by mid‑2024, with only 46 of those 97 in the technology sector (not just software). This implies perhaps on the order of a few dozen tech/software take‑privates per year globally, not ~100 just within 200 specific software stocks. (longportapp.com)
• A Q1 2023 U.S. PE breakdown notes that software take‑privates comprised about half of just 10 public‑to‑private deals announced that quarter (so ~5 software take‑privates in Q1 2023), underscoring that the quarterly run‑rate for software take‑privates was in the single digits, not anywhere close to the pace needed to hit 100 in two years for one narrow cohort. (scribd.com)
• Well‑known examples of PE take‑privates of public software companies in that window include Zendesk (taken private November 2022 by a Hellman & Friedman/Permira consortium), Qualtrics (Silver Lake and CPP Investments, 2023), Sumo Logic and New Relic (Francisco Partners/TPG, 2023), among others. (en.wikipedia.org) Publicly tracked transactions of this kind number in the dozens globally, not ~100 just from a list of ~200 public software firms followed by the podcast.
• Because the entire global universe of PE‑led tech/software take‑privates during Nov 2022–Nov 2024 is well under 100, it is mathematically impossible that roughly 100 such buyouts occurred solely within the ~200 public software companies the hosts were discussing.

Given these sector‑wide deal counts and the visibility of large take‑privates, Friedberg’s forecast of "100 PE deals" (buyouts) in that specific public‑software cohort within 18–24 months clearly did not materialize.