You think the problem is that investors are leaving too much potential for growth on the table when companies IPO? They should wait even longer and keep more of that growth private?
I also think there are other fundamental benefits to the economy. Yes the public is free not to buy...just as non-accredited investors would be free not to invest in unregistered securities yet regulations are still in place for a reason to protect would be investors.
It doesn’t seem unreasonable that is your company operates at a $500,000,000.00 loss over 3 years you can’t avail yourself to the public market and sell your stock to non accredited investors.
Accreditation is not in place to define who is informed and smart enough to make the investments, it is defining who can afford to take the loss, and who at least has the resources to do it properly.
I can’t think of any reasonable argument why allowing a free-thinking adult to, say, put a bit of savings into a friend or relative’s new startup is so much worse than the rest of these that it needs to be illegal.
Sure, there are probably examples of sophisticated investors who don't meet the criteria. But the numbers are tiny, and probably much smaller than the numbers who think they are, but are in fact not.
Don't forget, you are still allowed to lose your life savings at "regular" investing. And Casinos have different regulations constraining their ability to fool punters...
Accreditation was introduced as risk management, after all. Any time you do something like that you can have a few outliers who are negatively affected. But if the policy is basically sound, overall it is a net win. I think that is the case with accreditation. It's not there to stop you from investing $10k in your friends startup. It's to stop companies from bilking $10k from thousands and thousands of people. Could your friends & family case stand to be eased up a bit? Probably. Does it account for much in the overall scheme. Probably not.
Bear in mind the difference between intent and efficacy. All of the things you mention also have regulation or legislative constraints that in theory are also supposed to make it harder for people to naively get themselves in trouble. Why should investment be different?
For what it's worth, I also think it should be easier to invest small amounts in higher risk ventures - but that counterbalance should be to put limits on the structuring those ventures are allowed to do in order to offer it. Keep everything relatively simple and transparent, keep the terms and structure easy to understand without having to pay a decent lawyer 2k every time to review...
Barring companies from public listings based on some arbitrary numerical threshold is very unreasonable. Even more so when only the losses are emphasized in your previous comments while ignoring the revenue growth. That alone creates a very one-sided and biased view of Slack's financial situation.