I don't see this at all as related to oversupply of solutions and talent. It's a darwinian structural feature of many of these domains that a very small number

I don't see this at all as related to oversupply of solutions and talent. It's a darwinian structural feature of many of these domains that a very small number of winners will beat out all other solutions, and if the problem is valuable a large number of candidates will compete for the chance to be a winner. Likewise with talent, roles are not fungible. If I'm engineer #5 at one of 100 photo-sharing startups that's a totally different proposition to being engineer #500 at one large photosharing company. A different sort of candidate is going for that second role and you actually need somewhat different personality and skills. That implies a really different competitive dynamic as well.