I agree with alot of what Cringely is implying, because current VC funding at every level (including YC) has been very cliquey. You simply can not with a straig

I agree with alot of what Cringely is implying, because current VC funding at every level (including YC) has been very cliquey. You simply can not with a straight face say that the only insanely great technology business ideas come out of four places (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley) and basically nowhere else. For example, two cities that have the highest concentrations of baccalaureate degree holders in the US are Seattle, WA and Raleigh, NC. Now pop quiz: Name a YCombinator company in either of those cities. Oh, I know, it doesn't really mean anything. I just find it interesting that two otherwise academically talented areas are burgeoning hotbeds of neither startups nor even talent for said startups. I guess we can further break down what kind of degrees the citizens of these two Rodney Dangerfield of academic and tech hubs have. I mean, for all we know, they could be in philosophy or advanced basket weaving or, worse, gasp, English. But the rise of crowdfunding couldn't come at a better time, in my opinion. It's high time the silo gets drained for a more swampy, organic, bubbling ooze sort of scattershot approach of crowdfunding. It'll be spendy, it'll be risky, it'll make outside observers think it's all at best a big gamble and at worst a big liberal boondoggle that will further weaken our country like everything else democrats come up with that dilutes and distributes power into the hands of "the masses". Further, it'll make professional VCs cringe when successes actually start coming out of these crowdsourced ventures, as they talk of "amateur hour" money crowding out their world of term sheets and share dilution calculations over tapas in Menlo off Sand Hill Rd. Whatever is going to happen, things like kickstarter and indiegogo and JOBS et al. are going to shake the status quo up big time. In my neohippie indie-and-proud idealistic head, it's not only exciting, it's necessary.