I would guess it takes roughly the same effort as ever. That is, the tools exist for a single person to be massively effective now (Skype, IM, eFax, EC2 8-core

I would guess it takes roughly the same effort as ever. That is, the tools exist for a single person to be massively effective now (Skype, IM, eFax, EC2 8-core instances, S3, AdWords/AdSense, turn-key solutions for all sorts of services, more and better programming libraries and frameworks and documentation) but the sophistication required has increased with the learning curve. You had to work all the time at your start-up back then and you still have to now. The gains in complexity have kept pace with the gains in efficiency in a sort of self-feeding co-evolution.