[skewart]

I gather the author works for an agency. I wonder if this has colored their perception of startups. Maybe startups that hire agencies for various things are more likely to match the author's rather bleak description. A company that actually is passionately focused on making users happy might be more likely to keep everything in-house.

By all means, lots of great, passionate startups hire agencies to help with all kinds of things. I just wouldn't be surprised if a whole lot of get-rich-quick dreamers did too.