[chris_va]

I agree with your argument, but I do want to point out (since I think people here sometimes forget this) that the "5 other teams" thing starts to break down once you leave the traditional Silicon Valley product domains.

When working in VC, it was refreshing to talk with someone not doing social/mobile/local/consumer. Once you branch out to industries like Mining, Oil&Gas, Agriculture, Automotive, Manufacturing, Logistics, Insurance, etc. just having 2 bright software engineers working on a problem at all was often enough to provide an edge.

Insurance is a good example. That industry move $2T every year in the US, which makes the US ad industry look tiny. However, it only sees maybe 1/20th the number of SV teams.