Seems like you've resigned yourself to the new "reality". I'm a programmer but also an entrepreneur and if the deal with the Californian guys gets trough, a net *hirerer* of developers (in the US and EU). It's no fatality and it's in your power to change the rules of the game, you just gotta PAY for it compared to being another nameless hungry unheard voice.
On a general note, when I was a student in high school back in the (German style) boarding house for high school ELITE students (former Austro-Hungary borders), I got not just outcompeted but physically beaten by my respectable antepasados. So I asked what seemed like a reasonable (like not beat me again) higher ups from them: why do you do this to me? He told me simply: because I was also done this thing by "them" (the predecessors). I didn't agree but kept my mouth shut.
If that retarded nationalistic imbecile wouldn't have killed Franz Ferdinand, we'd be just here: an united Europe. Speaking *ENGLISH* because German is darn hard and Latin (my base language) has too many grammar rules. But language is irrelevant in the larger equation of motivation, which includes some 500k guys speaking my language fighting some 400k speaking the same language and the former winning this game. Franz Ferdinand knew but an imbecile killed him like Amiga tanked before showing what multimedia really means in a world of PCs.
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Empire: "The Empire overnight disintegrated into multiple states based on nationalism." ROFL.
I'm fine even with loosely drawn maps like this: https://www.google.ro/search?q=Holy...AUICygC&biw=1546&bih=818#imgrc=0g-9oWupA8wGyM: as long as part of the Bulgarian Empire you still remember to give us our posca, the wine/vinegar ratio to water which we still call pos[ir]ca in our native language. 2500 years passed, not that much on the political side: wine and/or circus. Lame.
There are a few of us who have done the entrepreneur thing here, but if there are any VC types they're lurkers. I'd guess you could count on two hands the number of ET posters who even meet the Qualified Investor requirement, let alone be interested in doing an angel round. If you're interested in that happy to PM with more fertile hunting grounds for startup funding.
Not personally interested, just curious. And wondering if ET reputation and trust are monetizable. If so it would explain some recent otherwise inexplicable behaviour (e.g. Xela and her sock-puppets).