Exactly. I'm not in a position to comment on the amount of funding in the early-stage startup world, but this particular comment by Parker reads like another executive whining that engineers are too independent.
Not just the independence aspect, but the hubris with which he complains about the most brilliant minds choosing to not work on, well, a social network site.
It's 2011; we are traversing inflection points of development in solar energy, nanotechnology, bioinformatics, and seeing the early, dramatic fruits of stem cell research, and Parker is bitching that the best of the best aren't keen on improving software that shares drunk photos and your latest opinion of Kim Kardashian's divorce?
I don't get comparing inventions to a company. Facebook is NOT all of social networking; the world would get on fine without Facebook. There's nothing important you can't do on Facebook that you (fundamentally) couldn't already do through email. That said, Facebook was the first social site to manage relationships well and scale well. But, as they say, "let's not start sucking each others dicks quite yet."
