One must not be an MBA/smooth talker to be neck-deep in SV politics. Here are some companies he was probably referring to (or would be if he studied them closely): Path, Color Labs, Quora, Asana, Airtime and Foursquare.

I'd cry if two of those services went away but I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge they are cogs in the machine this article was describing.

TechCrunch is the elephant in the room. Basically any startup that is successful at getting frequent TC coverage could be accused of playing the politics game. However whether they are using TC to reinforce their safety net or using it grow their company (or both) is open to interpretation.