> If you are a great engineer, you are the capital!

It only seems that way because engineering is currently the most capital-heavy part of bringing a softwarebusiness to market. Once that ceases to be the case (which may take a while, but it's the future SG was gushing about) then as long as there is a single scarce or mutually-exclusive commodity necessary for success its price will ratchet upwards until it is out of reach for most engineers (after risk-adjustment).

Pertinent example: the implosion of the indie app dev market that's been all over HN this past week.