>VC money is a rounding error in the overall economy.

According to Wikipedia, it's no rounding error:

"11% of private sector jobs come from venture-backed companies and venture-backed revenue accounts for 21% of US GDP."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital

It's not a rounding error in the technology industry. Many startups would die within a year if VC funding dried up, which means thousands of talented programmers would be unemployed. Many others would survive, but would be forced to significantly curtail growth and have large layoffs. Any "growth now, revenue later" startups would be in serious trouble.

Salaries would go down (demand for programming jobs would outstrip supply) and there might even be a real estate crash in geographic areas heavily dominated by startups (e.g., Silicon Valley/San Francisco).