The other thing companies are built on is employees being able to create more value within the company than outside of it. Every single employee has the option of quitting and founding their own business. Several do. Many take a pay cut to exercise this right.
This is a crucially important point. The question becomes: to what extent does the accumulation of capital, expertise, equipment in a corporation render a software engineer able to produce more value than working on their own, or in a partnership, or other arrangement?
I would imagine this varies dramatically by industry. I know several of the biosciences, for example, do require a lot of specialized people, equipment and tons of cash... Many of the areas we're seeing disrupted by startups are areas where you'd hit diminishing returns (from, say, more equipment / capital) rather quickly.
