From what I've read, towards the very end of the last crash - a measurable number of "ivy" league school MBA's were leaving their mgmt consulting, investment banking offers to pursue startups. I believe when the most risk adverse, conformist, security of self focused individuals (which tend to seek MBAs) pursue startups - it is an indicator of the peak.
Peter Thiel had a few good things to say about this in Zero to One along the lines of what you wrote.
Perhaps it isn't so helpful to generalize here but,
a) New businesses that are built for non-digital processes and workflows are very inefficient. Not every new small business is going to gain a decisive strategic advantage in their market. Almost none will. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be teaching students business (value of the MBA another conversation.)
b) I'm not a VC but the returns for startups is something along the lines of lose 100% of the money, may be return the investor's capital, or post a great return. All the mechanics underlying what it takes to make it to 'great return' by itself limit the number of big winners. This isn't investing in apartment buildings, creating a new food franchise, or arbitraging bonds. Most likely the "me too" trend riders will end up in the lose 100% of the money box. That is unless we get leveraged start up investing. Then it could get quite interesting.
I like Nassim Taleb's extremistan analogy for this conversation.
