Yes, but the first members are driven with higher goals then just "Starting a business". A business person is driven with the intention of making money. If it were otherwise, they'd learn a trade/skill.
A cube created to make money is different from a cube created for bettering cubes or advancing cube making. Do you get my point? Your motivations are not high enough. What you claim is your intention is not what your actions say.
Because he's one of the of the most respected scholars in the field of Economics?
He's likely devoted thousands more hours than us pondering economic matters. I'm just looking through his wiki here... published hundreds of scholarly articles and 20 books. A professor of Economics at some of the best universities in the world. He's even received a Nobel Prize.
How can we fault someone for taking Paul Krugman seriously on economic matters?
Please explain exactly how he is wrong. The internet hasn't substantially changed the rate of growth nor the size of the economy. It also hasn't created any new transformative markets. It has simply made them more accessible. That's why the fax machine analogy is so apt.
Amazon is a storefront. Google is an ad service. Facebook is a glorified telegraph service. It doesn't matter how nifty their tech is. The only thing that matters in this context is what they do, and how that affects the overall economy.
The Beatles had Brian Epstein for example (aka The Fifth Beatle)