This sounds suspiciously like the mid 1990's when everyone was bemoaning how the big software companies had basically ended the at home software startup shop. Then the web struck and all these big companies had to get nimble enough to complete with the scrappy little web shops. This basically happened again the mid 2000s with smartphone development.

I'm not sure if the machine learning revolution will favor the guy at home with a GTX 1080, but until we go for a decade or more without any big hardware/software companies starting up then I will believe it.

OTOH, I suspect that the US as lost the competitive advantage to china in this regard. The "IOT" revolution probably isn't going to start in the US since all the little board dev shops are in china where you can actually purchase all the little parts you need without having to wait 6 weeks for a part or pay 10x in shipping.