"I'm talking about more intangible assets like skills, reputation, relationships, attention & fame."

When you separate reputation from attention & fame is there any real value there, at least in the context of startups? I get reputation as it relates to something like stackoverflow, but the attention & fame may not be as great an asset as the author seems to think. When I think of fame & attention without reputation I think of Lindsay Lohan and the cast of Jersey Shore. He could be talking about attention & fame like that that color.com received with their $41 million in funding but that is an extreme outlier and a lot of the community views it more as infamy.