If you don't already read Paul Graham, you should. The Y Combinator founder's provocative and thought-provoking essays on innovation, capital and startups always strike a chord with me.

This week he notes that venture capitalists and startups may go their separate ways after the recession. He argues that it has gotten so cheap to create a startup (and get it to profitability) that many entrepreneurs are asking why bother with pesky investors. As always, Graham makes some great points. But I am not so sure the venture capital business will be going the way of the dinosaurs.

Graham writes:

"VCs and founders are like two components that used to be bolted together. Around 2000 the bolt was removed. Because the components have so far been subjected to the same forces, they still seem to be joined together, but really one is just resting on the other. A sharp impact would make them fly apart."

Graham certainly is on to something here, but his thesis primarily applies to Internet-based companies that can take advantage of open source technologies and cheap Web services.

What about some of the other big problems facing the country? Energy, health care, transportation?

Those types of industries typically require massive amounts of capital. And there's a good reason why you see venture capital firms migrating into those areas. With massive funds, the heavyweight venture firms of the past are too top heavy to mess around with $50,000, $100,000 or $200,000 bets on small Internet ideas.

But that leads into another thought I had after reading Graham's piece. If it is so cheap to build new Internet startups won't dozens -- maybe hundreds or thousands -- give it a try? (There certainly are going to be a number of laid off techies who start kicking around ideas in this climate.) And if that occurs, entrepreneurs will eventually turn to investment capital as a strategic advantage in order to outmaneuver competitors.

The slippery slope will start all over again.

We've seen this played out before. Dot coms from the late 90s raised massive amounts of funding -- not so much to fuel product efforts -- but to outrun rivals with similar ideas.

This mentality, while nowhere near what it was 10 years ago, still appears. Did Zillow.com and Trulia really need multi-million dollar venture rounds to build their online real estate plays? The answer is no. (And that's especially the case when competing bootstrapped startups such as Estately offer similar experiences.)

Did Big Fish Games, which is already established and profitable, really need that $83 million it just raised?

Entrepreneurs who are eager to change the world will always want to build something bigger and better. And venture capitalists, eager to make a buck, will be there to encourage them.

I don't see any reason why that won't continue after this economic meltdown runs its course.