Is the start up surge a result of that?
Yes it is. Ventures used starts up to flip their money. They mostly forced CEO to fully focusing in how to maximize their shares value instead to care more about how to ensure their product get market demand. Starts up built something in order just to increase company shares value to provide exit liq for the ventures. Meanwhile, their product have not enough demand who will pay for it. In the end, it makes start up can't survive.
Does this also applies for startups made by individuals who have no great support from any bodies? We all know about startup investors who are full time busy looking for good projects that are with good potentials to reach a certain level of success. They finance multiple projects despite they expect more than 90% won't be that successful. But the know if just one of those startups booms, it will cover all the loss expenses for the failed projects. This model is working well and startup entrepreneus without financial support rely on those investors.