Of course, in the old days, the hacker worked with integrated circuits that were made by a multi-million dollar fab that was funded by yuppie venture capital.
Still true today. Except the original capitalists in the case of the computer industry was the government, not VCs. Almost every major technology you use everyday in your computer originated with a government grant or program. Those HD LCD screens? They were originally developed for the Abrams XM-1 tank in the First Gulf War. Google was first funded by a DARPA grant. The Internet itself was a large DARPA project. The integrated circuit, you name it.
First world nations become that way by government-led expansion. The private sector comes along later to make a profit after the fact in almost every case.
