tsally, I'm don't see how 10:31 and 10:35 correlate. Starting a business has very little to do with being intellectually curious. Relevance, added value, business savvy, determination, good idea plus excellent execution, etc... all apply to starting a business. Intellectual curiosity in a startup, hm... certainly makes for a better office environment, but necessary for success?
You can live an intellectually curious life anywhere with a decent library and enough time to pursue it. It helps, but isn't necessary, to have others around who are pursuing it too. It's why almost all the early scientists were from families of rich people. They had the free time to pursue their curiosity. If a grad school is willing to pay you to have the free time to do that, it's a good place for it. It's what you make of it (as others have said).
Now, on Vally startups. Very little software today will change the world; in fact, most is just incremental improvements, and all will fall by the wayside. We have no idea what the internet/computers will be like in the future, but I guarantee you it won't have a trace of web 2.0 left (except for the designers who then decide to go "web 2.0 retro").
The great thing about being intellectually curious is being able to look toward the future and bring something from there to the present.
My prediction? HTML, CSS, Django etc... are temporary placeholders for what the web will be. Things like neural computation, quantum computing, etc... will be game changers. Such things will first find a niche application, but then someone will bring them to the broader world and it will change.
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?"