There is plenty of disruption in the small business loan space, including billion dollar valuations (one went public in December). They're just not from SV.
Kind of weird to have an article about alternative lending and big data, and not mention Lending Club? The are the biggest player in the space by far and IPOed only last month...
All I know about Facebook as a direct marketer - we went from spending $3000 a month in June to $400,000 this month alone for one client because the CPA is there (not LTV, just first purchase).
When I was in college, and my wife and I were in hard times, we had a $10,000 credit line that we ran up to full and I've been slowly paying down. I currently pay around $70 a month in interest on it - and it was so worth it. It's so cheap now that I don't even register it as an expense today, but the value of the money was 100x to me then when I was struggling so much.
Seems like step 1 is to become a thought leader in a field respected by all, and then parley that respect into a cushy job at a big company. Sounds ideal once one gets there!
Probably the best way is to look a list of sinecure's (thanks for the word, by the way!) and work backwards from their work history.