Of course there are influential parties in the Valley, but that still doesn't make it one thing. What the OC seems to have reacted against was the reification[1] of the industry into a single thing. Of course you can influence an industry, but the key to understanding what that means lies in the the "fluid" part of "influence." The whole thing is a dynamic, swirling mass of people and groups constantly interacting with and reacting to one another. An industry isn't really a thing so much as it is a convenient way for us to refer (somewhat nebulously) to a collection of companies that operate in certain fields.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)