It's always a good read when someone discusses what has gone wrong with the tech industry, and the author's comments about the past match with my recollections.

What happened to tech is straightforward, though: the iOS App Store in 2008. The subsequent 'gold rush' was a pivotal moment where Wall Street types (including college students) went into tech. There actually was a great article (Wired? WSJ?) I read about the phenomenon from circa 2010, as the shift was underway, but I've never been able to relocate it since.

It's not 'what happened to nerds' so much as 'what happened to tech that subordinated the nerd to the finance people' and the answer is 'the easy money'