According to the venture capitalists and angels in Silicon Valley, the capital that is the life blood of our digital future, especially Web 2.0, has stopped flowing. Seems the business models of Web 2.0 were being questioned at the same time that Wall Street and the US Government screwed up our financial system big time.

Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch has written an obituary on Web 2.0. And posted Sequoia Capital’s 56 Slide Presentation Of Doom.

An obit was also carried on Om Malik’s blog GigaOm and in the LA Times. This was in an article in the Financial Times –

Many of the companies that emerged in the recent start-up boom will end up “spattered on windshields and radiator grills and be forgotten”, said Michael Moritz, a partner at Sequoia Capital and an early backer of Google and Yahoo.

And a bit of irony appears as layoffs are being reported first on blogs before companies have informed their employees. Some companies unfortunately are now forced to twitter first, layoff second, according to the New York Times.

If you want to keep track of the layoffs see the gloomy ‘Layoff Tracker’ at TechCrunch, and another Scorecard at CNET.

It’s a sad day. Especially when you realize that it didn’t have to happen.