I'm speaking from my personal of running Hackers and Founders Silicon Valley. We have 2000 members, and we get together for beer/networking every 2 weeks. It started with me and a few other hackers getting together in a bar every couple of weeks to talk about startups and give each other advice.

The startup culture and community that I'm around is that of freely sharing business knowledge and helping each other succeed. That's what I'm referring to.

I have made a conscious choice to network, be helpful and ask for advice when it's available an appropriate. Because of that, I've gotten advice over coffe/beer from Joel Spolsky, pg, any number of YC founders, Andy Bechtolsheim, Ben Horowitz, the former CEO of Alta Vista, etc...

Business knowledge, connections and advice _are_ cheap if you put in the time and make the effort. Paying $1000 for 8 hours of business advice seem like a poor business decision to me.

But, then I have a profoundly different belief about how startups can, do and should help each other out.