If Arrington is right and the group @ dinner funds "nearly 100% of early stage startup deals" and your dinner club discussed how "they can act as a group to reduce those valuations." then you are colluding to fix prices. As you said, it's hard to avoid being a dick, but I'm not any more convinced it was innocent just because you say motherfucker as much as I do. Arringotn is leveling a serious charge here, I think it's probably not helpful to your case to respond with "hey, it's capitalism!"