The company ought to be swimming in cash from taking a cut of every auction it runs, right? Nope, according to the New York Times:

eBay had $3.19 billion in cash at the end of last year, but $2.8 billion of that money is overseas and would be subject to repatriation taxes if the company were to invest it in its ailing United States e-commerce marketplace, according to analysts.

Luckily, it's found some eager buyers: The founders of the startups it enriched through purchases. Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith (right) have just bought back StumbleUpon, a social-news startup it bought for $75 million two years ago, with the help of some venture capitalists. Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, the founders of Skype, are hoping to buy Skype for considerably less than the $3.1 billion price eBay paid for the company in 2005.

$390 million in the kitty isn't exactly bankrupt. But it's hardly enough to fund eBay's efforts to fix its U.S. marketplace and efforts to expand into consumer credit with Bill Me Later, an online-lending startup it bought last year.

Silicon Valley venture capitalists and entrepreneurs like to think they're putting their resources behind innovation. But what are they doing here? Funding middle America's shopping habits.

(Photo of Zennstrom and Friis via Joost)

Sabala, who started at Digg on February 6 as community manager and marketing director, is a SXSW veteran. (You can tell because she calls it "South By.") She was set on the idea of a party at the festival, but by Friday, she and the rest of Digg had decided it was a nonstarter. The next Monday, though, she gave it another try. A call to a Napa winery landed a sponsor for wine. A call to a contact at PureVolume secured the club for Tuesday night. With that, Sabala had a party that bridged SXSW Interactive's last day and the SXSW Music's first.

A few blocks away at Six Lounge, Revision3 was also bridging music and the Web, with a live debut of "Rock Band," Randi Jayne Zuckerberg and David Prager's homage to the guitar-wielding videogame at a party hosted by Rana Sobhany. Kevin Rose ruled Austin last night — he also cofounded Revision3.

Prager, Revision3's COO, told me Monday about the times he'd put money from his own bank account into Revision3's coffers to make sure it made payroll. Those lean days are long past for both of Rose's companies. Even as the stock markets waiver, Web startups seem flusher than ever. A Microsoft ad deal has buoyed Digg; the online-video boom is taking care of Revision3's paychecks.

Are we going to see this kind of party scene at next year's SXSW? Let's be clear: SXSW was a good time, not a boundless bacchanal. Nothing smacked of excess: A mild dose of star power is enough to intoxicate the deskbound Web designers who attend the festival. But I noticed that no one talked about the stock market once the whole week. SXSW was a comfortable bubble. As the Webheads fly back home, will they even feel it popping?