This is an unpopular sentiment around here, but needs to be said more. You're still a child playing with other people's money until you're actually self sufficient.

In some cases this lack of maturity is particularly striking.

Eh, I think that's taking it a bit too far.

I think it's far to say you don't have a sustainable business model yet if you're dependent on future investment.

Yes yes, clearly there are points in time where there is a real entity that exists as a company. But in the context of "can I lose all this?" where you are a founder building something, you don't just not have control, you don't have anything when you are dependent on future investment.

I would argue that _every_ company needs to be worried about the question "can I lose all this?"

Even a company that is fully owned, with a sustainable and profitable business model, needs to ask the question "can I lose all this?" every day.

If the metric for "you don't have a real company" is you could potentially lose it, then nobody has a real company.