Isn’t that sort of like saying most humans die because their heart stops beating?

In a way.

But many startups run out of cash while still growing. It's more like dying from exhaustion while running faster and faster, not a frequent outcome.

And running faster and faster or dying is your job if you are raising money from institutional VCs in the first place.

It's more like saying most men who die in their 20's die due to excessive risk taking.

Alternately, one could translate that instead to mean the number one reason is unsustainable over-scaling too early is what causes failures, not the lack of cash.

>Recall the number one reason startups fail is they run out of cash.

Is it that or is it because a lot of start ups always want to "grow" at all cost? It is be possible to have a small-medium scale business and organically growing it out, but obviously if you take investor money, they want max return in shortest amount of time possible.

The VC curse: five funded startups becoming modestly profitable cannot compensate for five failures, but one stellar hypersuccess can compensate for nine duds and more.

You mean because they failed to create a profitable business surely?

Nope. I am talking about a startup capable of hypergrowth. These do not need to build profitable businesses to exit and they can and do run out of cash.

...because funders turn off the spigot.