Yes, but the author is using "bootstrapped" in the past tense. i.e. a founder who was bootstrapped but might be willing to take money that didn't have a ton of strings and a set of "okay, now roll the dice on rocket growth with a do or die deadline" marching orders attached.

> "okay, now roll the dice on rocket growth with a do or die deadline"

From what I've seen this this is not the attitude most boostrappers have.

Sure, sometimes you have bootstrapped companies that turn into VC-backed hypergrowth companies but there seems to be a shift away from "grow or die" for bootstrapped companies taking funding.

that's pretty much what the comment above is saying. Bootstrapped founders may take money, if they aren't told "you need rocket growth now"

Ahh yeah I misread the comment.

I believe the point here is they didn’t want to fund companies that had taken any VC money yet, not necessarily that they wouldn’t ever.

No, Indie really meant it. I think. Wanted to fund the founders who were bootstrapped until that point.

However, do not be surprised about co-opting. Co-opting by venture capitalists is normal. Many industries co-opt things as well, and redefine them to be mean something more “efficient”.

Example: The terms friend and like were co-opted by Facebook. Now people say friend me and “please like my stuff” as a throwaway statement. These terms used to mean something deep and genuine up to 15 years ago. That’s what capitalism does - cheapens things and commoditizes them. Often, that is useful but sometimes it cheapens things you used to value highly.

Eh...Facebook's use the word "friend" as a verb has not eroded my deep and meaningful sense of the word as a noun. It's just another use which has been added to our cultural context. It's up to you to let it change your perspective on friendship.

And what of liking things?

For me, functions dual use, though grammatically both are similar enough that it operates significantly via context.

I don't know...what of it? I still like people, I still like things. Thumb and heart icons on social media haven't changed how or what I like.

Semantically, I generally understand a person who says they "liked" a thing to mean the social media verb. Context also makes it pretty clear.