There's a frozen yogurt chain here that nobody buys from. But they take forever to close down. One of the conditions to opening a store is having years of warchest. Most don't close because of ego; they stay lean forever.

A company that raises millions or billions? With tech, you can just fire everyone, shut down almost every server, and still keep running. Maybe that's what a lot of them are doing now. Some have laid off almost everyone but the people who know which server to shut down.

Well, my experience is the opposite - the scheme you describe works if you get one lump sum upfront. But what normally happens is that investors are more careful and will gladly give you more money each year provided that you fullfill certain conditions (growth!). Sure, you can miss the mark a few times, but you have to at least pretend you are doing something - and firing everybody except the senior devops lead probably won't cut it.