[madamelic]

>the ones with business models that can both be executed on and monetized profitably to > $100MM revenue/yr can probably be counted on two hands (e.g. GitHub, Plenty Of Fish, Braintree, GoPro).

If you or even a small handful of people own 100% of a company, you don't need $100MM ARR to get rich beyond need.

You won't become Bezos but bootstrapped companies don't need to become unicorns to make everyone there be filthy rich. There are tons of people who bootstrapped companies and are very well-off from it.

[graycat]

On every major body of water in or on the boundary of the US, there are yachts. The yacht owners are overwhelming full or part owners of a successful business. Except maybe for near San Francisco or Boston, nearly none of the owners took venture capital.

Lesson: The people in the US quite comfortable financially rarely took venture capital.