[jjk166]

There's a wide gulf between "only a few people with the right skills and personal connections can bootstrap a space company" and "none of them could have been bootstrapped without years of unprofitable R&D on the public's dime"

[p_l]

The missing bits is that they bootstrapped after a lot of heavy lifting was done on public dime, and then landed a crucial bunch of govt contracts way before first succesful draco launch, the same kind of contracts that the previous private contractors also take.