[LurkerAtTheGate]

Bingo. I, and others I've known, don't fit in California, so we bootstrapped somewhere with a low cost-of-living and fiber-to-the-home with a proper privacy agreement. Many don't have the goal of growth, but subsistence for the nerds - freed from the tyranny of MBAs, spend company and personal time on side projects unrelated to the Business.

Some have drawn the attention of the SV crowd - they sold, to YC grads or bigger corpos, and immediately bootstrapped again. The money is a Means only; We just want to solve puzzles and learn things.