More companies should disavow growth and aim to be stable cash generating entities. Dropbox is a utility. Unfortunately VCs don't like this.
If they're growing revenues at a slow pace – or have a low profit margin – it's more like looking in through an opaque window at bankers doing less with your money than other bankers could. You'd much rather withdraw that money and invest it nextdoor.
Also worth noting that "no rush to IPO" is not the same as "never IPO". As a VC, you're investing with the understanding that an exit is many, many years away (if it ever comes at all), on the hope that this longer time horizon gives founders the flexibility to do crazy unicorn stuff. I can imagine a CEO telling the VCs "hey, we're going to wait an extra 5 years to IPO, but that's because we want to do crazy 10x return stuff that's difficult to pull off as a public company because of required SEC filings, activist shareholders, etc.".
Meanwhile, thousands of smaller tech companies and services exist for decades and reliably serve their customers and make money.
Googles incompetence to stick with a product, not a tech demo.
VCs give money to risky companies so that they can aim for very high growth. If the growth expectations aren't 50% per year or higher, the VCs won't invest. Some won't invest if they don't see an option for getting 100x on the other end. They do this having promised their investors to liquidate the fund after a fixed amount of years, usually 7-10. Everyone knows this going in.
It's both bold and responsible to bootstrap and not require VC funding. Just don't take VC money.
It's ok to hold off a year. It's not ok to say, "We're at a mature size, you can wait all you want."
I think there's sense in the middle. VC funding is expensive. Use it to finance rapid growth across orders of magnitude. If you can't or don't want to grow like that, find a more appropriate funding source.
I am visiting my Dad and we were just talking about bootstrapping vs. venture funded startups this morning. He pays to go to the MIT club's startup talks in San Diego, and really enjoys the presentations (he is in his 90s, and likes to hear what people are working on).