It's unfortunate that Eric chose to label his philosophy "Lean" because it's become synonymous with "bootstrapped". Lean doesn't mean cheap it means efficient through validation of a business model before scaling.
From my knowledge, PayPal followed some what of a lean approach. Their initial product was about sending money between palm devices. When they tested it and figured out that no one would use it, they just pivoted to online money transaction, which more people found useful. That's when they started to scale.
Now that sounds pretty lean to me.