It's somehow the prisoner dilemma applied to startups. I've raised ~30M$ as a founder in my past startup. For my next adventure, I'd love to bootstrap (with personal savings from my last exit). But here is the (prisoner) dilemma: if I start something that needs to be profitable and my competitor(s) are also bootstrapped businesses that needs to be profitable, game on. If my competitor is a VC-backed startup, I might be in serious trouble. So either I find an industry VC won't touch (porn?) or the prisoner-dilemma for startups is hanging over my head.