Seven Entrepreneurs Who Bootstrapped Their Way To Success

Either the author doesn't understand bootstrapping, or I don't.

according to wikipedia, 'Bootstrapping ... a self-sustaining process that proceeds without external help'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping

I fail to see how either Twitter or YouTube fall under that classification. Both the companies needed outside investment to continue operating, and YouTube was not profitable when it was bought by Google. Therefore they were getting external funding. Twitter too has been taking external funding.

I don't believe that Napster was ever profitable.

I don't know about the other companies.

Twitter "bootstrapped"? WTF?

Edit: and YouTube? If you upvoted this you didn't read it OR you wrote it.

Yeah, and also PG on the list is weird. ViaWeb got $10,000 in investment (http://www.paulgraham.com/sfp.html). Not much, but that's still not a bootstrap.

meh, revisionist or ignorant on half of them