I have always understood 'bootstrapped' to mean self-financed by savings/profits. I.e. pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. Have VCs started co-opting that term as well now?
From what I've seen this this is not the attitude most boostrappers have.
Sure, sometimes you have bootstrapped companies that turn into VC-backed hypergrowth companies but there seems to be a shift away from "grow or die" for bootstrapped companies taking funding.
However, do not be surprised about co-opting. Co-opting by venture capitalists is normal. Many industries co-opt things as well, and redefine them to be mean something more “efficient”.
Example: The terms friend and like were co-opted by Facebook. Now people say friend me and “please like my stuff” as a throwaway statement. These terms used to mean something deep and genuine up to 15 years ago. That’s what capitalism does - cheapens things and commoditizes them. Often, that is useful but sometimes it cheapens things you used to value highly.
Semantically, I generally understand a person who says they "liked" a thing to mean the social media verb. Context also makes it pretty clear.