This post sounds like a lot of hindsight bias and confirmation bias. There are companies that raised money and went on to become Google and Facebook, too. Namely, Google and Facebook.
For some businesses, it is not possible to create value until you have a large amount of capital in-hand (e.g., Aerospace, Automobiles) but for most it is and we shouldn't lose sight of that. People solve problems, not money; and it is unlikely that a large pile of cash will be the solution to your problems if you don't first start with a good business model.
And therein lies the big risk-reward decision as an entrepreneur. I think that decision rests most heavily on whether you've got product-market fit or it's very clear to you that this is a land-grab opportunity, and you must move quickly.
Either way, funding should always be looked at as a huge accelerator. Sometimes you could start off slowly, then once the model's figured out and growth necessitates it, pull out the big guns with lots of funding to scale up (e.g. Facebook, Github, Zynga), or you make a really high risk-reward bet from the get-go like Amazon did (then again, that was also during the 90s, and it was smart since it filled a huge hole and everyone was moving fast towards dominating the internet space).
Very different environment today... I think we're going to see more and more Github scenarios in this recession. And a lot of bloodshed for startup founders trying the Amazon model today.
The money line in his post: "The reality is that for most businesses, they don’t need more cash, they need more brains."
> My businesses have had hundreds and now more than a thousand employees. My world has been limited to starting, building, growing and running businesses that are never going to make the Fortune 500. My dreams were never to build the biggest corporation in the world.