Let's say it's boom times and money is cheap and plentiful and there are a stable of eager acquirers looks for companies to buy. Why not grow fast in that case?

Let's say it's boom times and money is cheap and plentiful and there are a stable of eager acquirers looks for companies to buy. Why not grow fast in that case? It didn't seem like it hurt the guys who started YouTube. And there are more examples where that came from. Then, when the economy slows, cut back. Seems like a good approach to me. A lot of the innovations we take for granted today are the result of people with big dreams and no clear path to profitability. If we didn't have big dreamers and investors to fund them based on... gasp... a leap of faith, then the web would probably consist of nothing more than simple project management services, enterprise chat services, and single page editors. "If you had to keep borrowing to stay afloat, were those good times?" I know the good people at 37s understand what venture investment is, but they keep trying to prove that they don't. If you're taking money from Sequoia, you're not borrowing money, you're exchanging money for ownership.