And thinking that megacorps are in any meaningful way different than your last underdog startup darling is another level of copium.

Sure. But a startup could, in theory end up profitable and self-sufficient without a public offering. It's not impossible.

Startups are about making money, take they capital with a promise of making more capital, and the logic of capital is uniform, no matter where it comes from. It always, without exception, will end up the same, with the only difference how much time it will take.

It really depends on what kind of investment they took. Venture is probably worse than going public with the desire to moonshot. A loan is pretty harmless, since they want you to repay a fixed amount with as much stability as possible.

That's why I said in theory. Consider that at some point Valve was a startup.