I don’t consider VC funded companies as startups. If you have to answer to a board to stay alive due to needing that next round of financing, you are no longer in control of your own company and simply work for someone else with a fancy title and some extra steps. We call those folks CEOs.

It’s been weird watching the term morph into what it is today over the past 25 years. So much for hacking on a startup in your garage with friends after collecting enough money from friends and family to bootstrap yourself. Once you are taking millions of dollars from investors while being valued in the billions you are simply a boring old corporate enterprise to me. And that doesn’t even get into the absurdity of 10 year old “startups” with hundreds of employees.

I think the term loses all meaning when you are talking about established companies with HR departments.