>Longtime listeners of our podcast will know that we didn’t want to go fully into the world of venture-funded startups, since we believed that would create incentives that might steer us away from these ideals and core mission.

I don't listen to the podcast, but it sounds like they did end up taking the VC money, and that crashed the business?

You can pretend you only have "one foot in" all you want, but once you take money you are no longer bootstrapped, and no longer in charge. Unfortunately.