Yes. Once you're in such a comfortable position that you'll keep making lots of cash regardless of whether you do well or not, there is little incentive to make good decisions, let alone take risks. This is known as the "curse of Oil" and is also what Intel's decline is attributed to.

Sudden availability of capital and the perceived need to be seen doing something with it can be a curse. WeWork comes to mind, eg. Stay lean and mean until you actually need the capital. A company like DeepSeek will have zero issues raising anytime.

Yep. Classic “giant series A, company gets amazing office space” vibes.

> I shouldn't win too hard, because then I'll lose?

Yes. It's a known thing.

Raising more money ≠ winning harder.

“Raising cash” isn’t necessarily “winning” since you have to give up equity/control, usually.

Problem of the local maxim, extreme dependency is the same as evolutionary pressure to specialize for it, eventually the process owns you.