> The business plan these days is try and get as much investment money

I know you're trying to be snarky, but this is itself a business plan and will impact how the company is operated.

> try to get acquired by Google before your runway runs out.

And on the user side, treat this outcome (company whose product you use being acquired by Google) the same as the company announcing it will go out of business within the next year, because Google will almost certainly shut the service down.

Exactly. The explicit plan for many/most tech startups is to raise VC money and get an exit before everything falls apart.

My last job was one of these. Everyone except the CEO and one designer quit. The money was drying up, CEO spent all his time chasing flashy big name customers who didn't want anything to do with us while ignoring customers begging to buy our product.