I remember ads in Video Game magazine claiming you could get free video games. You would actually pay by dialing 1 Hour or so on a very expensive service.
I guess the first question you want to answer, is to define which kind of company you want to build ?
As a founder, as you say, you want to optimize the impact of your company.
I am not sure what you mean by traditional companies, but startups are not about maximizing profit. At least not in the short term.
VCs are looking at maximizing their returns on investement when the company exits, not based on dividends.
If you don't want create a startup, but what I would call a traditional company, ie not looking for hypergrowth, but that your company is profitable, then lots of people are probably willing to invest in it.