Google raised like $24 million, and that was 10 years ago. And, um, they actually needed tons of machines for what they were doing, so they actually could put millions of dollars to use.
I think the key verbiage in the article is "and has done marketing campaigns for other companies like....."
If you write a great app then you wrote a great app and if you're lucky you might talk some funding source into paying or lending you $50k for it. If you hire a bunch of great marketing people and give them a crummy app they go out and get some funding source to fork out $35 million for some form of ownership right.
This fact of life has to be the greatest frustration there is in being an accomplished developer.
This is just ridiculous.
Enjoy the silliness while it lasts, I guess.