As silly as it is, taking VC money gives you that in a way that is much harder to achieve with actual tangible success. You might be killing it with your product but carefully explaining your company metrics to someone over dinner is seldom more impactful than saying you took $10M from Andreeson-Horrowitz.
This is not entirely unreasonable as most people realise they are unable to judge the success or otherwise of early stage companies (even VCs struggle). Telling someone you were invested in by a great VC tells them that someone who knows their stuff things you're great. It's a marquee endorsement.
If you'd asked me whether I wanted the status I'd have always said yes. At the same time though I never acknowledged it in my life-calculations. I always wondered why I gambled on a big outcome when I knew a smaller outcome would (financially speaking) make me very, very happy. I doubt there are many people who can point to the happiness bump from the second $30M.
Acknowledging that recognition was one of my goals made it all of a sudden easier to rationalise decisions that, while optimal for my investors were actually totally sub-optimal for my personal financial utility. One of those decisions may well be having investors in the first place.