The company had growing revenue, but it wasn't clear from the article the company had already become profitable. So most likely they were still burning through their VC investment and so keeping costs low is the responsible thing to do.

People also tend to have very different views on what a starvation budget is. Some people will assume a starvation budget is $10.000/yr, others will assume it's $50.000.

So we don't really have the information needed to draw any conclusion.

A starvation budget is different for different people. If you have a mortgage, for instance, or Silicon Valley rent, it makes a huge difference in how much you have to make before you can even afford ramen :-)

That would all be spelled out in whatever contracts came along with the influx of VC capital, wouldn't it?

The whole point of a contract is to get down in writing the agreement between parties as to how things will be handled.

If you expect,as the founder, to be able to take profits a certain way at a certain time... put it in writing. It won't happen magically.