Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know that languages evolve naturally, and words get repurposed all the time, but hustler ? Really? . hustler n 1: a prostitute who attracts customers by walking the streets 2: a shrewd or __unscrupulous__ person who knows how to circumvent difficulties It also happens to be the title of a porn magazine that would make Hugh Hefner blush, while you won't often hear the term 'hustler' used in reference to a female pro…
You're missing one definition: an aggressively enterprising person; a go-getter I think it depends on audience, but I hear this quite often in these circles.
If a locally repurposed word like hustler has a very strong meaning outside your circles, chances are good that when you start talking about hustling in relation to business, a fair number of people are going to think swindler or worse.
It seems that a number of people like to use it as a self-description because it does have negative, edgy traits -- in the same sense of 'ninja'. Unlike 'ninja', however, 'hustler' can easily lie a bit too close to the truth.