[jonnathanson]

Even beyond this core point (not everyone is cut out for entrpreneurship) lies a more important point: society doesn't need everyone to be an entrepreneur. If we assume that there are roughly 150 million Americans in the workforce, we're not better off with 150 million startups than we are with, say, 1 million startups and 149 million workers. We're not even better off with a substantially larger ratio of small to large businesses than what we have today. An economy too fragmented among millions and millions of small businesses is inherently inefficient and internationally uncompetitive.

We need startups, and we need entrepreneurs, but the idea that everyone's an entrepreneur is an unproductive fantasy. We need to be empowering those cut out for entrepreneurship to succeed -- but we shouldn't be courting widespread economic inefficiency by encouraging or, even subsidizing, everyone to chase pipedreams.

[wpietri]

I agree that not everybody needs to be an entrepreneur, but I think you vastly overstate your point.

Small businesses can be inefficient, but so can large companies. Indeed, because large companies are larger, so are their opportunities for waste. Worse, large companies are much more insulated from market forces, allowing them to be wasteful for much longer. And it's literally impossible for anybody to understand what a large company is doing, making it very hard to pursue systemic efficiency.

The real efficiency wins may be somewhere in the middle. Consider the German Mittelstand, a major engine in Germany's economy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand

But to get those companies, you have to have a lot of small ones. Everyone might not be an entrepreneur, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't encourage people to try if they feel called. (Not subsidize; encourage.) Worst case is that they learn something about themselves and about business, and those are lessons anybody can use.

[ams6110]

No worries, most people don't want to be entrepreneurs.

[billpatrianakos]

You said a lot with very few words. There are entrepreneurs and what people think an entrepreneur is. Most people do want to be entrepreneurs except they want to be the second, unrealistic kind. You know, the kind that makes their own hours, works in their pajamas, does a lot of delegating but not much real work, and takes a lot of vacations on Yachts in the Pacific. People want to do that. Everyone wants to do that.

Too bad most who try will find out that real entrepreneurship isn't all Yachts, caviar, and a totally flexible schedule. It's harder than being an employee, especially at first.

[wpietri]

Yep! The family saying is that the freedom of entrepreneurship is that you can work any 70 hours a week you want.

[srconstantin]

I'm not sure that it would be bad if the average size/age of businesses decreased. It seems to me that in larger businesses, while you do get advantages of scale, you also have problems related to size (bureaucracy, knowledge problems, etc.)