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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Yes, restaurants et al are terrible industries to startup in compared with high-tech, see Scott Shane's work for an overview.

The narrowing to only analyzing VC-funded firms therefore greatly skews the sample. VC-funded firms are primarily in favorable industries, and furthermore I believe entrepreneurs in favorable industries that are not VC-funded are more likely to fail.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

If money wise on average an entrepreneur breaks even with less adventuresome folks then it seems there is nothing to lose and much to win. It has been said that the path of the start up is like compressing all the effort of an entire career as an employee into a mere three years in the hopes of gaining all that income much sooner.

But actually I think this piece misses the point. To me being an entrepreneur is about having a "fire in the belly", having something inside that one fervently wishes to see born into the world and that can only be born through business. Sometimes it is possible to bring one of these to life as an employee, but not so often. Then the choice is whether to give birth to this thing inside or not. Making a lot of money is secondary.

Besides, it is a lot more intense.

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