Following on from some of our recent work on entrepreneurship (here and here), I wrote a short opinion piece of sorts, making the argument that entrepreneurship is a terrible idea for most people, most of the time. The piece just came out in Contexts. You can see it here.

Leaving aside questions of what the entrepreneurship industry does or does not do, I maintain that while entrepreneurship is socially valuable in aggregate (because a few outlier firms do something that incumbent firms do not do), entrepreneurship is on average going to be a raw deal for most people. There are notable and important exceptions, for sure (e.g. for previously incarcerated individuals), but by and large becoming an entrepreneur is not a good career choice. Blanketly encouraging especially young people to ‘go for it’ and start a company is really not good advice.