Many Americans see entrepreneurs as the saviors of our day–the engines of economic growth and innovation in our communities, workplaces, and daily lives. We love reading stories about self-made founders, college dropouts who began their ventures out of garages, and rags-to-riches success stories. We’ve glorified entrepreneurship, and our policymakers often tout business owners as the heroes of our country.
I am not here to argue that entrepreneurship is inherently bad. New businesses do contribute to economic growth, and in turn, job creation. But today’s capital-raising culture has made starting a business look easy, even for those without a safety net to fall back on. This is a problem, especially for entrepreneurs who choose to jump into the game when they are 50 years old or older.
