

The Illusions of Entrepreneurship - PaulHoule
http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300113310

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gte910h
Excellent book, however the Yale site is only referring to a specific version,
this very good book is anything but out of print:

(Non-aff link): [http://www.amazon.com/The-Illusions-of-Entrepreneurship-
eboo...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Illusions-of-Entrepreneurship-
ebook/dp/B003AYZBXE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-
text&qid=1301071564&sr=8-3)

I particularly like the sections why people start their businesses (usually
because they can't/don't like to work well with people above them), and what
age most people are when they start them (in their 40s) and succeed.

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cal5k
This Kindle book is... not available for customers from Canada??!!

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gamble
It's articles like this that make me wish desktop browsers supported phone-
style multitouch zoom.

Tiny type, off-center, in a fixed column that takes up 1/4 of my browser
window... ugh.

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Jebdm
Try Readability (<http://www.readability.com>), though it actually failed on
this article.

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astrofinch
I spent an hour or so selectively reading this book. If you're doing a
software startup, it's not that valuable reading. The essential premise is
that there are a lot of "entrepreneurs" who start businesses like restaurants
and repair garages and fail. They're self-selecting to a certain extent--these
"entrepreneurs" are more likely to have smoked marijuana, more likely to have
lost their job, tend not to deal well with having a boss, etc. The author even
explicitly says something along the lines of "if a guy in his thirties quits
his job at Microsoft to start a software startup, there is a substantial
chance he will create significant wealth for society and therefore we should
encourage this".

I guess you _could_ read it if you're doing a software startup as a morale
boost.

If you want to start a different kind of company and you haven't chosen an
industry yet, this book could give you a good idea of what industry to pick.
(Software isn't the only fertile one.)

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morganwarstler
Largely unimpressed with Scott Shane's take on things. He seems to bastardize
the work of Paul Reynolds.

We need a tax policy that rewards a certain kind of entrepreneurs - what we
have now is a disincentive.

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systemtrigger
Shane's conclusions regarding public policy run counter to most of what I have
read. He says:

"We need to reduce the incentives for marginal entrepreneurs to start
businesses by reducing the...tax benefits that encourage more and more people
to start businesses. Because the average existing new firm is more productive
than the average new firm, we would be better off economically if we
eliminated policies that encourage people to start businesses instead of
taking jobs working for others."

One of his premises from earlier in the book is that most startups in which
barriers to entry are low are colossal wastes of time. This may be valid but
it does not follow that GDP would improve if we made companies even harder to
start.

Notes from the book: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17455578/hn/illusions-
notes.html>

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gte910h
That's not his premise.

He's saying 1 new worker added to a firm that already exists is more
productive and causes more economic output than 1 new worker added to a random
new business that wouldn't exist without the government benefits for them.

He's not saying they're a colossal waste of time, merely incentivising new
hires in established firms will create more output than making new firms. He's
just saying what the data is saying.

"Opening an Applebees is better than making a random restaurant with your own
brand and corporate structure is more likely to create more economic
activity".

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focusaurus
Anyone got a cache? It's throwing an error that the record has been deleted.

