I think the author may be taking a misleading lesson away from these shows, because the businesses they focus on -- restaurants and bars, for instance -- are the sort of businesses people (mistakenly) think are glamorous and exciting, so they attract lots of clueless people. Many people daydream about quitting their job and owning a restaurant, mostly because they don't understand what owning a restaurant entails. They think instead that they have fun in restaurants, so running one would be even more fun; or that they like to cook for their family, so they'd like cooking on demand under time pressure for large numbers of strangers even more; and so on. They don't know what they're getting into until they've sunk their life savings into it.
It's a mistake, though, to assume that because these types of businesses attract dilettantes, that all types of businesses attract dilettantes. Once you get away from the "glamor" businesses, that happens much less. Nobody dreams of quitting their job and starting a waste management company; not unless they really care about waste management, at least. So it's not really a safe assumption that the ranks of small businesspeople are uniformly populated with flighty dilettantes.
"Why would anyone who has worked hard, saved money, often been successful in other fields, want to pump their hard-earned cash down a hole that statistically, at least, will almost surely prove dry? ... The easy answer, of course, is ego. The classic example is the retired dentist who was always told he threw a great dinner party. 'You should open a restaurant,' his friends tell him. And our dentist believes them. He wants to get in the business-not to make money, not really, but to swan about the dining room signing dinner checks like Rick in Casablanca. And he'll have plenty of chance to sign dinner checks-when the deadbeat friends who told him what a success he'd be in the restaurant business keep coming by looking for freebies. All these original geniuses will be more than happy to clog up the bar, sucking down free drinks, taking credit for this bold venture-until the place starts running into trouble, at which point they dematerialize, shaking their heads at their foolish dentist who just didn't seem up to the job."
Although I also think the producers of these shows screen for volatile applicants and then stoke the egos of those same people so there's a fight ready to happen when Ramsey walks in the door.
I think I can state with a high degree of confidence that the blog author was neither assuming nor suggesting that "the ranks of small businesspeople are uniformly populated with flighty dilettantes." Seems like a strawman critique of the article, although your larger points are very true (viz. "glamorous" businesses, motivations, etc).
It's a mistake, though, to assume that because these types of businesses attract dilettantes, that all types of businesses attract dilettantes. Once you get away from the "glamor" businesses, that happens much less. Nobody dreams of quitting their job and starting a waste management company; not unless they really care about waste management, at least. So it's not really a safe assumption that the ranks of small businesspeople are uniformly populated with flighty dilettantes.