[经济广角]神童企业家的神话

The entrepreneur whiz kid myth
What does the average entrepreneur look like? A 40-year-old cubicle refugee.

By Ian Mount

(Fortune Small Business) -- Bill Gates. Steve Jobs. FedEx's (FDX, Fortune 500) Fred Smith. The image of the entrepreneur as whiz kid has serious currency in American business lore. But according to a new study from the Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City think tank that studies entrepreneurship, that image is a myth.

For "The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur," the foundation surveyed 549 company founders. Instead of a dorm-room genius, it found that the typical founder is middle-age -- 40, on average -- when launching a first company. Seventy percent of first-time founders are married; nearly 60% have at least one child.

They're also a study in class mobility: 59% come from lower-middle-class or blue-collar families, and almost half hold advanced degrees.

"The commonly held belief that entrepreneurs are young college students working out of their dorms is simply wrong," says study author Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University's Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization. "People typically come to a stage where they're tired of working for other people. They think, 'I'm 40 and I haven't made it big yet. This is my last chance.' That really spurs the entrepreneurial spirit."

Wadhwa knows from experience: Before entering academia, he founded a technology company -- at age 39.

神童企业家的神话

企业家通常是什么样的人？40岁的办公室逃兵。

作者：Ian Mount

(Fortune Small Business)——比尔•盖茨（Bill Gates）。史蒂夫•乔布斯（Steve Jobs）。联邦快递（FedEx）首席执行官弗里德•史密斯（Fred Smith）。这些曾为神童的企业家形象已经广为业界接受。但是，根据堪萨斯城的智囊团考夫曼基金会（the Kauffman Foundation）有关创业的最新研究，这个形象是虚构的。

在这项名为“企业家剖析”的研究中，考夫曼基金会调查了549名公司创始人。结果发现，大多数的企业家在开始创办第一家公司时都处于中年时期，平均年龄40岁，而不是人们印象中的天才学生。70%的企业家在创办第一家公司时都已经结婚，60%左右的人至少有一个孩子。

这项研究还调查了社会地位的流动性问题，结果显示：59%的人出身于中产阶级的下层或蓝领家庭，几乎一半的人拥有高等学历。

杜克大学（Duke University）创业和商业化研究中心的研究人员维维克•瓦德瓦（Vivek Wadhwa）说：“人们通常认为企业家是在大学寝室里工作的年轻学生，这种看法是错误的。人们经常到某个阶段后会厌倦为别人打工。他们开始想：‘我已40岁了，还没有什么大成就。这是我最后的机会了。’事实上，这种想法真正激发了企业家精神。”

瓦德瓦的人生经历也证是一个印证：他在进入学术界前，成立了一个科技公司——那时他39岁。