America’s Startup Scene Is Looking Anemic
Fewer people are taking the entrepreneurial plunge. That’s not a good sign.
That was then.
Photographer: Eric Sander/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesWhy aren’t people starting more startups? That might seem like a weird question to ask, in an age when Silicon Valley ventures are hot commodities and money and talent is flooding into machine learning companies. But in fact, Americans don’t start businesses like they used to:
Some of this decline has come from the decline of small businesses. When national chains like Walmart Inc. and Target Corp. can come to town and muscle out the competition, there’s not much point in opening a mom-and-pop shop. Online retailers like Amazon.com Inc. just compound the effect. Research indicates that this has been responsible for much of the overall decline in entrepreneurship.