The American Entrepreneur: Building and Scaling Businesses highlights how entrepreneurialism has come to define business in America. Through vibrant narrative and economic analysis, this book highlights entrepreneurs from every background.
No matter your definition, we live in an entrepreneurial era. New businesses are flourishing while small-business owners enjoy newfound respect in society.
The Founders
The American Entrepreneur is an engaging account of those who have built and expanded businesses in America, combining vibrant narrative with economic analysis. It covers how American companies have expanded and their global impact.
Schweikart and Doti explore America’s vibrant entrepreneurial history, from early pioneers who established trade with Native Americans to entrepreneurs who established banks, railroads, and transportation systems. Schweikart and Doti detail how mass production accelerated during the Civil War due to entrepreneurs as well as how large corporations emerged and developed consumer markets.
This book details how the United States government plays an integral part in encouraging entrepreneurship by reducing bureaucratic hurdles and cultivating an environment conducive to business, while its strong international connections allow US startups to access global markets with relative ease. Its history boasts some highly successful natural-born and immigrant entrepreneurs such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs Bill Gates and Larry Page who have all made great strides forward as entrepreneurs.
The Early Years
From Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, to many others, the United States remains one of the most dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystems. Its economic dynamism, robust economy, diverse workforce, favorable government policies, culture of innovation and global influence attract entrepreneurs from around the globe who wish to start businesses here.
Entrepreneurship has long been part of American culture. Following Joseph Schumpeter’s ideas about how new techniques and combinations drive economic expansion, academics, politicians, and business associations embraced his belief that starting your own firm was widely possible and an engine for economic success in the future.
Entrepreneurs typically take great risks to realize their vision. From its inception, entrepreneurs work tirelessly and sacrifice personal comfort in order to grow their companies and spur on job creation – according to research they are even less susceptible to economic downturns! Entrepreneurs have helped make America great; we must support and honor their success stories!
The Boom Years
In the early 1980s, entrepreneurship experienced a boom as universities and colleges across America paid unprecedented attention to teaching it. The new ideal spurred a movement within big business, giving it new life while inspiring a generation of aspiring entrepreneurs to ascend corporate ladders or start entirely new industries from scratch.
The 1980s also brought us Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jackson. Baby boomers dominated culture during this era thanks to their disposable income and desire to spend it freely.
A robust economy created an ideal setting for entrepreneurs to launch new businesses, and many Americans took advantage of it by setting up shop. Like toddlers with enormous potential but an unpredictable future ahead, The American Entrepreneur documents this phenomenon while showing its impact on America’s economic future – an unforgettable narrative about entrepreneurship in its purest form.
The Depression Years
The Great Depression brought an abrupt halt to economic expansion during the Roaring Twenties. A series of banking panics and financial crises ensued, leading to prolonged economic contraction. Unemployment skyrocketed as millions of Americans searched for work. “Hoovervilles”- shanty towns constructed out of recycled materials- sprung up across America; families fled in search of opportunity; many taking trains out West in search of California or other new destinations.
By 1933, unemployment had reached 25% and bank failures had skyrocketed. President Hoover and his advisors attempted to prevent heavy intervention into the economy while Franklin Roosevelt pursued several expansive New Deal programs.
The Post-World War II Years
Entrepreneurs make society more productive, contributing to its gross national product with innovative inventions and lessening dependence on existing systems. Furthermore, entrepreneurs may increase a country’s tax base allowing governments to invest more efficiently in public projects.
Entrepreneurs break tradition through innovative products and technology, often making older methods obsolete, as with the cell phone replacing landlines. Entrepreneurs also help foster social change through charitable contributions to charities or supporting non-profit organizations through donations of their wealth.
After World War II, America’s economic mobilization provided the basis for a global economic system centered in America. Although governmental involvement was deep, many of the hallmarks of capitalism remained undamaged: for example, both Office of Price Administration’s “General Maximum Price Regulation” and National War Labor Board’s wage increase restrictions had ended and consumer spending resumed its steady growth path.
The New Economy
The New Economy was an increasingly prevalent topic of discussion before the financial collapse of 2008. It refers to an anticipated superior economic structure arising from globalization and information and communication technologies revolution.
Success for any venture depends on faster productivity growth, which in turn affects real incomes, inflation rates, interest rates, profits and share prices. Whether or not the recent surge of new business applications proves long-lived will depend heavily on what policies policymakers pursue.
Historian Schweikart and economist Doti offer an innovative take on American business history, exploring the interrelations between politics, culture and commerce that has helped forge America’s unique entrepreneurial spirit. Their book provides a harrowing yet fascinating journey, showing the many ways that driven Americans (both natural-born and immigrant alike) have created something of themselves while contributing to society at large. We can only hope it continues being told!