Elizabeth MacBride – författare

Despite popular belief to the contrary, entrepreneurship in the United States is dying. It has been since before the Great Recession of 2008, and the negative trend in American entrepreneurship has been accelerated by the Covid pandemic. New firms are being started at a slower rate, are employing fewer workers, and are being formed disproportionately in just a few major cities in the U.S. At the same time, large chains are opening more locations. Companies such as Amazon with their "deliver everything and anything" are rapidly displacing Main Street businesses.In The New Builders, we tell the stories of the next generation of entrepreneurs -- and argue for the future of American entrepreneurship. That future lies in surprising places -- and will in particular rely on the success of women, black and brown entrepreneurs. Our country hasn't yet even recognized the identities of the New Builders, let alone developed strategies to support them.Our misunderstanding is driven by a core misperception. Consider a "typical" American entrepreneur. Think about the entrepreneur who appears on TV, the business leader making headlines during the pandemic. Think of the type of businesses she or he is building, the college or business school they attended, the place they grew up.The image you probably conjured is that of a young, white male starting a technology business. He's likely in Silicon Valley. Possibly New York or Boston. He's self-confident, versed in the ins and outs of business funding and has an extensive (Ivy League?) network of peers and mentors eager to help his business thrive, grow and make millions, if not billions.You’d think entrepreneurship is thriving, and helping the United States maintain its economic power.You'd be almost completely wrong.The dominant image of an entrepreneur as a young white man starting a tech business on the coasts isn't correct at all. Today's American entrepreneurs, the people who drive critical parts of our economy, are more likely to be female and non-white. In fact, the number of women-owned businesses has increased 31 times between 1972 and 2018 according to the Kauffman Foundation (in 1972, women-owned businesses accounted for just 4.6% of all firms; in 2018 that figure was 40%). The fastest-growing group of female entrepreneurs are women of color, who are responsible for 64% of new women-owned businesses being created.In a few years, we believe women will make up more than half of the entrepreneurs in America.The age of the average American entrepreneur also belies conventional wisdom: It's 42. The average age of the most successful entrepreneurs -- those in the top .01% in terms of their company's growth in the first five years -- is 45.These are the New Builders. Women, people of color, immigrants and people over 40.We're failing them. And by doing so, we are failing ourselves.In this book, you'll learn: How the definition of business success in America today has grown corporate and around the concepts of growth, size, and consumption.Why and how our collective understanding of "entrepreneurship" has dangerously narrowed. Once a broad term including people starting businesses of all types, entrepreneurship has come to describe only the brash technology founders on the way to becoming big.Who are the fastest growing groups of entrepreneurs? What are they working on? What drives them?The real engine that drove Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs. The government had a much bigger role than is widely knownThe extent to which entrepreneurs and small businesses are woven through our history, and the ways we have forgotten women and people of color who owned small businesses in the past.How we're increasingly afraid to failThe role small businesses are playing saving the wilderness, small towns and redlined communitiesWhat we can do to turn the decline in entrepreneurship around, especially be supporting the people who are courageously starting small companies today.

"This gem of a book should be required reading for everyone seeking to enhance their financial security."–Burton G. Malkiel, author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street (50th anniversary edition, 2023)Explore easy, automated, and low-cost ways to invest using online platformsIn The Little Book of Robo Investing: How to Make Money While You Sleep, a pair of long-time investors and founding team members at the pioneering and award-winning online investment platform Wealthfront deliver a fun, invaluable, and simple roadmap to making your money make money. You’ll learn how to start investing with the easy, automated, and low-cost strategies that robo investment advisors have made super accessible to everyday people.You don’t need a ton of detailed knowledge about the financial and investment sectors to make impressive returns. The authors walk you through how to use techniques like automation, diversification and indexing to manage your risk and keep things absurdly simple. You’ll also learn: The most common mistakes that new investors make when they’re just getting started in the markets and how to avoid themStrategies for getting the ball rolling and investing your first dollarValuable insights from behavioral economics and psychology to help you steer clear of major investing errors that even experienced and knowledgeable investors tend to makePerfect for working professionals, members of young and growing families, and people beginning to think about their retirement plans, The Little Book of Robo Investing is a straightforward, engaging, and fun read that will get you ready to put your money to work intelligently and responsibly.