Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs are responsible for most the job growth here in the U.S.A. and abroad.
Entrepreneurship empowers people especially minorities and women. Customers care nothing about whom owns a company or whom operates it as long as they get the product or service they seek with the quality the expect at a fair price.
This year the U.S.A. may become the first major industrialized country to have more than 50% of its businesses owned by women. During John Kennedy’s time this figure was under 6%. We have come a long way baby.
Small companies are more responsive to customers. Everyone wins!
Small companies innovate faster. Everyone wins!
Small companies are more likely to give young people the opportunity to learn a wide range of business lessons in a short period of time. Everyone wins!
A venture finance exchange system must be implemented to help finance small businesses with less red tape and cost.
Microfinance should be profitable banking and should be extended to the underdeveloped areas of the U.S.A. and Worldwide.
Living wages should be promoted everywhere.
Consumers must put care in their buying decisions. Pay more to get a product or service from a company that provides health insurance and living wages for their employees and cares for the environment

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Putting Customers Ahead of Investors

John Mackey

In 1970 Milton Friedman wrote that "there is one and only one social responsibility of business--to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud." That's the orthodox view among free market economists: that the only social responsibility a law-abiding business has is to maximize profits for the shareholders.

I strongly disagree. I'm a businessman and a free market libertarian, but I believe that the enlightened corporation should try to create value for all of its constituencies. From an investor's perspective, the purpose of the business is to maximize profits. But that's not the purpose for other stakeholders--for customers, employees, suppliers, and the community. Each of those groups will define the purpose of the business in terms of its own needs and desires, and each perspective is valid and legitimate.

Reason Magazine Whole Foods vs Milton Friedman - Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business

Small Businesses Responsible for Nearly All New Jobs

A new annual report sheds light on the impact entrepreneurs have on the overall economy.

By: Liz Webber

Published August 16, 2007

Businesses with fewer than 20 employees account for 90 percent of all U.S. firms, according to a new report by the Small Business Administration.

Small businesses also contributed the most in terms of employment (new jobs). "Job generation by firm size showed that the bulk was from firms with less than 20 employees," said Headd. Those companies accounted for a net 1,626,793 jobs in 2003-2004, 97.1 percent of all new jobs.