There’s something deeply symbolic in how businesses used to start compared to today.
Back then, people gathered their savings, took personal bank loans, worked nights and weekends, and built something — step by step, stone by stone. Today, it often takes only a polished pitch deck, a few investor meetings, and a promise of scalability.
We’ve moved from entrepreneurship as a life’s work to entrepreneurship as a game. From responsibility to return. From sweat to strategy.
When Entrepreneurship Meant Life and Livelihood
For decades after the war, thousands of small businesses emerged from garages, workshops, and kitchen tables. These were people investing their own money, often with no guarantees. If it went wrong, they lost everything. It was harsh — but it created accountability.
Old-school entrepreneurs built slowly. They often had a trade — carpenter, mechanic, baker, engineer — and their businesses grew as customers multiplied. They lived in the business, and the business lived in them.
Anyone who’s ever run a small company knows this truth: the late nights with accounting, the stress over rent, the endless problem-solving. Entrepreneurship wasn’t a concept. It was a condition.
Back then, capital was something you earned.
Today, it’s something you collect.
When Capital Took Over Risk
Somewhere in the 1990s, things changed. The financial sector exploded, the dot-com bubble inflated, and investors started talking about “scalability.” Suddenly, what mattered wasn’t what you built but how fast you could grow.
The small-business mindset — earn first, expand later — was replaced by a new creed: grow first, profit later.
Money poured in. Investors, funds, and banks saw opportunities for fast returns. Companies could borrow millions without profit, as long as growth charts pointed upward. “Fake it till you make it” became a business plan.
As venture capital took over, risk disappeared for the entrepreneur. They no longer bet their own money, but other people’s. If it succeeded, they became rich. If it failed, they moved on.
Two Worlds, Two Moralities
This isn’t just about money — it’s about values.
Old entrepreneurs took responsibility — for themselves, their employees, their customers. A promise meant something.
Today’s entrepreneur is often more marketer than maker. Vision matters more than reality. Presentation more than product. The funding round more than the customer.
It’s a system where value is measured in expectation, not execution.
The old entrepreneur built a company to last generations. The new one builds an exit strategy.
Losses for Some, Deductions for Others
When a small business fails, the founder personally suffers. Personal guarantees mean real pain — homes lost, credit destroyed.
When venture-funded companies collapse, losses are absorbed. Investors deduct them against future profits. Banks write off loans. Sometimes the state even steps in.
The small business owner loses their house. The large investor deducts their loss in the tax return.
It’s not just unfair — it’s perverse.
From Dragon’s Den to Real Life
We’ve turned entrepreneurship into entertainment. TV shows where ordinary people pitch their dreams to millionaires create the illusion that capital is something to convince, not something to earn.
But outside the studio, real entrepreneurs still exist — those who invest their savings, build loyal customers, and fight quietly without headlines. They meet no cameras. Only reality.
A System Built for Those Who Already Have
Capitalism has always been about risk and reward, but modern capitalism has created a new elite — people who can take risks without risking anything.
They are the funds, banks, and investors who can afford to lose millions and still sleep well. They diversify, deduct, and defer.
Meanwhile, the small entrepreneur stands alone. No fund rescues the café owner whose margins are crushed by inflation.
Two economies. Same country. Different rules.
The Psychological Divide
Entrepreneurship is psychological. When it’s your own money, every decision hurts or heals. You feel the risk. You carry it.
With other people’s money, risk becomes abstract — an Excel column, not a fear. That’s why so many large projects burn through millions without a trace of accountability.
Capital has lost its pain threshold. And without pain, responsibility disappears.
The Hidden Tragedy Behind the Headlines
When billion-euro projects like Northvolt or Stegra stumble, taxpayers often foot the bill. Politicians call it “strategic investment.” In truth, it’s industrial theatre.
When the bubble bursts, the state pays — while the original founders move on to their next pitch.
It’s a game everyone knows but no one admits:
The biggest loser often wins the next round — as long as it’s not their own money.
From Endurance to Speed
Everything today must move fast — including entrepreneurship. Investors demand quarterly growth, not generational stability.
Patience is obsolete. Profit is postponed. Scale is sacred.
But real innovation takes time — just like craftsmanship, trust, and community. That’s the paradox: our economy worships speed but needs slowness to survive.
Entrepreneurship Without Ground Contact
Many of today’s founders have never worked in the industry they’re “disrupting.” They build from theory, not touch.
It’s like designing an airplane without ever flying one.
These ventures often soar quickly — but crash just as fast.
An Economy Out of Balance
A healthy society needs both roots and branches — the small, steady businesses and the large, ambitious ones. Today’s ecosystem favors the latter.
Small businesses create most jobs but receive the least funding. Big projects consume billions and often deliver little.
We’re feeding the trees while starving the roots.
The Romanticized Risk
Investors talk about risk like it’s noble. But risk isn’t romantic when it’s your home on the line.
True risk lives with the small creator — the person who bets everything on a dream, with no hedge fund behind them.
That’s where entrepreneurship still breathes.
Back to Real Courage
Real courage isn’t raising €100 million. It’s surviving the first year with €10 000. It’s saying no when everyone says scale. It’s finishing what you started.
Old-school entrepreneurship wasn’t perfect, but it was real. It built communities, jobs, and trust.
The new model floats above the ground — all cloud, no soil. The question is: how long can it stay airborne?
Perhaps We Need Both Worlds
Let’s not dismiss the new entirely. Modern tools allow reach, creativity, and speed like never before. But we need balance — between human responsibility and financial abstraction.
When money loses its link to meaning, business loses its soul.
From Speculation to Creation
Maybe it’s time to redefine entrepreneurship — from speculation to creation, from exit to endurance.
Because in the end, a company isn’t a concept.
It’s a promise.
And a promise means more when it’s backed by your own risk, your own sweat, your own belief.
By Chris...
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