The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is the world’s largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship. Their mission is to help individuals attain economic independence by advancing educational achievement and entrepreneurial success, consistent with the aspirations of the founder, Ewing Marion Kauffman.
(In 1950, Ewing Kauffman founded Marion Laboratories in the basement of his home in Kansas City with a $4,000 investment. His first product was calcium supplements, which he made by pulverizing oyster shells. In 1989, Marion Labs was purchased by Dow Chemical for $2.2 billion. How’s that for entrepreneurship!)
Over the years, the Kauffman Foundation has been a source for fascinating research on business owners and entrepreneurship. Recently, they published an intriguing study on the amount of risk that business owners assume (outside of their direct business interests) entitled, “Business Owners, Financial Risk, and Wealth.”
Among the report’s conclusions:
If you are a financial advisor, how might you use this study?
Today, September 2nd, is the birthday of Andy Grove, one of the first employees of Intel, who oversaw a 4,500% increase in Intel’s market capitalization while serving as CEO. Grove was born to a middle-class family in Budapest, Hungary. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he left his home and family at the age of 19, under cover of darkness and emigrated to the United States.
Andy Grove once said, “Your career is your business, and you are its CEO.”