The idea that entrepreneurship is plagued by uncertainty is not new. From Cantillon to Say, continuing with Knight, Marshall, and Drucker, it has been widely acknowledged that the process of launching a new venture is essentially fraught with challenges and risks. Indeed, for entrepreneurs, it is typically quite difficult to know ex ante—i.e., before actually entering the market—whether their venture will be successful. This fundamental uncertainty affecting startup activity is confirmed by the highly skewed distribution of returns from entrepreneurship, with most ventures failing badly and only a small minority of them being very successful. For instance, Shane, focusing on about 500000 new ventures created in 1996 in the United States, found that more than half of those ventures failed, whereas only 3500 achieved revenues greater than ten million dollars.