Philosophy Major Resource Center – Part 6

Becoming an entrepreneur:

Philosophy students shouldn’t overlook the idea of starting their own businesses. I encourage students in my business ethics classes-many if not most of whom are business majors-to try their hand at starting a business. I point out to them that despite the high failure rate-half of all new businesses fail in the first five years, and two-thirds fail in the first decade-the rewards, both financial and personal, can be very high indeed. (These rewards are part of the reason there are roughly 27 million small businesses in America today).

I feel the same way about philosophy majors: if you have the reading and critical thinking skills to make it through a philosophy program, you can run a business. In fact, there are quite a few very successful business owners who majored in philosophy as undergrads or grads. They include:

• Carl Icahn-activist investor, multi-billionaire.
• Larry Sanger-co-founder of Wikipedia.
• George Soros-investor, multi-billionaire.
• Peter Thiel-founder of PayPay, angel investor in tech industry, multi-billionaire.
• Patrick M. Byrne–founder of Overstock.com, school reform advocate.

I have a separate resource center for supporting start-up enterprises: the Entrepreneurship Resource Center.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7