A growing literature on the genealogy of new firms has demonstrated a powerful link between the career history of founding teams and the future performance of the organizations they create. Yet there is no consensus on what historically contingent material individuals actually carry from one...

Venture Capitalists (VCs) are experts in assessing the quality of entrepreneurial ventures. A long tradition of research has examined the signals of quality that VCs look for in new ventures, and the biases that result from the VC selection process. Recently, an alternative form of new venture...

A widespread scholarly and popular consensus suggests that new ventures perform better when launched by teams, rather than individuals. This view has become so pervasive that many of the foremost investors rarely, if ever, fund startups founded by a solo entrepreneur. Despite this belief in the...