Originally published January 31, 2022, on mirror.xyz

Since the dawn of civilization, entrepreneurship has been the fuel for both personal and collective prosperity.

It has been a great unlock for talent to pursue greater agency, decency, and autonomy over their work.

Entrepreneurship promises true freedom. Yet it privileges the few. While over time barriers to entry lowered, it's still inaccessible to most.

Entrepreneurship became a status symbol in society. Still, less than 1% of workers become entrepreneurs each year. The reality is most people don't like to take risks. We prefer a safe path to a risky one, even when the reward potential is high. So, only changemakers choose it: to challenge the status quo, innovate, and build new systems.

Three systemic challenges prevent the majority from taking this path:

1. Risk tolerance - Both nature and culture prevent people from taking the risk of entrepreneurial venture. Many don't take the risk regardless of the rewards.
2. Access to capital - Building things takes money. The gap between those with capital and those without keeps growing at an alarming rate. Generational wealth inequality is an amplifying force.
3. Coordination failures - Every person joining a group makes friction emerge and grow. The challenges of early stage coordination lead to ventures with a handful of co-founders. As groups grow larger, hierarchy and bureaucracy creep in, creating further inefficiencies.

As a result, people pursuing others' ventures is far more common than crafting their own path. But is this humanity’s best option?

In the past, people worked for other people seeking prosperity from the fruits of their labor. This is no longer the case. Hard work pursuing someone else’s vision won't generate meaningful value for yourself.

Since the 70s, society has continued to fail at distributing fair rewards. People whose work creates the most value benefit the least. The gap between worker productivity and compensation has grown exponentially. The value you create through your labor is out of your grasp.

The disconnect between your productivity and the value you receive.

The disconnect between your productivity and the value you receive.

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In other words, traditional work has failed you. While people kept increasing their productivity, rewards were held constant. Not even, if you account for the record-high inflation rates all over the world, rewards' value decreased. If you didn't get a raise of at least 7% last year then you lost money.

And while traditional work keeps failing us, institutional wealth keeps growing. Reaping the benefits from the exploits of your labor…