The Risk Advantage

I am reading a new book by Tom Panaggio entitled The Risk Advantage: Embracing the Entrepreneur’s Unexpected Edge. Panaggio is and entrepreneur and was a race car driver who:

… has learned that you cannot avoid risk if you want to be a winner. In The Risk Advantage, Panaggio tells the story of how he and his business partners built two thriving companies: Direct Mail Express (which now employs more than 400 people and is a leading direct marketing company) and Response Mail Express (which was eventually sold to equity fund Huron Capital Partners). The book is designed as a guide for those who are contemplating an entrepreneurial pursuit, are already engaged in building a business, or are currently working for someone else and want to inject their entrepreneurial ideas and attitude.

As I read through the book about the rewards of taking risks in building a business, one point jumped out at me. The author says that risk must be embraced in order to be successful; yet people are afraid of risk. “Risk means having to face an uncertain outcome.”

In terms of the differences between men and women, what does this mean? If women are more risk averse in business, they will be less successful. In our risk averse society, where everyone must be covered from cradle to grave and have the hand of a “benevolent” government guiding them, what does this mean for the entrepreneurial spirit? Add to this the punishing taxes and regulations on small business and it is a recipe for less economic growth.

Will men become more risk averse as time goes on due to the social conditioning that risk is bad? Or, even if willing to take business risks, will men decide it is not worth the trouble due to the restraints of the government? Or will they become more risk-takers by going to the underground economy and staying below the radar? I suspect that the latter option will become more popular for men while women will flock to safer jobs and opportunities funded by the government.