Can We Please Stop Describing Entrepreneurs as Risk-Takers?

Successful entrepreneurs are the most risk-averse people I’ve ever met

I recently stumbled into a Twitter discussion about whether or not it’s possible to teach entrepreneurship. The venture capitalist leading the debate skeptically asked:

Can people be taught to be risk-takers?

Setting aside the issue of whether or not it’s possible to teach entrepreneurship (ahem — it is — ahem), let’s address a much more insidious problem in the entrepreneurial community: the idea that entrepreneurs are “risk takers.”

I know entrepreneurs like to imagine themselves as bold, visionary, world-changing leaders. In some cases, that might even be true. But please, please, please… to everyone reading right now and everyone who cares about startups… it’s time to destroy this enormous misconception about entrepreneurs once and for all. Entrepreneurs are not and should never be “risk-takers.”

NEVER!

I don’t know where, why, or how this misconception got started, but it’s completely wrong. Even worse, it’s destroying countless startups every year because it’s encouraging entrepreneurs to make risky decisions. And entrepreneurs who make risky decisions are the entrepreneurs most likely to fail.