3 Questions: Daniel Auguste on why “successful entrepreneurs don’t fall from the sky”
3 Questions: Daniel Auguste on why “successful entrepreneurs don’t fall from the sky”
MIT News
Economic sociologist Daniel Auguste, an MLK Visiting Professor at MIT, explores how the presence of various support structures influences entrepreneurs and helps explain differences in entrepreneurial activity among classes, races, and genders. Courtesy of Daniel Auguste
The MLK Visiting Professor studies the ways innovators are influenced by their communities.
Zach Winn | MIT News Office | 1 March 2023
A lack of access to critical resources has prevented many middle- and low-income entrepreneurs from starting successful businesses, economic sociologist Daniel Auguste told an MIT audience in a Feb. 9 [2023] presentation on barriers to entrepreneurship in under-resourced communities of America.
That’s a fundamental problem because entrepreneurship is one of society’s most significant pathways to economic security and building intergenerational wealth, according to Auguste, who is an MLK Visiting Assistant Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management for the 2022-2023 academic year.
MIT News sat down with Auguste, who is also an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Florida Atlantic University and a faculty affiliate at the Social Policy Institute at Washington University, to discuss the implications of his work and how he hopes it changes things from a policy perspective.