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This Article addresses the potentially negative implications of proposed antitrust legislation on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in general, with a particular focus on the venture capitalists (VCs) that fund it. First, it offers a review of how antitrust merger law currently works and how proposed legislative changes to antitrust may threaten the innovative Venture Capital (VC)-backed ecosystem that has made the United States the center of global innovation across many different industries. Accompanying this review are some empirical observations. Second, recognizing that the understanding of innovative entrepreneurial activity calls for a deep appreciation of those who back it, the Article also provides an overview of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and VCs' motivations within this niche environment. In so doing, the Article identifies the drivers of entrepreneurial innovation and explains why changes to merger law may threaten these models of facilitating innovative, growth-orientated entrepreneurs. Finally, the Article concludes that changes to merger law may negatively affect the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem and hinder innovation in the United States., TABLE OF CONTENTS I INTRODUCTION 256 II ANTITRUST MERGER LAW 258 III WHY DOES EXIT VIA ACQUISITION MATTER TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP? 262 IV A BRIEF EXPLANATION OF THE BUSINESS MODEL OF [...]

Research Summary: As the study of entrepreneurship advances, our appreciation for the role of theory in the development of the field has grown. In this paper, we build on our collective experiences to offer a peek into the inner workings of entrepreneurship theorizing, using specific examples to highlight ways of developing theoretical insights for advancing entrepreneurship research. Our journeys suggest an iterative process centered on asking an important and interesting question, challenging prevailing assumptions, understanding context and phenomenon, and developing conceptual models and analyses. We focus on the uniqueness of entrepreneurial phenomena, contexts, and actors as well as the interdisciplinary nature of the field. Managerial Summary: Entrepreneurship as a scholarly field has reached a stage of maturity where we need to think more carefully about our contribution to theory. Theory enriches managerial parctice. We offer helpful and actionable suggestions to develop and share rich theoerical insights that inform schaolrship and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that most ventures fail, yet there has been limited work on investors' views of entrepreneurs who have failed in the past. We address this gap and call attention to an innate asymmetry between past failure and success. This asymmetry arises because success requires skill and luck jointly, whereas failure materializes due to either lack of skill (mistakes) or bad luck (misfortune). We ask: Are investors "failure-averse" and discount a failed entrepreneur even in the presence of additional information about entrepreneurial skill? Or do they make "rational inferences" in light of the additional skill information and proceed to fund the new startup? To test whether investors are failure-averse or engage in rational inference, we use experiments in the context of equity crowdfunding. The results suggest that prospective crowdfunding investors rationally integrate informational cues regarding past outcomes and entrepreneurial skill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on investment decisions in nascent, seed-stage startups, where information is scarce and uncertainty is intense. Entrepreneurship literature has shown that investment is a function of the investor-startup pair; some studies have investigated startup characteristics, while others have focused on investor traits. We complement extant work by studying factors beyond the investor-startup pair; namely, incidental contextual factors such as changes in the physical environment. Drawing on affect-asinformation theory, we conjecture that, in the face of intense uncertainty, sunnier days may affect investors' mood and result in a greater likelihood of investment. Archival and experimental analyses inform our predictions. The former utilizes proprietary data on 1,335 startups graduating from European accelerators. Every accelerator holds a "Demo Day," where startups pitch to investors. We find that graduating on a sunnier day increases the likelihood of investment. This effect is stronger under intense uncertainty, where (a) startups are nascent, or (b) founders have limited human capital. An experimental study where prospective investors evaluate a Demo Day pitch yields further insights. We find a positive sunshine-investment association, and show that the association is mediated by investors' mood. Our findings complement extant work and contribute insights regarding seed-stage investment decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: The platform literature offers keen insights on the pricing and non-pricing strategies that transaction platforms undertake. We supplement this work by studying how platforms mix together their strategic choices and the association with platforms' performance. To that end, we focus on crowdfunding platforms; a prominent setting of transaction platforms. We present an inductive large-N study of the population of 788 crowdfunding platforms that operated in EU-15 countries up to 2018. Our contribution is threefold: (a) identifying common mixes of strategic choices; (b) tracking deviations from these mixes; and (c) associating these with platforms' survival and growth. We discuss our findings and how they advance knowledge at the intersection of the platform and strategic management literatures. Managerial Summary: Notable transaction-platforms such as eBay, LinkedIn, and Tencent have an aggregate market-value in the hundreds of billions of dollars. We know that platforms' success is driven by the strategic choices they undertake. Yet, we know less about how they mix together these choices and the association with platforms' performance. Our study addresses this gap by focusing on a prominent setting: crowdfunding. Using data on the population of 788 crowdfunding platforms in EU-15 countries, we show that these platforms cluster around three common mixes of strategic choices. Moreover, crowdfunding platforms do not strictly adhere to the strategy mix they are affiliated with. Interestingly, there is a positive association between the degree to which a platform's choices differentiate from its strategy mix and platform's subsequent performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]