275 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 M. Brännback, A.L. Carsrud (eds.), Revisiting the Entrepreneurial Mind, International Studies in Entrepreneurship 35, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-45544-0_18 Chapter 18 Thoughts Have Consequences: Attributions By and About Entrepreneurs Kelly G. Shaver Ninety percent of all startups fail…. 18.1 Introduction We have all heard claims like this. Frequently, they are uttered by people who might be entrepreneurs, journalists, or venture investors, but who are completely unfamil- iar with the relevant distinctions and data. But as we shall see in this chapter, thoughts like this one have important consequences for understanding who entre- preneurs might be or are, and why they actually do what they do. The claim contains three critical elements: a stated percentage, a target referent (“startup”), and an outcome (“fail”). By itself, the “ninety percent” is probably true but uninformative in the same sense that the statement “100 % of all human beings die” is true but uninformative. Of course human beings die; nobody lives forever. The important questions for individual human beings are when they will die and what will they accomplish in life before that eventual end overtakes them. Some companies still in business today were founded more than 300 years ago—Beretta (1526), Lloyd’s of London (1688), and Haig distilling (1627)—but it is a safe bet that well over 90 % of the companies founded before 1700 no longer exist. Some new ventures being founded today may last for more than 300 years, most will certainly not. In some quarters such as Silicon Valley, people like to claim in print (http://www. forbes.com/sites/theyec/2012/08/15/are-you-building-a-small-business-or-a- startup/) or in a video such as the one by Steve Blank (https://www.youtube.com/ K.G. Shaver (*) Department of Management and Marketing, School of Business, College of Charleston, 5 Liberty Street, Room 331, Charleston, SC 29401, USA e-mail: shaverk@cofc.edu