Luckily for us, the Jordan “Wolf of Wall Street” Belforts of this world are extreme outliers. Consistently successful entrepreneurs aren’t reckless gamblers. But neither do they avoid risk altogether. Rather, they get to where they are by being good at calculating risks – recognising them as much as opportunities as they are threats.
The capacity to skillfully demonstrate this ability appears to be especially important given the state of the world in which we currently find ourselves. Countries are still emerging from the calamity of a global pandemic, and the economic headwinds it set in motion. Climate change is now regularly manifesting itself with devastating impacts. Artificial intelligence has been thrust into the mainstream – with experts warning of serious consequences.
In light of these enormous disruptions, we wanted to better understand how entrepreneurs are approaching various questions related to risk. To do so, we polled a sample of founders from across the United Kingdom, representing a wide variety of sectors – and in this report, we reveal what we discovered.