B ey ond U nicorns:
The Industrialization
of Disruption
A case for Europe
Summary
Executive Summary
Key messages and implications
Introduction: Unicorns are just the tip of the iceberg
Study design & method
I.
T h e necessa ry condit ions f or a syst em a t ic F P C p rodu ct ion: G row t h ena b l ers
A. Condition 1: Enabling access to large markets
B. Condition 2: Developing adaptive regulations
C. Condition 3: Establishing Network-Based Entrepreneurship Programs (NBEP)
I I . D if f erent ia t ing condit ions t o f ost er F P C dev el op m ent : C oncent ra t ed a nd
a rt icu l a t ed ca p it a l s
A. Condition 1: Investing in and attracting human capital
B. Condition2:Economiccapitalfittingtheentrepreneurialculture
C. Condition3:Promotingon-andofflinesocialcapital
I I I . T h e condit ion f or a su st a ina b l e p rodu ct ion of F P C : S ociet a l a ccep t a nce
A. A societal capacity to absorb the dialectic between creation and destruction
B. The case of job creation and social justice
Acknowledgments
References
2
Executive Summary
Beyond Unicorns, F u t u re P ow er C om p a nies p rof ou ndl y disru p t
ou r econom ies a nd societ ies
Unicorns, companies valued at over 1 billion dollars that were
founded less than 10 years ago, receive extensive media coverage
although they only represent the tip of the iceberg. Beyond Uber,
Blablacar or Airbnb, there are many more companies that are
almost never mentioned although they are critical for economies
and societies: Future Power Companies (FPC). FPC, start-ups that
raised more than 15 million dollars within 8 years of existence, are
booming in numbers. This report encourages Europe to pay close
attention to FPC as the competitiveness gap is increasing with other
regions. There are 3 times more FPC headquartered in the USA
than in Europe. In Israel, sustained investments in entrepreneurship
have been speeding up a solid production of FPC: between 2013
and 2015, the rate of FPC creation was 9% higher in Israel than in
France while Israel’s GDP is 8 times lower than France’s. In 2015 the
median funding deal value was $2.5M in Europe compared to $8M
in China. This effort is fueling a greater population of FPC in general
and Unicorns in particular: there are 40% more FPC and almost 3
times more Unicorns in China than in Europe. FPC contribute to the
creation of jobs and the diffusion of innovation. FPC are affecting
the lives of millions by challenging the ways in which people
communicate, work, eat, travel, shop, develop friendships or love
relations. While Unicorns offer emblematic examples of radical
and rapid transformations of markets, disruption can only be fully
apprehended by focusing on FPC at large.
T h ree condit ions t o indu st ria l iz e t h e p rodu ct ion of F u t u re
P ow er C om p a nies
It is possible to steer and industrialize the “production” of FPC.
Ecosystems such as Silicon Valley in California, Silicon Wadi in
Israel or InnoWay in China are typical cases of territories that
generate a high number of FPC. The present study develops an
international benchmark and outlines the conditions of possibility
for an intensive, high quality, production of FPC in Europe. Three
types of conditions are listed. First, we detail necessary conditions
without which the industrialization of FPC would not be possible –
access to large markets, adaptive regulations and Network-Based
Entrepreneurship Programs. Second, we identify differentiating
conditions that contribute to the development of FPC performances
– the concentration and articulation of human, social and economic
capitalsfittingtheentrepreneurialculture.Third,socialacceptance
is a stabilizing condition, for a sustainable production of FPC that is
virtuous both in economic and social terms.
Redefining entrepreneurship: from heroic entrepreneurs to
ecosyst em s of p ossib il it ies
Fast growth entrepreneurship is not just a matter of luck nor solely
a question of individual stamina. Entrepreneurship can be fostered
through organized ecosystems made-up of informal communities,
anchored within local territories that are structuring a plurality
of capitals (including highly educated work force, networks of
company founders and investors with entrepreneurial experiences).
Far from being a fully digitalized process, entrepreneurship occurs
throughphysicalinteractionsinspecificlocationswhereexpertise
can be fertilized by combining business, design and engineering;
research and practice; national and multicultural identities. These
resources must be, from day one, dedicated to the development
of replicable and sparing business models and to their expansion
across jurisdictions to reach global markets.
S y lv ain B ureau
ScientificDirectorChairofEntrepreneurship,
ESCP Europe
J ean- F ranç ois R oy er
Partner EY, Entrepreneur of the Year Program France Leader
F ranck S eb ag
Partner EY, VC-IPO Leader
4
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
Key messages and implications
Im plications for F rance: L ocal concentration of capitals to support g row th tow ards g lob al m ark ets
Based on the analysis, implications are drawn across social levels that address key players of the industrialization of FPC:
start-ups, accelerators, large corporations and regulating bodies in France.
For regulators & the French
government
• Encouraging strategies of fast globalization by facilitating linkages and pathways to large
markets
• Supporting the concentration of human, economic and social capitals within local ecosystems
• Managing dynamic interactions between creation and destruction through adaptive
regulations
For large corporations
• Developing solutions to manage uncertainty (rather than risk) to control disruptive dynamics
• Leveraging coopetitive strategies with FPC
• Enabling unlearning and processes of subversion through intrapreneurial organizations
For accelerators & investors
• Developing Network-Based Programs around informal communities to support FPC expansion
• Diffusing a culture of ambition with global markets as a primary target
• Intensifying investments in FPC and developing long standing relationships with founders
For founders
• Developing global ambitions by starting with local solutions
• Valuing informal relationships and leveraging resources within communities
• Getting ready to manage destructive dynamics and face resistance from competition and
society
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
5
Introduction: Unicorns are just the tip of
the iceberg
In recent years, the unicorn phenomenon has accelerated to a present breakneck pace. From 9 unicorns in January 2011,
the total number of companies valued at over 1 billion dollars and founded within the past 10 years has reached 176 in
September 2016.
F ig u re 1 . T h e Unicorn C l u b ( C BI nsig h t s, 2 0 1 6 )
The fresh companies worth billions are of high scholarly
interest and receive increasing media coverage.
Virtually, every industry is concerned with the phenomenon:
Hardware, Retail, Media, Transportation, Healthcare or
Financial Services.
Simultaneously, the diffusion and trend of expansion of the
notion of “disruptive innovation” is clear. Content analysis
shows that the notion has become numerically prominent in
the media (Figure 2). The word disruption has Latin origins
and etymologically derives from the verb dis-rumpere. Dis in
this context refers to a strong intensity; rumpere (to break)
means splitting into two pieces or interrupting. In other words,
to pursue disruptive innovation is to break, in a radical way,
with a previous practice deemed socially and economically
acceptable.ClaytonChristensenformallydefinesdisruption
F ig u re 2 . M edia occu rrences of t h e t erm
6
as a process by which a product or service initially takes root
in simple applications relating to mundane activities and
then relentlessly moves up markets, eventually displacing
established competitors (Christensen et al., 2015). Since
hisfirstworkwaspublishedin1995(Christensen&Bower,
1995), books and papers have flourished and founded an
entire industry of attempts to study the phenomenon. In
France, Gilles Babinet (forhtcoming) addresses at length
the question of disruption as a global phenomenon. Other
recent notable issues include The Disruption Dilemma (Gans,
2016) and Lead and Disrupt (O’Reilly & Tushman, 2016). The
two books publish extensive works on disruption from the
perspective of incumbents and draw insightful connections
on how to adapt such radical evolutions.
“ disru p t iv e innov a t ion” ( E Y , 2 0 1 6 )
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
The present study promotes the idea that unicorns are just
representing the tip of the iceberg of disruptive dynamics.
Beyond the buzzword of “unicorns” lies the core challenge
of understanding how some territories are enabling the
creation of companies that eventually disrupt economies
and societies. There are currently 176 unicorns worldwide
but thousands of Future Power Companies (FPC) largely
unaccounted for and equally producing disruptions at a fast
pace. FPC are defined in this survey as fast-growing firms
with less than 8 years of existence that raised €15M or more.
We believe that some territories have developed ecosystems
that enable the industrialization of disruptions through the
growth of unicorns and FPC. The picture is quite diverse
across locations. Unicorns are, for one major instance,
densely located in two countries: As of September 2016,
101 unicorns were seated in the USA, 34 in China.
Sweden
Canada
2
2
UK
6
Germany
France
USA
5
South korea
1
101
Israel
2
China
India
3
34
7
,
Singapore
3
.
,
F ig u re 3 . G l ob a l rep a rt it ion of Unicorns ( C BI nsig h t s, 2 0 1 6 )
Arguably, Europe is lagging behind in terms of the number of
unicorns grown. The gap is even wider against the valuation
of companies. The total capitalization of all US Unicorns
amounts to a quarter of the French stock index CAC 40.
In September 2016, the four of GAFA (Google, Amazon,
Facebook, and Apple) had a combined valuation of $1,550B
compared to the $1,343B of worth of the CAC 40. The
figures suggest that France and other European nations
remain behind the world’s leading places of business when
itcomestothenumberandthefinancialvalueofsuccessful
companies hosted.
AsFigure4describes,significantlymorestart-ups,bothfor
FPC and Unicorns, were created in the USA as compared to
Europe despite a lower rate of overall company creations.
The crucial gap highlighted between stage 1 (company early
creation phase) and stage 2 (FPC or Unicorn) is central to
the present survey and is analyzed in details in the following
sections. The purpose of developing an international
benchmark is to help Europe to better understand how it
could improve its business environment in the global context.
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
7
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x0,4
New companies
Future Power Companies
Unicorns
F ig u re 4 . N u m b ers of com p a nies crea t ion a cross t yp es
( E Y da t a b a se)
International discrepancies clearly appear when considering
the number of FPC funded in 2014: Between China, the USA
and Europe, on the one hand. Within Europe, on the other
hand: France-based companies rose around €13M, compared
to €30M in the UK and €21M in Germany.
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F ig u re 6 . V C F u nd inv est m ent s in st a rt - u p s rel a t iv e t o
dom est ic G D P ( E Y da t a b a se)
French venture capitalists (VC), for instance, would have to
multiply their investment stock by 7 to close the gap with
Israel. Countries like Finland or Sweden, with a comparably
small domestic market of fewer than 10M people, are fairly
active in relative VC investment terms. Sweden invested half
asmuchasFranceinFPCin2014,asignificanteffortwhen
considering that its GDP is 5 times lower.
The figures tend to show that countries sizes and GDP are
not tightly correlated to investments in FPC. If not market
size and GDP, what is driving investments and eventually
the emergence of FPC? Far from relying on random processes
of emergence, we suggest it is possible to industrialize the
“production” of FPC, and with it the production of disruption.
570
F ig u re 5 . F u nds ra ised b y F C P in 2 0 1 4 b y cou nt ry
( E Y da t a b a se
The case of Israel is of particular interest in that regard.
Despite its relatively small size in terms of population, it has
managedtobecomethecradlefortwotechunicorns,Infinidat
and IronSource, valued at $1.2B and $1.5B. Beyond the two
companies, Israel is very successful at promoting start-ups
and FPC. The Israeli investment sector is the most active
worldwide as measured relatively to national GDP (Figure 6)!
8
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Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
The survey outlines the conditions of possibility for this
process of production and its quality. We list three types
of conditions:
• First, conditions of emergence: the necessary conditions
for a systematic industrialization of FPC creations
• Second, conditions of development: Differentiating
conditions to industrialize FPC performances improvement
• Third, a stabilizing condition: social acceptance is central
for a sustainable and virtuous industrialization of FPC in
the long run
Study design & method
The phenomenon considered is multi-faced and of great complexity: It concerns the individual as much as it affects societies. A
holistic and multidimensional approach is developed in this study in order to fully grasp and to understand the industrialization
ofcontemporarydisruption.Theresultspresentedderivefromananalysisthatborrowsfrommanydomains(financial,social,
legal, political) and draws on a plurality of empirical sources and research techniques: qualitative and quantitative methods
were used to study the object’s manifestations at the micro-organizational and the macro-institutional levels. We adopt a
European focus and develop an international perspective.
Data outlined in the report were primarily collected using the following methods:
1. 23 Interviews with informants acting as entrepreneurs, investors, mentors and/or researchers
2. Content analysis applied to open access online information and proprietary databases
3. Benchmark analysis of surveys and reports relating to entrepreneurship and disruption
4. Selectiveliteraturereviewofscientificpublications
The propositions developed in this study were tested with 10 experts of the European entrepreneurial ecosystem. After
a careful review of the propositions’ relevance in both relative and absolute terms, the report was written to explicit the
implicationsforregulators,entrepreneursandlargecorporations.Thefirstdraftofthefullmanuscriptwassubmittedfora
secondroundofreviewbyasetofthreenewexperts.Theresultingversionofthemanuscriptformedthebasisforthefinal
formofthereport.Thereviewingprocessiscentraltocoverawidescopeofempiricalfields,academicdisciplines,practical
and research issues and to increase the quality of the analysis.
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
9
I
T h e necessa ry condit ions f or a syst em a t ic
F P C p rodu ct ion: G row t h ena b l ers
A. C ondition 1 : Enab ling access to
larg e m ark ets
FPC, as a particular form of organization, has a distinct
object, disruption, and method of growth, scalability. FPC are
best grasped by measuring their ability to grow. This capacity
relies on two fundamental aspects:
i. Small marginal costs limiting the resources requirement to
support growth
ii. The possibility to replicate a business model across countries
Alargeandunifiedmarketisadaptedandsupportiveoffastgrowing companies as it limits the need for FPC to invest
and move to other markets. Globally, the USA and China
offer emblematic examples of markets large enough for fast
growth company to expand without committing too many
resources. Conversely, fragmented markets, like Europe to
some extends, require supplementary efforts to materialize
new opportunities. Topical hurdles include the adaptation
to different laws, manufacturing norms or languages. As
underlined by Stéphane MacMillan, Country Manager for
Foodora, this cost of growth is felt with the “marketing
campaigns that we need to translate for every country in
which we are implanted in Europe.” Problems are of different
nature for B2B sales where contracts often have to be
negotiated at multiple points in space and time, with each
country branch. This is a well-known impediment for the pace
of development of a company. However, and regardless of
how constraining boarders may appear, the current situation
of Europe did not prevent some companies from developing
a particular know-how and to grow across countries through
the replication of their business model. BlaBlaCar operates
in more than 20 countries and certainly is one of the best
European examples of this idea.
As suggested with the case of Israel, countries with small
national market size can also be successful at fostering
the creation of FPC. The reasons lie in the resources FPCs
find to connect with large markets beyond their domestic
environment. Some figures aptly illustrate this tendency:
On average companies worth billions that originally
developed in countries with fewer than 50M people took 1.4
years to expand globally, compared to 2.9 years for the ones
that originate from 50–150M people large countries and
3.3 years for those that emerged in very large countries of
150M people and above (Atomico & Slush, 2015). It is worth
mentioning that Israeli entrepreneurs would seem more
inclined to think globally from the start and often consider
10 Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
the USA as a natural market for their expansion. For Muriel
Touaty, Head of Technion France, this observation has
historical and cultural reasons: “The entrepreneurial mindset
is very present in Israel and there is a strong sense of creating
new things on a global scale.”
Political implications for Europe
Even though the UK has only partially been integrated
and connected to the European start-ups scene, the 2016
referendum in favor of a Brexit is arguably casting doubts
on the capacity of the European Union to limit the costs of
growth for European start-ups. Brexit or not, the challenge
would remain identical: Without internationalization and the
capacity for a start-up to enter large and integrated markets
like China or the USA, growth remains difficult and costly,
if not impossible. Highly successful European entrepreneurs
have been actively developing this strategy. Significantly,
to Alexis Fogel, co-founder of Dashlane, a French FPC,
“we needed to go abroad to develop our product, [the] French
market is too small, and now 90 to 95% of our business is
abroad and mainly in the US.” With the prospect of a hard
Brexit, more and more entrepreneurs might follow different
paths for internalization, looking for opportunities beyond
Europe, in the USA or China.
To help more entrepreneurs expanding, acceleration programs
should be designed at an international and continental scale.
As underlined by Peter Bos, EMEIA Strategic Growth Markets
Business Development Leader at EY, today “programs are
nationally oriented but a start-up needs to scale up. There is
a need for more international ecosystems to help overcome
that hurdle.”
B . C ondition 2 : Dev elop adaptiv e
reg ulations
There are different challenges depending on the subject
matter of norms and regulation. We distinguish two instances:
(i) regulating usual business
(ii) regulating disruption
Regulating usual business refers to the rules that apply to
regular practices of a fast-growing company, relating to sales,
working conditions or taxation. In most countries the picture is
ambivalent. Consider France: on the one hand, Carlos Diaz, cofounderofTheRefiners,believes“Franceisastart-upparadise:
there are many aids and programs from the government.”
A recent book by Fabrice Cavaretta is straightforward: Yes!
France is a paradise for entrepreneurs (Cavarretta, 2016).
On the other hand, the traditional regulatory frame remains
complexandinsufficientlyappreciativeofstart-ups.Creating
a company is easy in France, but growing a business is more
difficult: 72% of entrepreneurs perceive the inflexibility of
the French market as a hurdle (EY, 2016a). Furthermore,
in 2011 only 5% of French companies have more than 10
employees, against 18% in Germany and 21% in the US
(RAISE & BAIN&Co, 2015). Many entrepreneurs experience
difficulties when applying rules that were initially designed
for larger and more stable forms of organizations. Regulation
sometimes appears ill-suited for company forms that are by
definitiontemporaryandgrowing.Pierre-HenriDeballon,Cofounder of Weezevent, admits quite explicitly “Working 35
hours in a growing start-up is just impossible, and I don’t have
time to maintain that, and we don’t want foremen to do it.
Labor legislation is just too heavy, and it’s impossible to read
itfully,astart-uphasotherfishestofry.”
Second, regulating disruption, is related to the seemingly
conflictingnatureofregulationandinnovation.Bydefinition,
disruptive innovations avoid existing norms of conducts
and sometimes to a point of conflict with legal rules. One
example out of many is the lawsuit filed against Heetch, a
mobile app designed to share rides at nights. Entrepreneurs
appreciate the need for regulation. Teddy Pellerin, founder
of Heetch, stated in an interview with Les Echos, a French
quality newspaper, that his company “belongs to the sharing
economythat needstoevolve andtobe defined” (Pogam,
2016) However, in some countries a slow and political
evolutions of regulatory frames is constraining the growth
of many start-ups. In other countries, like the USA or Israel,
the legal environment, far from being free of constrains1, is
more flexible. The system of common law has historically
seemtobetterfitthelegalchallengescreatedbyFPCasit
accommodates emergent adaptations based on precedents
rulings.
Substantive law is key here and researches on the link
between Law & Management (Laufer, 2015a, 2015b) and
between Law & Economics (Supiot, 2015) have triggered
fruitful academic debates.
Legal implications for Europe
For the first type of regulation, efforts could be made
to create a specific regime for start-ups. Muriel Touaty,
President of Technion France, suggests “taxes should be
lowered for start-ups and midsize companies to foster a
thriving entrepreneurial environment.” Taxes are only a small
part of the broader discussion but addressing the topic would
be a recognition of the peculiarity of start-ups and their need
for ad hoc regulation. Moreover, start-ups could be more
integrated in the law-making process in order to improve
current regulatory frames, to limit complexity or costs
relating to the compliance with legal requirements. They
havespecificobjectivesandneedsanditcouldproveuseful
to increase the space of their contribution in the general
debate about their regulations.
For the second type of regulation, the problem is larger and
equally complex. Disruptive solutions are massively produced
in contemporary economies. At first, innovation opens up
new spaces of possibility that are yet to be subjected to legal
regulations, as such many responses to disruption might
not even be of legal nature. It is not the role of regulators
to follow pace with the ever-changing start-up environment.
However, new companies tend to reshape the boundaries
and the rules of business sectors at a seemingly accelerating
pace; a reality that needs to be better accounted for in the
law-makingprocessforinnovationtofinditsbestexpression.
Thus, a balance ought to be found between blind approval
and mere rejection in light of social and environmental risks.
At any rate, the approach should not be to hinder these
transformations and rather to accompany the evolutions
(Bureau, 2014b). The risk is to prevent European companies
to diffuse their own, new disruptive innovations in an open
world and to prevent fair competition with companies
subjected to other jurisdictions. Later on, innovations might
be so widespread and accepted worldwide that there will be
limited or even no possibility to actively shape them. In this
scenario, the effect is detrimental to Europe: It will be affected
by disruption but most of the value created as a consequence
will be captured by non-European companies.
1
There are well known legal risks that are reflected by the frequency of class
actions trials against companies which cost some start-ups and more established
corporations their existence.
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
11
C . C ondition 3 :
Estab lishing N etw ork - B ased
Entrepreneurship P rog ram s
( N B EP )
The reciprocal gift act differs from a transaction-based
relationship since it creates a bond between donors and
recipients that surpasses the value of the gift itself. Material
objects or services are given as a means to create and nurture
the immaterial, spiritual relationship between the parties
(Godbout & Caillé, 2007; Mauss, 1923). An established
Start-up programs blossom in every ecosystem. They take relationship is not a prerequisite for gift-giving to take place.
different shapes and sizes. Some are more relevant than others. Reciprocal gift-giving establishes an affective relationship,
The core idea might be best grasped by the following concept: whereas a pure economic exchange typically creates
Network-BasedEntrepreneurshipPrograms.WedefineNBEP unemotional connections between the buyer and the
as programs designed to enable the production of fast-growing merchant (Hyde, 1979).
and innovative companies through the use of reciprocal A fruitful example is the Y-Combinator (YC) in Silicon Valley
relationships among entrepreneurs, investors and experts. that helped growing Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, Wufoo, Heroku
These programs rely on replicable processes while avoiding and others that sold for hundreds of millions of dollars.
rigid standardization. Put differently, they are plastic enough Conditions to apply to YC vary: A start-up may already have
to adapt to the different local needs and constraints and offer raised funds, or may be in need for some money. Twice a year
ad hoc solutions to entrepreneurs. Yet, at the same time, and over a 3-months period each time, YC is (financially)
they are robust enough to maintain a common identity across supporting a pool of selected start-ups, and gives them
sites. NBEP rely on a powerful community where informal advices on various subjects ranging from “who to hire?” to
support and networks are paramount and formalization is “how to best prepare for the next fundraising?”: “YC is a
limited to a minimum. The driving logic is of reciprocal rather VC fund that looks and operates like a guild of geeks, and
than transactional nature. Plainly, people are giving resources hardly looks anything like a traditional fund comprised of VC
to others as they know there will be some form of return at partnerswithMBAsorfinancedegrees.Theyareoperators,
some point. The type of practices we have in mind are neither through and through” (Hansen, 2013). They push founders
free or uninterested (people indeed are interested in building to perform during weekly dinners where participants are
fruitful relationships) nor are they utilitarian (it is not possible encouraged to talk about their recent achievements. There
to precisely value a return on investment). Rather, they are areofficehoursforentrepreneurstotalkabouttheirprojects
hybrid practices that rely on trust. Is trust lost, reciprocity, with YC partners, which include some of the most prominent
as a mechanism for relationships revolving around gifts and figuresofthescene(e.g.,PeterThiel,JoeGebbiaorElizabeth
counter-gifts, is stopped and the individuals who do not Iorns). A lot is made to help start-ups accelerate, regardless
play by the rules are excluded from the community (Bureau, of their stage of development.
2014a; Ferrary, 2003).
12 Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
Implications for Europe
F irst , f or l oca l reg u l a t ors: Europe does need more NetworkBased Programs. The Family or Numa, though different,
are two organizations developing a similar approach in Paris.
The main goal is to help foster a start-up ecosystem where
fundamental questions can be addressed so as to support
growth. “Our objective is to work with entrepreneurs to help
themonthelonganddifficultroadtofund-raising,bygiving
them radical advice, which they would not have with more
lenient organizations” details Miguel de Fontenay, partner at
The Family. Similar places in Europe include: SeedCamp in
London, The Factory Berlin for Germany, Wayra in Madrid
or start-up bootcamps based in London (FinTech), Berlin
(HealthTech), Rome (FoodTech), Amsterdam (e-commerce),
Barcelona (DataTech) or Istanbul (various specialties).
S econd, f or a ccel era t ors: we identify a critical need for NBEP
thathelpentrepreneurstoreachlargemarkets.TheRefiners,
co-founded by Géraldine Le Meur, Carlos Diaz and Pierre
Gaubil, is a network helping French start-ups to develop their
companiesintheAmericanmarket.TheRefiners’founders
noted that French entrepreneurs were in need of three things
when entering the Silicon Valley: (i) guidance to adapt to the
localculture,(ii)assistancetomeetwithinfluentialpeopleand
(iii) help to receive funding. Their program has been developed
in accordance with that experience: The first month is
dedicatedtothefine-tuningofbusinessmodelsandtogaining
familiarity with the US culture. The following two months are
meanttoallowtimeformeetingswithinfluentialexpertsin
their respective fields and with investors as a preliminary
step towards fundraising. In Europe, there are a few global
solutions including the Chair of Entrepreneurship at ESCP
Europe, a business school uniquely positioned with campuses
in 6 large European countries. The Chair has developed
Blue Factory, an established and successful Pan-European
incubation program, which enables individuals to connect
and network with the European entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Key messages Section 1
S ociet y: For Europe to become an attractive and fecund
place for entrepreneurism means viewing the common
market as much more than a free-trade arena or the
sum of national economies. We identify three necessary
conditions for a systematic industrialization of FPC: First,
a politically integrated continental territory, that FPC
inhabit; second, an adaptive regulatory framework that
mediates given social conventions and new innovative
practices as much as it links up distant actors, aspirations
and arenas; third, network-based accelerating programs,
play a decisive role in promoting the performance of
individual founders and start-ups and also in helping
with failings and failures. The entanglement of these
conditions, we suggest, is what gives leading ecosystems
such as Silicon Valley in the USA or InnoWay in China their
productive force on the global entrepreneurial scene.
C u l t u re: Entrepreneurialism is universal but locally
is ritualized so that socialization is partly a matter of
learning how to take business actions with or among the
members of your community. The difference between the
past and the present is not about the existence or the
absence of such endeavor but the seemingly accelerating
pace at which entrepreneurs carry out carefully weighted
transactions (utility-based), pursue their own ideas
(liberty-based), encounter as equals, exchange gifts and
network (community-based).
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
13
II
D if f erent ia t ing condit ions t o f ost er
F P C dev el op m ent : C oncent ra t ed a nd
a rt icu l a t ed ca p it a l s
The level of human, economic and social capitals is instrumental
for market entries and subsequent start-up successes.
A. C ondition 1 : Inv esting in and
attracting hum an capital
Human capital refers to the knowledge and skills a person uses
and articulates to perform labor in creating economic value
(Becker, 1993). Human capital is central to entrepreneurship.
1 . O n education: The self- m ade m an is
the ex ception
Top entrepreneur and self-made man are two rare individual
qualities.IntheUSA,50%ofthefoundersofthefirst100startups have a degree from a top US university (e.g., Stanford,
Harvard, MIT or NYU)! 95% of them hold a university degree.
A sim il a r sit u a t ion in E u rop e2 :
• In Germany 1/3 of FPC entrepreneurs hold a degree from
at least one of the top US universities (e.g., Harvard, MIT or
Stanford)
• In the UK 2/3 of FPC entrepreneurs hold a degree from
at least one of the top higher education institutions
worldwide (e.g., Imperial College, Oxford, Cambridge,
Insead, Harvard or MIT)
• In France, 98 % of the entrepreneurs ranked among the
top 100 start-ups of 2015 hold a master degree from at
least one of the top national institutions (e.g., HEC, ESCP
Europe, ESSEC, Ecole Polytechnique, or Ecole Centrale).
Among them, 50% hold a degree from a business school
The figures stress the importance of the education system
to produce FPC entrepreneurs and the quite narrow number
of higher education institutions top entrepreneurs attended.
This is partly due to the level of ambition that drives both
students and their schools. “From the beginning, the ambition
at Devialet was to become the world leader in audio systems.
This has not changed ever since” says Luc Delambre,
Devialet’sChiefOperationOfficer.Asoutlinedinsection1,
this kind of vision is key to enable growth. We now know that
this level of ambition is largely supported in US universities
and that it receives increasing acceptance in Europe.
2
ChairEEEE research data
14 Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
2 . Entrepreneurship is a team
sport
The understanding of team formation and its dynamics
is paramount to the training company founders receive.
Miguel de Fontenay, Partner at The Family, suggests “investors
primarily invest in people and their vision more than in
positive financial metrics.” Many entrepreneurs follow that
line of thought and suggest that the main reason for raising
funds is to be able to hire an A-team, people with experience
andadvancedexpertise.Significantly,Tediber,afast-growing
company,hiredtheformerChiefMarketingOfficerofGoogle
France. The case illustrates the level of expertise required
by FPC. The quality of each individual would not be enough
on its own. There is a need to create fruitful collaborations
within and across teams. This is particularly challenging
at periods of fast growth and international developments.
CarlosDiaz,co-founderofTheRefiners,suggeststhatteams
could usefully be devised against country specificities. He
offers the example of a tech company that is likely to be
successful with marketing, sales and business development
located in Silicon Valley and engineering teams based in
France. This is Ricardo’s comparative advantage theory
reloaded. Dashlane, a French FPC with 90% of the business
generated internationally, uses technology and setting
screens in its offices to allow Paris and New-York based
employees to see their colleagues’ real time activity and to
improve coordination across continents. This exemplifies
the challenges growth creates for cohesion when companies
remain relatively small and keep limited resources.
Implications for Europe
The story of Steve Jobs and some happy exceptions put
aside, higher education seems to be a prerequisite in the
contemporary economic life. Europe shows a great diversity
of situations across and within countries. The study focuses
on but is not limited to one instance in particular: The case
of France.
F irst , f or h ig h er edu ca t ion inst it u t ions: in France,
the Grandes-Ecoles system offers top level programs at low
prices compared to top US universities. National engineering
training is of highest standards and often is considered one
of the best worldwide. Business schools produce 50% of
domestic top entrepreneurs. However, the institutions have
a very limited number of students and they do not seem to
offersufficientcompetenciestoarticulatealltheirpotential.
Grandes-Ecoles have had an historical tendency to work in
silos with few cross-disciplinary programs. Trans-disciplinary
educative programs should be particularly encouraged for
that reason. The Entrepreneurship Major program offered
by the Chair of Entrepreneurship at ESCP Europe provides
a unique cross-disciplinary platform that gathers freshmen
from varying background: Design students (e.g., ENSCI
or Strate), engineering students (e.g., Supélec, Mines or
Centrale) and young developers that received coding training
at 42 or Epitech. Students work in multi-disciplinary teams for
6 months developing entrepreneurial projects that combine
the variety of their competencies. Take Glowee. Glowee
is a biolighting system that uses the natural properties of
bioluminescent livings. It is particularly innovative as it does
not require electricity to function and avoids generating
light pollution. Sandra Rey, Glowee’s founder, is a designer
and a graduate from Strate who received an MIT Award in
2016 (Innovators Under 35, France). She met Geoffroy de
Bérail, ESCP Europe alumni and Glowee’s COO, during the
course of their studies at Option E, an entrepreneurship
training program. The encounter and the education at Option
E were critical for Sandra to go beyond the “design world”
and to better understand the entrepreneurship expertise and
ecosystem.
Universities in France, as distinct from Grandes-Ecoles,
are in essence key places to develop human capital for
entrepreneurship: They offer state-of-the-art contents in
their study programs; they develop expertise in a plurality
of disciplines and welcome a large number of increasingly
international students. Yet, they do not seem to provide
sufficient support for entrepreneurial trajectories and
competencies. At the point of writing, only a few of the top
entrepreneurs have received their degree from a French
University: Less than 5% of the founders of France’s top
100 start-ups of 2015 graduated from university while 90%
were trained in a Grande-Ecoles. A recent initiative is worth
mentioning: The Pepites, an acronym for the French Pôles
Etudiants pour l’Innovation, le Transfert et l’Entrepreneuriat,
was created at the level of French Universities to promote
entrepreneurship. This is an encouraging sign. However, for
Olivier Mougenot, Investment Director at Numa, universities
are yet to get properly organized to fully enter the
entrepreneurial world in the digital age (EY, 2016c). In parallel,
FPC have faced continuous hiring challenges in their search
for talented people. A possible entry point for universities
would therefore be to educate middle managers for fastgrowing companies. Access to coding training at university
and elsewhere could also be facilitated for prospective
students as the demand for this type of competencies is
booming. The new entrepreneurial curriculum at Epitech and
the creation of 42 in France are necessary pioneers. They
can only be examples and more of them would be required to
answer the seemingly limitless demand for developers.
S econd, f or reg u l a t ors: Salaries for engineers are
comparativelymuchhigherintheUS,whichmakesitdifficult
for French entrepreneurs to attract and retain talents.
There are no particular fiscal benefits, and the pay is not
competitive. India has earned an international reputation
for its training: an Indian engineer seeking for opportunities
abroadwouldprobablychoosetheUSoverEuropeashisfirst
destination. Evidently, international mobility does not solely
dependonfinancialincentives.Itrequiresalsoinfrastructures
and the possibility to work in close cooperation with top
performers and inspiring people. Family ties are important
for the skilled too (Basri & Box, 2008). To develop enticing
working conditions and offer fulfilling opportunities should
be a priority to decision leaders.
B . C ondition 2 : Econom ic
capital fitting the
entrepreneurial culture
1 . Accessing capital is critical for
em erg ing com panies
The available stock for investment is crucial for the
development of entrepreneurial ventures: Higher investments
enable entrepreneurs to pursue more ambitious projects.
They can also serve as a buffer at times of development crisis.
VC funds have a natural need to diversify their investments.
Consequently, fund size has a direct effect on the amount VC
can invest in one single company. Countries with the greatest
VC amounts invested are countries where a higher number of
unicorns were founded. In 2015 the median funding deal value
was$8MinChina,afigurethatcomparesto$6MintheUSA
and $2.5M in Europe. Of greater concern is the observation
that the median values are increasing at different rates: 38%
in Europe, 50% in the USA and 100% China (EY, 2015b). In
the USA, the amount invested is greater and the VC industry
is fueling a higher growth for start-up companies. For a
similar team and project, European companies are offered
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
15
5timeslessfinancingthantheirAmericancounterparts.In
Europe, the median deal value remained stable at $2.5M
from2014to2015,whereasintheUSA,thefigureleaped
from $5M to $6M. This can be explained by the fact that
American VC raised 5 times more capital than their European
counterparts (Atomico, 2015) and that the growth potential
is comparatively higher in the USA than in Europe.
Million dollars raised
$70 000
$60 000
57936
$50 000
$40 000
$30 000
23681
$20 000
$10 000
7356
1926
1342
996
335
270
$-
F ig u re 7 . A m ou nt s ra ised b y u nicorns a cross cou nt ries in US D
m il l ion ( E Y D a t a b a se)
Julien-David Nitlech, Investment Manager at Iris Capital,
points out to an interesting phenomenon: There is a
growing number of funds deployed in France. Is this
announcing a soaring investment momentum? France is
also experiencing a growing support from public institutions.
Paul Jeannest, Head of the RAISE endowment fund, insists
on how “the Hub Bpi is helping start-ups a lot. Equally, as
it provides a steady income to most entrepreneurs during
two years, you could say Pôle Emploi3 is France’s main VC
fund!” Bpifrance’s investment style is comparable to the
American Small Business Investment Company program or
SBIC operated by the Small Business Administration (SBA).
Data from 2013 show that the two public institutions hold
a comparable number of funds in portfolio even though the
US market is much larger. Bpifrance is the third most active
fundinEurope.Thissuggestshowsignificantthesupportof
public institutions is to the development of FPC in France.
This is a quite positive situation providing the dynamics can
be sustained over time (EY, 2016c).
3
French national and public job center.
2 . Dev eloping long – term relationships b etw een
entrepreneurs and inv estors
Peter Bos, EMEIA Strategic Growth Markets Business
Development Leader at EY, remarks that “raising funds is
not an objective in itself, you have to ask for the amount
that your business actually requires, which you’ll know by
thoroughly assessing your needs and your strategy.” This
view is supported by Pierre-Henri Deballon, founder of
Weezevent, who considers it to be remarkable that there still
is a confusion between entrepreneurship and fundraising:
“very often I hear people saying that they want to raise
money because it’s just what a start-up does! (…) But the truth
is you don’t necessarily need to raise money to develop your
company.” Fundraising must be motivated by clear needs and
specifictiming.Entrepreneursoughttocreateamomentum
to convey the idea that the market is ready to welcome their
product, by showing substantial metrics such as the number
of users. Many investors share the view of Romain Lavault,
General Partner at Partech Ventures: “we only invest in seed
if we see that there’s already a momentum” (Lavault, 2016).”
Early-stage development money is widely available and
this is excellent news. Without cash in hand it is impossible
to consider growing. As Stéphane MacMillan (Foodora)
experienced:“Businessisnotyetprofitableandoperations
need to be paid for.” Receiving funding at the different stages
of maturity is vital for start-ups in order to continuously fuel
their growth. Figure 8 is illustrative of the investment situation
in France: Many and an increasing number of operations take
place during the early stages of development.
Receiving funding at different stages of maturity is vital
for start-ups in order to fuel their growths. Even if there
are discrepancies among European countries, Europe as
a whole, focuses too much on early stage money. After the
initial investment stage, there seems to be a dearth of money
for follow-on financing. The situation arguably is better in
Investments by maturity stage
1st half 2016
Total investments
€387m
32deals
€248m
42deals
€332m
157deals
€39m
66deals
Average amount
invested
€12,1m
€5,9m
1st half 2015
Average amount
Invested
€384m
37deals
€140m
34deals
€210m
122deals
€10,4m
Total investments
3rd round
2nd round
€2,1m
1st round
€0,6m
Seed capital
€25m
51deals
€4,1m
€1,7m
€0,5m
F ig u re 8 . F ra nce V ent u re C a p it a l Ba rom et er ( E Y , 2 0 1 6 b )
16 Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
the UK where a $4.8M in VC activity was recorded in 2015
compared to $2.9M for Germany and $1.9M for France at
the same date (EY, 2016b). For later stages, many of the
rounds involved here are conducted abroad and quite likely
with American investors. Olivier Mougenot, Investment
Director at Numa, emphasizes that French VC only invest
little money because companies in their view do not seem to
need more at the beginning. As a consequence, VC tend not
to sufficiently push entrepreneurs to further develop their
companies beyond some points. Other argue that too few
European entrepreneurs offer projects which could pretend
to raise large amount of money. Assuredly this is an issue for
both sides: European investors and entrepreneurs could both
have higher ambitions.
3 . S tim ulating an ex it m ark et and prom oting
b ig g er com panies
The perspective of being able to exit at a fair amount is driving
many entrepreneurs. To be able to rely on a dynamic exit
market with low hurdles for exit is an incentive to invest and
to grow companies. In these days, entry tickets are relatively
small. Investors are not keen on putting more money in
subsequent rounds and entrepreneurs easily settle for small
exits. Foreign investors therefore take on follow-up rounds or
start-ups are acquired by bigger companies for an amount that
is satisfying to most founders. Few IPOs took place in France
because the tech sector is not very developed. However, the
European M&A sector is very active in comparison to the
USA: In the USA, the IPO sector is worth $6B at a ratio of
1:9 with M&A ($54B). In Europe, the M&A sector is 12 times
bigger than the IPO sector (EY, 2015b). Financial markets
should be able to integrate tech companies at an early stage
which is not yet the case in Europe. Additionally, cash-out
strategies are widely spread in the USA where investors
put in around 10% of the deal at each round. This provides
some sense of security to entrepreneurs during the business
creation process and may prevent them from selling as
early as they receive an (interesting) offer. That mechanism
helps entrepreneurs patiently grow their businesses as time
requires.
4
5
For instance, Axa’s Idinvest Partners or Crédit Agricole’s OMNS Capital.
excluding law, business and economics
4 . V enture C apitalists: A culture w hich should
not b e lim ited to technical ex pertise
BeyondanewgenerationofVCandfamilyoffices(e.g.,Serena
Capital, Alven, 360 Ventures Ventures, Kima, Jaina, Isai
or Elaia) some VC, in Europe in general and in France in
particular, remain more cautious relatively to their American
colleagues.InFranceandinGermany,wherefinancialsystems
are centered on banks, VC firms originated within banking
institutions and insurance companies. Many investment
managers came from the parent bank company and the
traditionofemployingbankingandfinancialprofessionalsas
VC took on. Today, many French banks and insurances have
sold their VC activities.4 Recent surveys compare the situations
in France and the USA (Dimov & Shepherd, 2005; Milosevic
&Fendt,2016).ThestudiesshowthatVCprofilesareless
diverse in France with comparatively fewer MBAs, scientists or
entrepreneurs acting as investors than in the USA. Yet, these
profilesarecrucialforscoutinganddevelopingthepromising
entrepreneurialventures.Takealookatthefigures:Sixout
of ten VC partners in the USA have a MBA degree, compared
to less than two in France. 48% of US American VC are
natural scientists and engineers compared to 41% in France.
AmongallFrenchVCpartnerswithscientificbackground,a
majority holds an engineering degree, many started careers
in consulting or finance and only one out of six holds a
degree in natural sciences, including medicine. France has
a low score for graduates in humanities5 compared to the
USwhereonepartnerinfivereceivedtraininginthatfield.
Another noticeable difference concerns the high proportion
offinancialandbankingspecialistsinFrance:sevenoutoften
VC partners have experience as investment professionals,
compared to less than six in the USA. Finally, French VC funds
have on average fewer managers with an entrepreneurial
background (14% compared to 18% in the USA) and nearly
two third of the funds even have no executives members
with this type of past experiences. Finally, a vast proportion
of VC managers in France has a salary or regular incomes.
Financial incentives for driving the success of their portfolios
remain underdeveloped. A proven success factors in the USA
is the personal contribution of VC partners alongside other
fund investors. This practice sends clear and positive signal
to other VC partners who may be solicited to invest in followonfinancingrounds.
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
17
C . C ondition 3 : P rom oting on- and
offline social capital
money, angels act as advisors. Beside sheer absolute return,
emotional connections develop between entrepreneurs and
their business angels. This process generally translates into
Socialcapitalasdiscussedinthepresentreportisdefinedas the willingness to share knowledge and to mentor the next
the sum of the resources embedded within, available through entrepreneurship generation (Figure 9) (BNPParibas, 2015).
Sharing Knowledge
and derived from the network of relationships nurtured by an
individual. It is a critical asset to articulate resources in a way
Other
Mentoring the next generation
that promotes growth.
36.1%
25.8%
23.6%
18.4%
1 . B onding or B ridg ing N etw ork : W ho should
support the creation of F uture P ow er
C om panies?
37.0%
Creating
opportunities
29.3%
6.5%
1.5%
17.7%
26.2%
29.1%
2 . O ld B rothers and B usiness Ang els hav e
k ey responsib ilities
Business Angels are typical provider of bridging social capital.
Their role is central to the inception of a growth project: the
European trade Association for Business Angels or EBAN
estimates that business angels account for 73% of early-stage
funding vs. 26% for VC (EBAN, 2014). Apart from supplying
18 Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
Developing the industry
25.8%
15.6%
12.7%
20.6%
Staying active
Solving problems in society
23.4%
38.1%
Keeping abreast of the industry
Making good investments
Advice led
Capital led
Q : For which of the following reasons did you decide to become an angelinvestor ?
N: 1,759
Source: Scorpio Partnership, BNP Parlbas
F ig u re 9 . M ot iv es f or Bu siness A ng el I nv est m ent s ( E Y , 2 0 1 5 b )
In the USA, business angels are very active. A whole sector
isbuildingupongenerationsofentrepreneurswhobenefited
from it. The founders of Paypal generated impressive revenues
with the sale of their company to e-Bay. Subsequently, they
reinvested some of the money in the start-up scene; Peter
Thiel and Elon Musk, two of Paypal’s cofounders were the
most prolific ones. They invested in new projects some of
which reached leading business positions in the world (e.g.,
Facebook, LinkedIn or Yammer). They are actively supporting
incubators like the Y-Combinator and have become guiding
figures in the Valley. Eventually, Elon Musk created further
companies and potential unicorns (e.g., Tesla Motors, Space
X or SolarCity).
Successful entrepreneurs help growing new businesses by
capitalizing on past experiences, personal networks and
fame. The history of Paypal is exemplary in many ways. It is
a case for dense networks of committed entrepreneurs in a
supportive ecosystem.
# of paypal confounders involved
Two forms of social capital are distinguished. On the one
hand, bonding social capital refers to strong, repeated social
connections that result in norms of reciprocity and yield
trust (Coleman, 1988). This form of social capital is largely
supportive of entrepreneurship as it enables trustworthy
relationships, the emergence of solidarity and gift-giving.
Many entrepreneurs use bootstrapping techniques to
decrease external capital needs. Bootstrapping as a practice
mainly is based on bonding social capital: friends and family
are largely used to obtain resources and informal support.
Young entrepreneurs might use spare spaces at their
parents’ place rather than to rent an office. They might
casually ask friends for expertise or money. Evidently, the
more resourceful one’s close network is, the more one can
rely on it and use it to develop a start-up. As a side-effect,
this capital tends to limit the scope of possibilities: being
bound to one community is limiting the access to a variety
of other abundant resources. On the other hand therefore,
developing a bridging social capita (Burt, 1982) is essential.
The idea is to create connections with distant agents both
in terms of perspectives and backgrounds. For connections
are enabling to develop resources different from the assets
entrepreneurs usually draw on in their regular network. This
is the type of network programs like the Y-Combinator offer.
Social networks or crowdfunding platforms enable to develop
bridging social capital: they help raising the first dollar or
increasing the size of a community of backers and supporters
(André et al., 2015).
15.4%
8
6
4
2
0
Yammer
Slide
Palamtir
Founding
Yelp
Space X
Geni
Linkedin
Advisary
Youtube
Reddit Open Door
Yahoo
Caplinked Halcyon
molecular
Square
(Affirm) Instagram
(?)
(?)
(?)
Airbnb
Eventbrite
Xoom
Funding
F ig u re 1 0 . T h e I nv ol v em ent of t h e P a yp a l N et w ork in
A m erica n st a rt - u p s ( L a ig l e, 2 0 1 6 )
Tokbox
Evernote Tumbler
Company name (Date of acquisition; Last rank known.
180
177
157
145
120
115
99
107
134
130
123
172
159
144
141
103
$4,189
$4,117
$3,674
$3,397
$2,905
11
11
2’
Q
11
1’
Q
11
4’
Q
11
3’
Q
11
2’
Q
11
1’
Q
11
4’
Q
11
3’
11
2’
Q
11
1’
Q
11
4’
Investment ($M)
$2,114
$2,017 $1,899
$1,829
$1,523 $1,435
Q
$1,892
$1,497
$1,204 $1,250
Q
$1,876 $1,866
$1,399
Q
6
185
194
1’
Corporate ventures are growing in the world. Quarterly
investments have jumped in recent years from $1,8B in
Q2/2011 to $4,2B in Q2/2015 (CBInsights, 2015a). This
is dividing up the start-up scene. Some say investments
support the development of new business models and help
incumbents to evolve. Axel Springer was able to successfully
navigate the digital revolution with an acquisition spree. About
90 companies where bought since 2005. Examples include
Quarterly Corporate VC Investment and Deal Volume Trend
Q1’11 to Q2’15
11
F ig u re 1 1 . F ou r m a in p ossib il it ies f or col l a b ora t ion b et w een
st a rt - u p s a nd l a rg e corp ora t ions
3’
Microsoft BizSpark
(2008)
Q
Axel Springer
Plug&Play (2013)
11
Paypal Startup
(2013)
2’
Airbus BizLab
(2015)
Q
P rog ram / platform
11
Acceleration
prog ram
1’
N o
Q
I nv est issm ent
Airbus Business
Innovation Factory
(2014&2015)
11
I nv est issem ent
Google Ventures
(2009)
4’
Axel Springer (2005) People’s Lab BNP
Paribas (2014)
Q
Internal incub ator
11
Y es C orporate v enturing
From the inside to
the outside
3’
From the outside to
the inside
Q
O rientaion of the innov ation
11
Weiblen and Chesbrough identify 4 roles big corporations
play when collaborating with start-ups (EY, 2015a; Weiblen &
Chesbrough, 2016). Their roles depend on how innovation is
orientated and on the existence of a direct investment:
2’
3 . R elationships b etw een start- ups and larg e
com panies need caring to g enerate g row th
Zanox, StepStone, Seloger, or Pixlee. The approach Axel
Springer has followed is to buy existing and well established
digital players with a proven record of commercial successes,
good customers’ relations and a clearly defined business
model. The target companies were often ranked among the
top 5 players in their respective markets. To name a few6:
idealo.de (2006; #5); Zanox. (2007; #2); Digital Window
(2009; #3); StepStone (2009; #2). The objective was to
develop all acquired companies into a market leader in their
respectivefieldbydrawingontheexperience,thereachand
the media power of the purchasing company. The objective was
achieved for all of the aforementioned acquisitions by 2014.
Axel Springer followed the course of action of a true digital
shareholder. The company has guaranteed a full operational
independence to the acquired companies. When possible the
founding partners and the management were retained. Axel
Springer focused on maintaining growth momentum and
has always seemed to look for a real partnership: a cultural
change imposed by ‘colonial masters’ was to be avoided as
the word goes. Around 2014, Axel Springer slightly changed
its strategy. The company started trying to broaden the
scope of its activity and looked for acquisitions of other
companies in a much earlier stage of development than it
had previously been the case. The code of conduct was clear
too. Principles called “Build, Acquire, Partner” were now to
be followed. For Axel Springer an early stage investment
does not necessarily translate into an acquisition. In parallel,
the company has focused on the creation of its own start-ups
and on the development of partnerships with young startups. The main vehicle for this strategy is the Axel Springer
Plug & Play accelerator, a 50/50 joint venture with Plug &
Play. In order to diffuse similar practices in France and to
develop comparable interactions between large corporations
and start-ups, Raise was created by David avec Goliath, a
platform that offers expertise and possibilities to improve a
positive dynamics for all.
Q
Xavier Niel, Jacques-Antoine Granjon, Fabrice Grinda, Marc
Simonci, Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet in France are increasingly
active in the role of old brothers. Xavier Niel’s track record
of 230 investments in various start-ups is certainly leading
the way. “Their past investments grant them with an image
that is reassuring for trade partners. Their success provides
some sort of guarantee. It’s like a stamp that would say that
the project is viable” says Luc Delambre, Managing Director
at Devialet. Successful entrepreneurs create weak ties,
infrequent and intense relationships that are very powerful
to increase the chances for a project to grow.
Deals
F ig u re 1 2 . Q u a rt erl y corp ora t e V C inv est m ent a nd dea l
v ol u m e, ( C BI nsig h t s, 2 0 1 5 )
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
19
Others criticize the involvement of large corporations. In
an article published in TechCrunch, Jon Evans, a journalist
and software engineer, worries about the lack of ambition of
French entrepreneurs (Evans, 2016). He observed that one of
the main goals of French entrepreneurs was to get acquired
by big groups rather than to disrupt them and jeopardize
their leadership. Jean-David Chamboredon, co-CEO of
France Digitale, complements this view by highlighting what
he calls a caiman syndrome: corporations seem to conceive
of start-ups as “cute little caimans.” As soon as they get a
little too big for their taste, they try to turn them into purses
(Chamboredon, 2016).
Key messages Section 2
C u l t u re: it is argued the cause of European FPC
comparatively feeble performances is a slow speed
of change in the conception of learning and success.
To raise funds has long seemed to provide a higher
standard of corporate performance, which generations
of European company founders and investors took as the
gold standard of entrepreneurialism, dismissing mere
timely growth and market disruption. Nevertheless, FPC
development by experimenting and failing remains an
important and neglected type of business action in our
European and many other societies. Learning by doing
how to develop a start-up and how to fruitfully spread
innovation is central for founders, investors, incubators
and incumbents. To develop a cultural understanding of
entrepreneurial experiences is key for Europe and has
institutional implications for education systems and the
corporate life.
M a na g em ent : the development of many start-ups
inspired by the contemporary sharing economy
movement is associated with the disruption of the very
company creation process and the disappearance of
the traditional role of company founders in Europe. We
need more visibility at a European continental level with
entrepreneurial expertise to establish a solid reputation
as to attract increasing talents and resources. A higher
concentration and diversity of capitals is required with a
European coordination in order to develop existing FPC
performances.
20 Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
Implications for Europe:
F irst , f or st a rt - u p s: further generations of entrepreneurs
ought to be produced and a tradition of intergenerational
connections has to start. Successful European entrepreneurs
have a responsibility to help newcomers. They could usefully
leverage their network up to a continental scale. However,
individual trajectories cannot be sustained without a
supportive ecosystem. Representatives from France Digitale
insist: to foster an increasing number of business angels, the
issue of taxation must be tackled. In 2016 a new plan was
implemented in France and a decreasing tax rate applied: it
rangesfrom62%ofcapitalinthefirstyearofacquisitionto
23,75 % after 8 year of share holding. As a comparison, in the
UK the maximum tax rate is 20 % on the movable capital gains
(Ekeland et al., 2016). Israel is also a good illustration of proinvestors policy where the “Angel Law” allows a tax deduction
of up to €1M for an investment in a small- to medium-sized
tech enterprise (Perez, 2016). To increase interactions and
collaborations among top European entrepreneurs would
also be relevant. It would help concentrate resources on an
international level and develop bridging social capitals. Israelis
are for that matter tightly connected with the American
entrepreneurial scene. This is key to the development of FPC
that operate beyond their native environment.
S econd, f or l a rg e corp ora t ions: collaboration between
start-ups and large corporations is growing in Europe.
Encouraging results should not mask the need to improve
the collaboration’s quality between the two worlds. One main
issue is to increase a mutual understanding and to avoid
the all too often experienced zero sum games where both
parties try to destroy the other. Intel capital, the Corporate
Venture of Intel, is investing 1 billion $ per year to support
the growth of FPC. Companies like Google or Facebook have
acquired many FPC in order to help create new markets as
much as to control an emergent phenomenon. Further,
incumbent companies may offer critical solutions to help
expanding a market. The role of insurance companies for
car sharing offers an inspiring illustration. Allianz and Axa
have considerably facilitated the growth of Drivy and OuiCar
respectively. Europeans need more of these moments and
spaces to learn and develop these practices.
I I I T h e condit ion f or a su st a ina b l e p rodu ct ion
of F P C : S ociet a l a ccep t a nce
A. A societal capacity to ab sorb the
dialectic b etw een creation and
destruction
Disruption produces a myriad of creations: new products and
services, new markets and new companies. Disruption also
comes along with multiple destructions. The dynamics of
creation and destruction work together. Creation cannot be
conceived of independently from destruction. Four main types
ofdestructionareidentifiedwhendistinguishingbetween(i)
object and (ii) domain. On the one hand, disruption might
affect the others (e.g., society or competition) or the self (the
entrepreneur and its creation); On the other hand, disruption
has real but differing effects whether it primarily affects the
realm of materiality or immateriality. Before defining each
form of destruction and using the frame to discuss the case
of GAFA, the emerging typology is outlined in Figure 13:
1 . C og nitiv e Destruction and U nlearning
Founders of FPC and Unicorns are entrepreneurs equipped
with a high level of human capital: they learned a lot.
Disruptive entrepreneurship requires learning as much as it
requires unlearning and the ability to question core beliefs
and certainties. When Larry Page and Sergueï Brin created
Google, search engines were perceived as a commodity
market for software analyzing contents and listing relevant
webpages. The growth of their start-up was less enabled by a
deep learning of the existing techniques than it was triggered
by the unlearning of the dominant expertise of the time. The
two founders destroyed knowledge, beliefs,
Disruption O b j ect
M a t eria l
Others (e.g.,
society)
Self (e.g.,
entrepreneur)
C om p et it iv e
O b sol escence
D econst ru ct ion
S u b v ersion
Unl ea rning
Facebook
Amazon destroyed destroyed the
many bookstores
Facemash
D isru p t ion I m m a t eria l
D om a in
Google destroyed
Apple destroyed
the original power the original search
relationships
engine expertise
between computer
scientists and
users
F ig u re 1 3 . T h e f ou r dest ru ct iv e dyna m ics ( Bu rea u , 2 0 1 6 ;
Bu rea u & K om p oroz os- A t h a na siou , 2 0 1 6 )
and routines of a milieu and developed new ways of making
online searches. They shifted the meaning of relevance for
scientificreferencingbycreatingpagerankandfocusingon
the number of citations. Page rank is based on the number
and the significance of inbound links to the page being
assessed. It goes beyond the mere content analysis.
For existing companies, this capacity to change and unlearn
is made possible through organizational adjustments like
new resource allocations, new recruitment processes or
restructuring and the creation of a separate organizational
unit. Some historic cases have been very well documented:
Intel (Burgelman & Grove, 2002), Swatch (Garel & Mock,
2016) or IBM (Prahalad & Oosterveld, 1999). They help
understanding how a company evolves on the long-term and
sometimes destroys its own historic set of competencies to
survive and grow (Gans, 2016). In many other cases (like
KodakorPolaroid),successfulfirmsfailedpreciselybecause
they rigidly reproduced the choices that had made them
successful.
2 . M aterial Destruction and Deconstruction
At the very beginning, Mark Zuckerberg never thought of
launchingFacebook.Atfirst,hecreatedtheFacemashasa
joke with his roommates at Harvard University: on November
19, 2003, Mark Zuckerberg is uploading a game on the
Internet allowing students to vote for the “hottest” person
on campus. To determine a winner, students had to compare
the faces of two different persons of the same sex and to
opine on their attractiveness. Student pictures stored on
the club’s directory webpage were hacked for that purpose.
Theeffectwassignificantcomparedtotheresourcesused:
in only a few hours, around 450 students took part in the
game and tallied 22,000 votes. Based on this experience,
Mark Zuckerberg realized how powerful an online facebook
could be when used within in an existing community. He
understood what would later be labelled the viral effects of
social networks. Thefacebook.com, which became facebook.
com some months later, was launched on February 4, 2004
based on the Facemash experiment. The case illustrates
how a company can grow only if it manages to deconstruct
its initial form. To create Facebook, the Facemash and
Thefacebook.com had to be deconstructed. The solution
proposed by a start-up is seldom perfect. It emerges and
frequently evolves in an attempt to improve it based on
customers’ feedback and available resources. The emergent
phase implies some difficult choices: what should be kept?
What should be changed? Without a capacity to destroy parts
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
21
of the original work projects freeze. They cannot improve nor
grow. Rapid prototyping, popularized by the design-thinking
and Lean Start-up methods, are illustrative of new ways for
experimenting with the numerous deconstructions processes
that the entrepreneur must manage. Large corporations
willing to engage in these processes have many possibilities
that include accelerators, fablabs, co-working spaces or labs.
These spaces usually are crucial for employees to be able
to develop emergent projects that may become profitable.
Notable examples
Open Bookstores in the U.S.
40,000
35,000
by the arrival of new corporations (e.g., FPC, Unicorns or
GAFA). Amazon and its model of online bookstore actively
contributed to the destruction of many libraries in the USA as
shown (Figure 14).
Other instances provide a rather different picture and
incumbents might not always be negatively affected by
disruptors. As a matter of fact, Tivo disrupted the American
TV ecosystem by cooperating with the incumbents (Ansari
et al., 2015). This coopetition is not an isolated case as
large corporations are increasingly developing alliances with
start-ups to manage the process of disruption. Partnerships
developing in the car industry to manage the diffusion of
autonomous cars form a recent and practical example of the
effects of this strategy (CBInsights, 2016a).
4 . Institutional Destruction and S ub v ersion
Many entrepreneurs declare they would want to change
the world. Assuredly, some of them are using the rhetoric
principally as a marketing strategy. Others certainly feel
26,500
the purpose to change societies and are driven by a strong
political ideological background (Jarrodi & Bureau, 2016).
Many libertarian entrepreneurs aim at creating disruptive
22,000
solutions to limit the power of the State (Ferenstein, 2015).
‘04
‘06
‘08
‘10
‘12
‘14
‘16
‘18
Representatives of the movement include Jimmy Wales
F ig u re 1 4 . N u m b er of b ook st ores in t h e US A
(founder of Wikipedia), Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon)
or Peter Thiel (co-founder of Paypal). Peter Thiel puts his
in France include: La Chocolaterie (EDF), the WAI (BNP intentions plainly: “The basic thought was if you could lessen
Paribas), the Daher Lab (Daher) or the Airbiz Lab (Airbus).
the control of government over money and somehow shift the
ability of people to control the money that was in their wallets,
3 . C reativ e Destruction and C om petitiv e
this would be a truly revolutionary shift (…). Technologies
O b solescence
like PayPal have been a major contributing factor toward the
weakening of the nation-state over the last few decades (…)
Creative destruction is defined as the process “that [and] will lead to a world in which there’s less government
incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from power and therefore more individual control” (Bailey, 2008).
within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly The posture, far from being just economic, involves a strong
creating a new one” (Schumpeter, 1942). The process is the political stance and is of subversive nature. Subversion can
driving engine of capitalism. Strategy cannot be approached bedefinedasabehavior,anattitudeoranactivitythatseeks
independently from creative destruction, Schumpeter argues. to destroy the established order (Bureau, 2013). The term
Entrepreneurs develop innovations that make traditional carries strong historical connotations and usually brings to
forms of supplies obsolete in a rather mechanical way. Do mindarevolutionaryorartisticcontext.Itperfectlyfitsthe
established companies renounce to adapt to the emergence entrepreneurial activities that disrupt systems, although it
ofnewproductsorpractices,theirprofitswillprogressively is seldom used in the management science literature.
decrease and their position will eventually be supplanted in
the market. Change is endogenous to capitalism and operates The free software movement counts to the most renowned
continuously: creative destruction constantly pushes away cases. Richard Stallman, the movement leader, has
old products and old enterprises, replacing them with new endeavored to open access to the source code of software
ones. Between 1999 and 2009, almost 50% of the Fortune as early as the beginning of the 1980s. The idea’s core is
500 companies disappeared from the list (Goodburn, well expressed in a few words from Stallman’s manifesto
2015). Companies’ discontinuances partially are explained published in 1985: “proprietary modifications will not be
allowed” (Stallman, 1985). The project calls into question the
31,000
22 Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
regulation of intellectual property rights by the State, one of
the founding principles of capitalism. At a commercial level,
Google and Facebook offer other examples of entrepreneurial
activities that have challenged some of the founding principles
of our societies such as privacy norms from their start. It is
now useful to turn to the case of Apple. In the 80’s, Steve
Jobs engaged in a battle against IBM and wanted to change
the relationships between computer scientists and users.
Hiswishwastooffermorepowertothefinalusers,anidea
he discussed openly. In 1984, he releases a TV commercial
during the Super Bowl as a way to launch the new Macintosh
in reference to Georges Orwell’s 1984. The idea is to make
people think and understand that Apple is going to free
people from the “totalitarianism” of centralized computing. In
the add, not a single computer is displayed but images using
symbols of authority and control – people are wearing the
same grey clothes resembling prisoners and watching a screen
from which a man utters words with a dictatorial tone. The
scene is contrasted with images of liberty and empowerment
symbolized by a young athlete wearing colored clothes and
launching a harmer on the screen to stop the man talking.
Eventually a message appears on the screen: “On January
24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh and you’ll see
why 1984 won’t be like “1984”.” In the cases discussed, the
success of innovation lies in the destruction of competition.
It lies in the destruction of the very frames and rules that
defineourinstitutionsandestablishwhatislegitimateornot,
thereby constraining the way people apprehend novelty. The
effects of disruption cannot be sustained in the long run if
one is unable to accommodate its destructive components.
The effects of disruption cannot be sustained in the long run
if one is unable to accommodate its destructive components
B . The case of j ob creation and
social j ustice
The job market disruption is discussed in the remaining as to
illustrate the more general effects of disruption on society.
Disruption tends to have a positive impact on job quantity but
simultaneously it creates new social inequalities that have to
be addressed for the stability the new economic model.
1 . A q uantitativ e deb ate: F P C create j ob s in
the short term
Start-ups are creating and destroying jobs at the same
time. They create jobs by hiring a lot of people. They also
destroy jobs by pressing established companies to adapt
their business models7. Sometimes established companies
go bankrupt. On average, start-ups are said to have a net
positive impact on job creations. According to the Kauffman
Foundation, “when it comes to job-creating power, it is not
the size of the business that matters as much as it is the age”
(Wiens & Jackson, 2015): young companies create more jobs
than old companies. Start-ups have a vital role in creating jobs
and are responsible for around 2/3 of net job growth among
allexistingfirmsintheUSA(Figure15).Severalsurveysare
supporting this figure (Decker et al., 2014). However, it is
crucial to balance the positive contribution with the sharp job
lossesfacingmanyfirmsofamarketinthefirstyearsafter
a FPC entry. Most start-ups fail and most of the survivors do
not grow. A few “existing start-ups are high-growth firms
that contribute disproportionately to job growth. These highgrowth young firms yield the long-lasting contribution of
start-ups to net job creation” (Decker et al., 2014, pp. 9–10).
Unemployment Rate:Routine Vs. Nonroutine,
Cognitive Vs. Manual
Net Job Creation
5 million
18.0%
4 million
16.0%
2 million
1 million
14.0%
0
Routine Congnitive
2.0%
Nonroutine Congnitive
Jan 2013
Jan 2011
Jan 2009
Jan 2007
Jan 2005
Jan 2003
0.0%
Jan 2001
See deconstruction dynamics as detailed in the previous section
4.0%
Jan 1999
7
6.0%
Jan 1997
F ig u re 1 5 . N et j ob crea t ions in t h e US A ( W iens & J a ck son,
2 0 1 5 )
8.0%
Jan 1995
Source : U.S.Census Bureau Business Dyanamics Statistics
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
-6 million
Nonroutine manual
Jan 1993
11+ Years
-5 million
Routine manual
10.0%
Jan 1991
6-10 Years
-4 million
12.0%
Jan 1989
0-5 Years
Jan 1987
Firm Age
-3 million
Jan 1985
-2 million
Jan 1983
-1 million
Unemployment Rate
Numbers Of Job Created
3 million
Source: current population survaey and author’s calculations.
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
F ig u re 1 6 . Unem p l oym ent ra t e: rou t ine v s non- rou t ine;
cog nit iv e v s m a nu a l in t h e US A
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
23
Similar ratios were calculated for Europe, including for France
(EY, 2015c).
2 . A q ualitativ e deb ate: F P C tend to create
social ineq ualities
Beyond the diversity of start-ups, the side effects of
entrepreneurial activities ought to be taken into account.
Many incumbents are facing difficulties due to new, fast
growing entrants. Most of the time and as a result, they
have to lay off people. Borders is a company that could not
finditswayinthefaceofdigitalizationandthecompetition
of Amazon. The company went bankrupt in 2011 and is a
typical case of creative destruction. Job creation in essence
is hard to assess in the mid-run. The many adjustments of the
job market render any neat calculation virtually impossible.
There are points of views: maybe start-ups do not create
jobs for the people who lost their jobs as a consequence
of their emergence. Regardless of age, every individual is
concerned with the need to learn new competencies and to
unlearn carefully developed expertise that may have become
obsolete8.
According to a recent survey conducted in the USA, the
average annual earnings for self-employed is higher than
for a salaried workers, while their median annual earnings is
lower(Manso,2016).Theresultconfirmsexistingclaimsthat
a limited number of entrepreneurs earn outstanding amounts
of money, while the typical entrepreneur makes less than
he would do in a bigger company. Another and more recent
survey conducted in Denmark shows that a disproportionate
number of low-skilled service jobs contribute to total job
creation (Kuhn et al., 2016). At any rate, few start-ups are
able to make large turnovers to pay high salaries. In the UK,
start-ups on average reach $180K in revenues after sixth
year (Coutu, 2014), a figure that in most cases does not
allow to pay salaries.
The picture is even sharper in Silicon Valley: on the one hand,
At last, new technologies like Artificial Intelligence are the median annual income reached $94K in 2013, far above
creating new opportunities and threats for routine jobs that the national median of around $53K; On the other hand, the
have long been the most exposed to unemployment (Figure poverty rate in Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley,
16). Researchers estimate that 45 % of America’s occupations is around 19 % and an estimated 31 % of jobs pay a $16 low
will be automated within the next 20 years (Frey & Osborne, per hour or less (Rotman, 2014). Many reasons explain why
2013),withamoresignificantimpactonlow-qualifiedand inequalities are particularly high in this part of the world. The
routine jobs (Santens, 2016). Highly skilled workers are immediate co-existence of extreme wealth and poverty in the
subjected to job automation to a lesser extent. “Ross”, a same place raises moral issues and question the sustainability
lawyer robot, was recently hired by Baker & Hostetler, a global of the dynamics. Eventually, the very notion of work will be
lawfirm(Addady,2016).Therobotisabletounderstanda challenged by the many new business models that develop as
legal issue, to dig into a database, and to articulate answers part of the sharing economy movement. Virtually anyone can
act as a taxi driver or a hotelkeeper. This challenge a great
based on legal articles and past cases.
deal of our most established conceptions of what a job is or
what social welfare systems should do9.
24 Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
8
See unlearning dynamics as discussed in the previous section
9
See subversive dynamics as described in the previous section
Key messages Section 3
I nst it u t ion: by institution in this report, we chiefly
mean established corporate organizations rather than
matters of practices and customs, although, of course,
organizations have their own practices that affect the
habits of the people with whom they interact. The
institutional disruption that FPC illustrate relies on a
process of destruction as much as on creation and affects
the classical economic way of conceiving corporate life.
Today’s European institutional context reveals and creates
its own obsolescence (Schumpeterian approach) and
raises increasing social criticism (Political subversion).
C og nit ion: the movement needs parallel at the level of
theindividualtofinditsbestenactment:thismeansto
acknowledge failing attempts (Deconstruction) and to
question past experiences and beliefs (Unlearning). It is
important to discover how to use these endowments for
start-ups to interact with large corporations and to trigger
virtuous coopetition circles. This implies, we suggest,
to review the traditional understanding of learning as
a continuous process: lifelong learning often means to
dynamically develop expertise and to unlearn skills and
experiences we draw from.
S econd, f or m a na g em ent : perfection and excellence tend
to be pursed both in educational systems and in large
corporations. In entrepreneurship the capacity to experiment,
test and deconstruct is critical. Deconstructive stages should
be valued rather than seen as unacceptable risks and failures.
Companies ought to incentivize such failures and adhere
to the idea of affordable loss much more than to a profit
maximization principle11.Wedonotencouragetodefinean
expectedprofit.Wesuggesttodefineacceptablelossrates
at various development stages. This is instrumental to any
deconstruction process.
T h ird, f or t h e econom y: natural resistance of incumbents and
authorities towards new entrants is likely to limit growth and
the spread of innovation dynamics throughout Europe. Some
European start-ups have supported very valuable projects,
notdissimilartotheonesmaintainedbyfastgrowingfirms
in the world, but they actually failed to continue in the face
of heavy oppositions. Heetch is one example among many.
Large corporations too often consider start-ups as a major
risk for their operations. They fail to consider the opportunity
and the value that might come from collaborating with them.
Expertise is required to improve interactions between the
corporate and the FPC worlds.
F ou rt h , f or societ y: resistance is experienced beyond the
economic level. Societal and institutional resistances limit
the diffusion of new practices related to the ways in which
we live, educate, love, bond, work, eat or consider our selves.
Resistances are useful and relevant as they enable a delay to
The challenge for Europe is not so much to support creation. integrate, change and adjust to the emerging of disruptive
There are many start-ups emerging every year. Based on the solutions within societies. The acceleration of disruptions
number of company creation, one could even consider that presents a potentially high risk for social cohesion: social
Europe creates too many start-ups. The most pressing issue inequalities, psychological disorders, racism (Stiegler, 2016).
New forms of collective regulations and protections are
is to manage destruction.
needed to address these issues. Europe developed solutions
First, for individuals: people ought to be encouraged to learn
to adapt the 19th and 20th centuries. Facing the industrial
new knowledge as much as to learn how to unlearn. Expertise
revolution and the terrible World Wars 1 and 2, we as
developedinanyfieldisverylikelytobecomeobsoletewithin
Europeans have invented a new labor law and the Welfare
the following 5, 10 or 15 years. At an individual level, the
State. Changes of similar magnitude are required in the 21st
challenge is to be able to unlearn expertise and to learn new
century to avoid a dramatic evolution and to enable the fair
ways of thinking and doing. This means viewing learning
sharingofthebenefitsofdisruptivedynamics.
as much more than a cumulative and purely incremental
process. The ideas outlined in this report have important
implications for many European educational systems and 11 For more details about the affordable loss principle, visit http://www.effectuation.
org/learn/principle/3
traditional corporate training, for it means to critically
review the approach to learning with the goal to unlearn past
expertise.10
I m p l ica t ions f or E u rop e
10
Experiments with art practices offer innovative teaching methods. For an
institutional attempt to develop the practice see the Improbable workshop held by
the Chair of Entrepreneurship. Visit: http://improbable.strikingly.com/
Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
25
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all contributors to the survey, the participants and the experts, for their precious comments
andinvaluableinsights.Particularthanksgoto:AlexisFogel,CarlosDiaz,CatherineLaffineur,DavidCheckroun,Hadrien
Bureau, Julien-David Niltech, Louis-David Benyayer, Luc Delambre, Marc Fournier, Martin Kupp, Miguel de Fontenay, Miona
Milosevic, Muriel Touaty. Olivier Mougenot, Paul Jeannest, Peter Bos,Pierre-Henri Deballon, René Mauer, Stéphane MacMillan
and Vladyslav Potapchuk
The comments from the last reviewers played a decisive and major role in the improvement of the study. The authors are
especially grateful for the research assistance of Jean-Charles Buttolo and Ugo di Mascio. The editing and publishing of the
reportbenefitedfromtheleadershipofGrégoirePetit.
26 Beyond Unicorns: The Industrialization of Disruption A case for Europe
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Ab out the C haire Entrepreneurariat ES C P
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