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Interest in entrepreneurial systems has recently exploded. Policy-makers want to create one. Entrepreneurs want to be in one. This emergence of entrepreneurial ecosystems is as new as it is rapid. Earlier generations had thought of entrepreneurship as a rather lonely, or at least individualistic, journey. Both the decision to become an entrepreneur and the subsequent outcome or performance of the entrepreneurial venture seemed to be all about the individual, or team of individuals, and the entrepreneurial firm, but little else. Both policy-makers and scholars remained fixated on those individual characteristics and traits that might influence the decision to become an entrepreneur, as well as the eventual entrepreneurial performance, such as the preference for risk, need for autonomy, and desire for actualization.

Perhaps it was the large, imposing elephant in the entrepreneurship room, Silicon Valley, that persuaded …