Ira Glass

Next week on the podcast of This American Life, we present the Museum of Now. Filled with artifacts of this particular moment our country is living through. Like, for instance, the transcript of a judge who's questioning an executive order that seems to be based on statements that are completely untrue.

Next week on the podcast of This American Life, we present the Museum of Now. Filled with artifacts of this particular moment our country is living through. Like, for instance, the transcript of a judge who's questioning an executive order that seems to be based on statements that are completely untrue.

Or a piece of a street near the White House that construction workers are tearing up because it had been painted with the words, Black Lives Matter.

Or a piece of a street near the White House that construction workers are tearing up because it had been painted with the words, Black Lives Matter.

That's next week on the podcast or on your local public radio station.

That's next week on the podcast or on your local public radio station.

Pino Audia teaches in the business school at Dartmouth, and he researches the question, how do entrepreneurs get created? And at some point, he noticed that his students and many of his colleagues actually have an opinion about this. They believe entrepreneurs make themselves. You know, you head off on your own, you write a business plan, you start in your own garage.

Pino Audia teaches in the business school at Dartmouth, and he researches the question, how do entrepreneurs get created? And at some point, he noticed that his students and many of his colleagues actually have an opinion about this. They believe entrepreneurs make themselves. You know, you head off on your own, you write a business plan, you start in your own garage.

And the garage, by the way, is not a metaphorical garage. It is a garage, a literal garage. Hewlett Packard started in a garage. Apple Computer had a garage. Disney, the Mattel Toy Company, the Wham-O Toy Company.

And the garage, by the way, is not a metaphorical garage. It is a garage, a literal garage. Hewlett Packard started in a garage. Apple Computer had a garage. Disney, the Mattel Toy Company, the Wham-O Toy Company.

This is a promotional video that Hewlett Packard put together after it spent millions to buy and restore the original garage where its two founders started a company that is still one of the largest technology firms in the world.

This is a promotional video that Hewlett Packard put together after it spent millions to buy and restore the original garage where its two founders started a company that is still one of the largest technology firms in the world.

Professor Adia doesn't argue with any of this, but he says that when you ask actual entrepreneurs, and this is true in survey after survey, you find that most of them began not by going off into their garage, but by working for somebody else. making contacts, learning the business.

Professor Adia doesn't argue with any of this, but he says that when you ask actual entrepreneurs, and this is true in survey after survey, you find that most of them began not by going off into their garage, but by working for somebody else. making contacts, learning the business.

Even Bill Hewitt and Dave Packard weren't exactly outsiders. They studied electrical engineering at MIT and Stanford. Packard had worked at General Electric. A former professor of theirs from Stanford gave them leads and hooked them up, for example, with a firm called Lytton Engineering, who let them use equipment that they didn't know themselves yet.

Even Bill Hewitt and Dave Packard weren't exactly outsiders. They studied electrical engineering at MIT and Stanford. Packard had worked at General Electric. A former professor of theirs from Stanford gave them leads and hooked them up, for example, with a firm called Lytton Engineering, who let them use equipment that they didn't know themselves yet.

Just as, decades later, the founders of Apple Computer, 21-year-old Steve Jobs, was already working at Atari, and 25-year-old Steve Wozniak was at Hewlett-Packard when they started Apple in Jobs' garage.

Just as, decades later, the founders of Apple Computer, 21-year-old Steve Jobs, was already working at Atari, and 25-year-old Steve Wozniak was at Hewlett-Packard when they started Apple in Jobs' garage.

Pino Adia has tried to find mentions of garage entrepreneurs or anything like it in other countries and didn't come up with much. He says it seems to be a very American idea, very close to other American ideas about opportunity for everybody. The Apple and Hewlett-Packard garages have now become such a part of Silicon Valley myth that it's made other tech companies want their own stories like it.

Pino Adia has tried to find mentions of garage entrepreneurs or anything like it in other countries and didn't come up with much. He says it seems to be a very American idea, very close to other American ideas about opportunity for everybody. The Apple and Hewlett-Packard garages have now become such a part of Silicon Valley myth that it's made other tech companies want their own stories like it.