Susan Hayes-Cullerton

than they could have received by simply investing in a fund, tracking an index like the S&P 500.

That's defined as failure.

And while I get the concept of that, which is that if I could put my money into the stock market and let others basically work at it, and then I get the return of that in comparison to what I would do if I was to set up my own.

The challenge I'd have for you is that money is just one input that goes into a business.

There's time, effort, energy, reputation and a lot more.

So isn't that a narrow definition?

And Bernie, you have been in business yourself, as well as being an author, and you have invested in businesses yourself.

Can I ask you, what have you learned and learned from doing either?

And Bernie, just the reason that I quoted all businesses is that I think we need to focus in on all businesses as distinct to either one sector or indeed just businesses that we invest money into, let's say, in a private equity scenario.

Thank you for pointing that out.

But I just wanted to highlight the fact that I think a rounded approach to this is important in the conversation.

This is Susan Hayes-Cullerton here on Taking Stock on Newstalk and I'm talking to Emma Howard, author Bernie Bulkin and the CEO of Nostra, Kevin O'Loughlin about the importance and economics of failure.

We're going to take a quick ad break and we'll be back to you shortly.

Now, you're welcome back to Taking Stock here on Newstalk.

I'm Susan Hayes-Cullerton, and we're talking about the role that failure plays in business and the broader economy.

I'm joined by economist Emma Howard, Bernie Bulkin, the author of Why Startups Fail, and Kevin O'Loughlin, who is the CEO of Nostra.

Okay, Emma, I want to pick up with you on the point you made earlier about how the US statistics are quite similar to that in Europe.

But if we look at the European failure rates around the continent, France sits near 85%.

Germany and the Netherlands hover around 80%.

The UK is 60 to 70%.