00:00 Speaker A
Well, a new Wells Fargo money study out today, showing a shift towards entrepreneurship with nearly 70% of Gen Z seeing business ownership as core to the American dream.
00:09 Speaker A
For more, we’re bringing in Emily Irwin, head of private wealth planning at Wells Fargo. Emily, great to see you on set.
00:15 Speaker A
So let’s dig into this. So your study says Americans now, they’re kind of they’re redefining the American dream. And one big shift you all mentioned is this shift towards entrepreneurship.
00:23 Speaker A
That’s interesting. What why do explain that? Why do you think more Americans now are saying, you know what, owning my own business, that’s that’s the move, that’s the goal.
00:32 Emily Irwin
Yeah. Well, I think there’s a few reasons. The first is they’ve come up through the gig economy. So they’ve gotten used to being able to exercise their muscle memory of entrepreneurship at a very young age.
00:43 Emily Irwin
And there’s a lack there’s a control aspect to that that they really enjoy. And we’re seeing a little bit of the economy getting to them.
00:51 Emily Irwin
So first is they want to prioritize saving, they want to prioritize investing. This is the way to do it.
00:57 Emily Irwin
We also know that there’s a really positive emotional aspect when you feel like you’re controlling your own finances. We saw that in the survey. And most Americans, including Gen Z believe
01:07 Emily Irwin
that if you own you’re an entrepreneur and you own your own business, you can control your own destiny and that continues to foster that emotional kind of like feel good feeling that you’re controlling your destiny.
01:16 Speaker A
So those are the potential sort of advantages of entrepreneurship. What would be some of the the downsides, the risks you got to think about?
01:23 Emily Irwin
Well, you know, I think there’s obviously a reality to owning a business.
01:28 Emily Irwin
certainly there’s commingling of personal and business assets. Um, many entrepreneurs actually cite the fact that they have to leverage some of their personal credit, their personal debt that could even mean their home in some cases, which can be the ultimate personal asset that you have in order to continue on in the business and grow.
01:49 Emily Irwin
And so while you have that, you know, great responsibility and opportunity, it really does come with an appetite for do you have that risk on a day-to-day basis to understand that you are creating your own income and creating your own destiny. In some cases, you’re responsible for employees in the community as well.
