How large is entrepreneurs’ personal importance to startups? We use the death of nearly 1,500 entrepreneurs as a source of exogenous variation, and find large and sustained negative effects on growth and profitability. For small startups, the effects go mainly via firm survival, while for larger startups the effects are mainly on firm growth. For larger startups, the mean effect on sales is about 60%. The effects appear to be driven by entrepreneur specialness rather than leadership transition; the effects of death of entrepreneur managers are economically and statistically stronger than the death of managers that are not entrepreneurs.

中文翻译：

---

企业家死亡和创业表现

企业家个人对初创企业的重要性有多大？我们将近 1,500 名企业家的死亡作为外生变异的来源，并发现对增长和盈利能力的巨大而持续的负面影响。对于小型初创公司，影响主要来自公司生存，而对于大型初创公司，影响主要是公司增长。对于较大的初创公司，对销售的平均影响约为 60%。这些影响似乎是由企业家的特殊性而非领导层过渡所驱动的；企业家经理人死亡的经济和统计影响比非企业家经理人死亡的影响更大。