So the research seems to have identified:<p>(1) A set of behaviors which companies seeking high growth engage in, and which high growth tends not to occur without,<p>(2) The fact that even with fewer <i>total</i> startups, more startups are engaging in these practices,<p>(3) The fact that startups that engage in these practices are growing less likely to actually achieve high growth.<p>(Given the actual behaviors identified, it seems to be the kind of thing that experienced and institutional investors will demand before investing, and its quite likely that what they've identified is that knowledge of these demands is better distributed and more businesses are engaging in them and seeking -- and receiving -- institutional investment, but that those behaviors, while they are still key filters/demands used by institutional investors, are -- perhaps because <i>everyone</i> knows them now -- no longer particularly effective filters, they may still be useful and necessary, and there absence may still indicate failure, but their presence is getting weaker as a signal of potential success. Which isn't surprising, they are easy enough to do once you identify that people are looking at them as signals, so they are no longer indicators of particular sophistication on the part of founders.)
There's a narrative about new businesses and startups that politicians and pundits in the U.S. like to tell.<p>It's a magic wand that creates jobs and economic activity without any public policy or investment - it solves problems without any effort on anyone's part - heck, you don't even need to go to college, they'll tell you, so we can cut education funding too.<p>It's also appeals to the idea of rugged individualism.<p>Unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way. I'm willing to bet that the next big Silicon Valley success won't be founded by a minority person who grew up in poverty, but by a white male, probably college educated, from a middle-class or wealthier background. Most other people don't have access to these opportunities.<p>Also, the idea promotes the 'gig economy', an unstable, poor-paying alternative to real employment.