https://19-pacheco-torgal-19.blogspot.com/2026/02/nuno-loureiro-in-praise-of-failure.html
Building on my previous post (linked above) it’s worth disclosing the results of a study published in the journal Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal showing that expressed humility plays a decisive role in early-stage investors’ funding decisions.The study shows that humility increases perceived likeability, trustworthiness, and the belief that founders can build strong teams. In pitch contexts, it functions as a relational signal under uncertainty. However, humility is not unambiguously rewarded. It is a double-edged signal: while it strengthens perceptions of relational capacity, it can also raise doubts about decisiveness and agency, as investors rely on simplified heuristics when evaluating entrepreneurs. https://sms.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sej.70016
This helps explain a key mechanism: entrepreneurial evaluation often operates through competing prototypes of what a “successful founder” looks like, rather than integrated judgments of complex traits. Against the backdrop of my earlier post on immigrant and minority entrepreneurship—where evidence from The Economist and MIT studies shows that immigrants and ethnic minorities disproportionately drive startup creation—the pattern becomes clearer. Whether through lived adversity or expressed humility, exposure to uncertainty appears to shape stronger adaptive capacity. The result is a broader startup paradox: the traits that enhance learning and adaptability under uncertainty are not always those most easily recognised as competence within uncertain evaluation systems.
P.S. — This brings renewed relevance to a question I raised in October 2024: should Europe emulate America’s “psychopathic” business culture in its pursuit of economic competitiveness? https://19-pacheco-torgal-19.blogspot.com/2024/10/align-act-accelerate-can-europes-risk.html
Pacheco-Torgal 