ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the personal characteristics of 241 founders of new technology-based firms (NTBFs) that operate in Information and Communication sectors and are located in Northern Italy. It considers both manufacturing, that is, electronics, communication equipment, computers, and service sectors, that is, software, multimedia content, Internet service provider and e-commerce. The concern that Europe is a laggard in the NTBF sector triggered a policy-oriented research effort aimed at analysing factors that favour or inhibit the birth of NTBFs and influence their post-entry performances. In particular, a conspicuous body of new evidence was developed on the characteristics of high-tech entrepreneurs in numerous European countries. The chapter shows that Internet entrepreneurs generally are younger and even less educated than the other sample founders. They quite often are at their first professional experience; if they have prior working experience, it generally is in unrelated industries.
