Disruptive power of digital startups

The image of the new digital entrepreneur has turned into an iconic image that concerns their status, celebrity, identification, and imitation. New digital entrepreneurs, who have recently started their hi-tech business in a profitable manner, are seen in the collective imagery not only as smart and successful individuals, but as real superstars, the great witnesses of our time, and the exceptional candidates for guest starring a range of video and radio shows, who are liable of wide admiration and ample emulation. Just think of Facebook’s Mark Zuckenberg or Tesla’s Elon Musk. This chapter is aimed to supplement the debate in management and entrepreneurship on the role and impact of digital startups in the development of entrepreneurial driven economies and local and global ecosystems. First, drawing on neo-Austrian economics angle and disruption theories, we acknowledge that digital startups are the ones that, by widely disrupting the received environment, are liable to provide the energetic lymph for spurring innovation and growth in the economic system as a whole, in local and global ecosystems, as well as in favoring the raise of a new generation of digital entrepreneurs. In this vein, we articulate the arguments in favor of digital startups at three key analytical levels: (a) the economic system; (b) the ecosystem level; and (c) the entrepreneurial level. Finally, by critically looking at the other side of the coin, we also underscore the shortcomings of the digital startups movement corresponding to the three levels above.