Equal justice is a basic underpinning of a healthy capitalist system. Without prosecutions for the financial crisis, that principle is being eroded.

Since the start of the financial crisis, Americans have wondered why, if laws were broken, none of the occupants of Wall Street or other financial centers have been arrested. Now arrests are starting to happen with growing frequency. To date, an estimated 2,511 people have been arrested on Wall Street and elsewhere for activities related to the crisis. Unfortunately, it's the protesters who account for these arrests. So the tally to date: 2,511 people arrested for disturbing the peace and related activities; no arrests for any of the financiers who broke the law and plunged millions into untold misery.

"Equal justice under the law" is a cornerstone of the American Republic. In statues, Lady Justice is blindfolded to symbolize that justice is blind to the differences between the powerful and the weak, the rich and the poor. Today I fear that Justice's blindfold is in tatters and equal justice under the law has become a myth in the American economic system. Capitalism is not an abstract ideal. It is a set of rules and principles that, over the past two centuries, has combined with democracy to create a great America. Yet without blind, impartial, and equal justice, capitalism simply does not work.

The life-blood of any capitalist economy is the idea that a fair bargain is binding. Indeed, this principal was enunciated in the early days of the Republic in the famous Dartmouth College Case, when the Supreme Court ruled on the sanctity of contracts. A natural corollary of this principle is the notion that it will be enforced by our justice system with equal vigor for all of the parties to the contract.

There are four broad principles associated with criminal law that apply to a capitalist system:

First, stupidity -- no matter how great or how extreme the consequences -- is not a crime. Poor, high-risk decisions that led to the financial crisis are not, in themselves, criminal. Indeed, no economy can thrive if bad decisions carry criminal penalties. Crimes are violations of specific laws.

Second, there are at least two purposes in prosecuting an individual for criminal misconduct: punishment for misbehavior and changing behavior within the larger society. When a crime is prosecuted, it has a deterrent effect. The prosecutor is sending a message to the general public and anyone else contemplating such crimes in the future that this behavior will not be tolerated.

Third, prosecutors have discretion in pursuing a specific individual for an alleged criminal act. I have spoken with a host of prosecutors with regard to the financial crisis, and the most common answer is "these are hard cases to make" and "the budget to prosecute a complex financial crime is extraordinary." As a result, civil settlements, where the banks pay large financial penalties, have come to rule the day. (However, as discussed below, in many instances egregious violations of the laws make these easy cases to make.)

Fourth, as should be obvious, no individual in our society has the right to decide whether a law is irrelevant. Laws are the rules that everyone is expected to follow. This applies to every citizen, no matter how high or how low they stand in our society.

Now let's return to the financial crisis. In simple terms, three types of behavior have been documented: (1) "bad actors" who knew they were probably acting immorally but were not breaking the law, (2) activities that were most likely criminal, but without a trial no one has admitted to criminal behavior, and (3) admissions as testimony in open court of massive violations of the law (the robo-mortgage scandal is one example) with no prosecutions.

The consequences of the second and third type of behavior are inevitably calamitous for a capitalist economy. Business activity relies on the belief that, after the buyer and seller (or borrower and lender) have done all of their due diligence, our society will ensure that those who perpetrate false contracts will be punished. Fraudulent bargains will not be allowed. The alternative is massive uncertainty and a dysfunctional economy. For example, if a business person can't rely on the law to protect his or her rights in a transaction, the individual is not going to enter into new contracts. The net result: less investment, less economic activity, and far less innovation.

The SEC recently announced a $285 million dollar civil settlement with Citigroup. The firm had sold securities to investors and then turned around and shorted these same securities. The bank not only believed the securities would decline in value, but it actually spent its own money to make money off the terrible product it had sold to customers. Suppose I am in the jewelry business and I pretend that I am selling you a diamond that I know is really glass. I strongly suspect I would be guilty of some type of criminal fraud and would probably go to jail. At a fundamental level, I fail to see the difference between the jeweler and Citibank. Both have swindled the customer.

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(Some readers may be thinking about the sophistication of the investors and the many agreements they probably signed disavowing representations by Citigroup. However, the fact of the settlement suggests that improper behavior absolutely occurred -- if not, Citigroup would have fought the settlement. In addition, there is a strong argument that agreements that insulate any economic player from blatant misrepresentations should be void as against public policy.)

In a larger sense, the many financial institutions that have entered into settlements of hundreds of millions of dollars with the government are aware of all of the issues discussed above. My analysis is they have settled for two reasons: they don't want to risk criminal prosecution and they don't want the full details of their behavior to be discussed publicly in open court. And as noted in my earlier article, these settlements have become simply a "cost of doing business" for our increasingly monopolized financial sector and are unlikely to impact its behavior. In discussing the recent Citigroup settlement, The New York Times noted that "The settlement will refund investors with interest and include a $95 million fine -- a relative pittance for a giant like Citigroup. On Monday, the company reported that in the third quarter alone it earned profits of $3.8 billion on revenue of $20.8 billion."

The message to people and entities, large and small, is that they cannot rely on a blind justice system to protect them from unscrupulous transactions. The idea of fair dealing -- which is at the heart of our economy -- is breaking down. This implicit message also erodes the underpinnings of a vibrant capitalist economy. The rich and powerful can violate the law and will receive a slap on the wrist. As a result, the rights of the less powerful entities, which were violated by these elites, will not be protected by our justice system.

Sadly, it gets worse.

It can be argued that it is not absolutely clear that the many civil settlements do in fact reflect violations of criminal law. With limited public records and no prosecution, financial institutions can assert that I lack all of the relevant facts in my discussion above and that the decision by the government to limit enforcement to civil action is proof that no laws were broken. I disagree, but it is arguable. In contrast, there are areas where there is no question the law was massively violated. Financiers have admitted it. The cases are open and shut. Yet no prosecutions have occurred.

Both cases reflect the ultimate destruction of a capitalist economy. They prove that some participants are above the law. The concept of fair dealing collapses.

Moreover, small businesses, which are repeatedly recognized as a key source of new jobs, are the hardest hit in an economy where a bargain is not a bargain and laws are not equally applied. These businesses have the fewest resources to ensure their rights are protected. A new calculus is added to all of their activities: Will they be treated in accordance with the rules that govern our society? If not, how can they possibly risk new activities where their rights and potential profits can evaporate because Justice no longer wears a blindfold?

The consequences of the prosecutorial failure to indict even the most egregious violators of laws associated with the financial crisis are high:

First, it encourages the belief among our financial elites that they are above the law. The dangerous sense of entitlement I referenced in my earlier article is reinforced. A vibrant capitalist economy depends on what an individual accomplishes, not who they are. Financiers can, perhaps rightly, assume that no matter how badly they corrupt our capitalist system they will be spared any meaningful penalties.

Second, I would suggest that if prosecutors sent one banker to jail, they would cause a change in behavior throughout our financial institutions. If prosecutors looked for the person who most obviously violated the law, has already admitted it (so this is an easy case), and sent this perpetrator to jail, the deterrent effect would be high. Instead, the absence of prosecutions effectively validates ongoing criminal misbehavior throughout the financial sector.

Third, as these cases are publicized the public loses faith in our judicial system. Vibrant capitalism depends on the belief that everyone is treated fairly -- and bargains will be fairly enforced.

Finally, capitalism is, in part, based on the Horatio Alger ideal. If I play by the rules, the benefits of my work and innovations will accrue to me. When people lose faith in this ideal, they stop taking the type of risks that create great innovations. Now potential innovators must wonder whether law-breaking financiers will ultimately co-opt the societal wealth they may create. As their confidence in the fairness of the system erodes, so does their willingness to risk creating the new companies, and attendant jobs, the nation so badly needs.

Now let's return to the protesters on Wall Street. Almost 3,000 people have been arrested for activities that caused minimal, if any, injury to our society. At the same time, no financiers have been arrested for blatant legal violations, probably including extensive fraud, which have led millions of people to suffer and have practically brought our great nation to its knees.

There is constant discussion in Washington of economic healing and economic recovery. These can only happen when we return to the primary principles that made us a great nation. One of these paramount principles is that our capitalist economy requires a new blindfold for Lady Justice.

Bruce Judson is Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute and a former Senior Faculty Fellow at the Yale School of Management.

His new slogan and new strategy are right on target. But they may be too little too late.

“We can’t wait,” says President Obama. He is now out pushing some modest programs to help underwater homeowners and the unemployed. We can’t wait for Congress, which won’t pass his jobs bill, he tells Americans.

He is right. But where was Obama two and a half years ago when he took office? We couldn’t wait then, either. Where was he after the 2010 mid-term loss? We could not wait then, either. As I wrote in November 2010, Obama will be running for reelection with an unemployment rate no lower than 8.5 percent, maybe 8.2 percent. It will probably be higher than 8.5 percent, as it turns out. No incumbent won before with an unemployment rate above 7.2 percent. The exception is Reagan, under whom unemployment, after soaring, had fallen by three full percentage points.

Soon enough, the media got on the message about the dangerously high unemployment rate. But the Obama team countered that all they needed was economic momentum in their favor. If rates are falling, it doesn’t matter how high the absolute level is. After all, that is what election models like Ray Fair’s of Yale implied. But these high rates were unprecedented.

No worry, we will get our financial house in order, the administration said. We’ll get that irksome government spending down. That’s what the surveys say the people want. Spending on social programs is the issue. (Of course what created the deficits had nothing to do with Social Security or Medicare. It was almost all the recession, Bush tax cuts, and the wars. Medicare part D was a smaller contributor, but not basic Medicare.)

All I can say is holy cow. By now, maybe few remember that one of the president’s first priorities on taking office in early 2009 was “fiscal responsibility.” He started out wanting to cut government, just like Clinton pronounced the end of the age of big government. Yes, he wanted a health care package and eventually came up with a brave, if inadequate, stimulus plan. But a few days before he was inaugurated, he announced that he would call a White House Fiscal Responsibility Summit for February 2009. He had indeed inherited a trillion dollar deficit that perhaps he thought he could pin on George Bush to score political points. At the summit, notes Tom Edsall in a fine new book, The Age of Austerity, he promised “to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of the first term in office.”

In fact, we already had a jobs crisis in early 2009. Even before the recession of late 2007 to mid-2009, far fewer jobs had been created under George Bush during recovery and expansion than in any comparable post-World War II period. GDP growth was slow, but job growth almost invisible. In January, before the summit, the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent, up from 5 percent 12 months earlier. It was on its way to 10.1 percent in October.

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Obama had signed into law the $800 billion stimulus plan. His economists seriously overestimated its benefits, expecting unemployment to top out at the then seemingly high rate of 8 percent. It is important to get one thing correct: Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein weren’t wrong about the value of Keynesian stimulus. (By all accounts, Romer wanted more.) But they were wrong about how big a hole America had fallen into already.

Despite the disappointing economic performance, Obama proposed a commission early the next year to balance the budget. It was to be headed by a conservative Democrat, Erskine Bowles, and a very conservative Republican, Alan Simpson.

We are all not Keynesians now. Throughout his first and second years in office, Obama promoted fiscal responsibility. Apparently his economic team agreed. He bought into austerity economics instead of trumpeting the success of the stimulus. My gut feeling by now is that he really believes in austerity and “fiscal responsibility,” much like Jimmy Carter did. And when the Democrats lost badly in the November 2010 elections, he still didn’t get it. He welcomed the proposals of his budget balancing commission, and by then there were quite a few others singing the benefits of spending cuts and budget balancing. All the proposals called for more spending cuts than tax increases.

Only when the unemployment rate rose back to 9 percent or so and stayed there throughout the spring and fall of 2011 did the president decide to change his tune. He discovered we had a jobs crisis. He discovered that’s what the American people were really upset about. He did the unthinkable and proposed a jobs program that in fact was half good. He changed the tone of his rhetoric. Clearly, he was now at last running for office again. This seems to be what focuses his mind.

The Republicans shrugged him off. Why not? It worked every other time. But he demanded that they pass the jobs bill “now.” The shift seemed a little cynical, but it was an improvement. He is no longer waiting for the Republicans. He is doing what he can by executive orders. This is the right plan. But he has so turned off the American people with his obliviousness to their plight that they will be hard to bring back to his side.

And he doesn’t stick up for himself even now. His budget plan would actually stabilize American debt at about 70 percent of GDP by 2017 or so, a territory even most cautious economists believe is sustainable. Has Obama told anyone that? Ask anyone in the press whether they know that.

This is why Occupy Wall Street has been so successful. No one in Washington heard Americans' distress. Democracy was not working. Obama, who promised change, surrounded himself with old-time Washington pros who had tin ears and small-time ambitions -- and economists who had no sense of the depth of the crisis.

We can’t wait. Darned right. But Obama did wait. Too long?

Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Jeff Madrick is the author of Age of Greed.

I got a chance to speak with Sabeel Rahman, a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute who is working on a project outlining progressive values and goals. We talked about how the Occupy Wall Street protests represent some important forms of political engagement, how progressives can best interact with the movement, and what its lasting impact on our political discourse may be.

Bryce Covert: Now that Occupy Wall Street has been building for a few weeks, what are your initial thoughts on the movement?

Sabeel Rahman: I think that it's potentially an important event in terms of the political discourse. Initially there was a lot of concern about whether they had specific demands, but that isn't really a concern of mine. I think that the value of a movement like this is to put issues on the table and to get people thinking and talking about them. They've raised issues such as inequality, political accountability, and what it means to be a meaningful part of the political process. They are creating a sense that ordinary citizens need to become bigger drivers of public policy and that our predicament is not just an economic one. It's also about political disempowerment.

Whether or not these individuals at the protest are thinking about these exact issues or whether they have a nuanced view of public policy or politics doesn't matter. The real value is that you and I are talking about it and everywhere I go people are talking about it. They are changing the popular discourse about where we are as a country.

The specific policy proposals might come later. They may or may not come from Occupy Wall Street protesters themselves; they might come from sympathetic groups, unions, or advocacy groups. That takes time, but for now there has already been a significant impact.

BC: You've been doing work on the progressive movement and the need for it to become more decentralized and less electorally focused, as it used to be. How does this movement fit in? Is it a manifestation of this?

SR: Occupy Wall Street is interesting in its implications for what politics should look like or what democracy actually is. On the one hand, I think it's a valuable reminder that social change comes from a lot of different sectors. Elections are a big part of how we change real things in our society, but before we can do that effectively we need to change people's ideas and the distribution of political power. Physically occupying space in the city is itself an expression of another form of political power aside from electoral mobilization that instead harnesses the power of protest and engagement with public spaces.

In that sense it's encouraging. But on the other hand, Occupy Wall Street is also a sign of how ineffective our current forms of democratic engagement actually are. If you're worried about all the things that the "We Are The 99%" Tumblr is expressing, but for whatever reason you are hesitant to join a march or a protest, how do you as a citizen express concerns or be a part of changing the conversation? And how can ordinary citizens continue to have a meaningful political voice on an ongoing basis, even after these particular protests dissipate? If we are to be an effective democracy, we need a lot more than elections and protest politics. We need institutions that can engage regular people who are activated by the Occupy movement. We need institutions where they can be participants in the project of governance. That means something that is less institutionalized than elections but more institutionalized than protest politics -- something that can maintain political participation between elections and between moments of protest. Traditionally, political parties or unions played a major role in engaging citizens in this way, but the decline of unions and the shifts in internal party politics make them less effective as channels for ordinary citizens' meaningful participation. We need something more than that, other institutions where people can have an impact. For example, how might we tap some of this energy to reengage with state and local governments? If we had participatory budgeting, which some New York and Chicago city council districts are experimenting with, that would be the kind of institution where more ordinary people could engage regularly and express their views. We don't have those systems yet, but we could really easily and if we did the prospect for progressive social change would be much stronger.

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BC: How do Occupy Wall Street's organizing methods specifically fit into your call for a new form of progressive organizing?

SR: I've been watching coverage from afar and haven't experienced it firsthand. But on paper, from what I've seen it does seem like there is a really compelling form of internal, democratic governance within the movement itself. It has a daily general assembly where people can put items on the agenda with open attendance and rules of procedure.

The call and response method for guest speakers at the assemblies is also very interesting. It underscores for me that one of the core beliefs of the movement is this conviction that people ought to be directly involved in politics. The difference between a speaker talking at an audience through a megaphone as opposed to having the other people in the assembly be part of the conversation by relaying messages back and forth and engaging in it in a more direct way is the difference between being a spectator and an active participant in a conversation. This is exactly what I think at its best this movement could provoke us to think about: the difference between us being passive spectator citizens, watching everything play out as the economy collapses around us, compared with being active participants in trying to change the direction of the country.

BC: How do you think progressive activists and politicians should best engage with the movement?

SR: I think that's a really, really good question. It's hard to know, but it is a question that progressives must think about seriously. It is important for progressives who agree with the general thrust of the protest -- themes of inequality, accountability, and self-rule -- to actually engage with them, whether or not they join. Before progressives start talking about ways that they should do things better or ways to tap or co-opt their energy, before playing savior, progressives should at least engage with them, get a sense of what's going on, who are they as individuals, and what is really happening.

One approach would be for established progressive groups to bring some kind of organizational muscle to some of these ideas. For example, state, local, and congressional lawmakers can be generally unresponsive, but as a whole they may respond if constituents start calling them and knocking on their doors. If you are an established progressive and you know who the key policymakers are on certain issues and how to get a hold of them, maybe that's the next step, to channel some ideas and energy into forms that would put pressure on specific policymakers and link it with specific policy proposals. This shouldn't supplant the protests at all. The goal is to find some way in good faith to link up with the protests and to make the most of the division of labor. It's not to say they're amateurs who should be supplanted by professionals. The protesters bring something to the table, as do the professional advocacy groups.

BC: How might this shape future progressive organizing and the movement itself? Or not?

SR: It may not have a lasting impact. I think a lot depends now on what more mainstream or established progressives, activists, and groups do next, as well as what happens among the citizens who aren't part of protests but are sympathetic. One possible outcome is for established progressive advocacy groups, policymakers, and politicians to engage with the issues and languages raised by the protests.  They could start running with concerns about inequality, unaccountability, and unemployment. Lots of progressives have been doing this to varying degrees already, but the protests could help catalyze a broader shift in discourse and agenda-setting.

Another possible outcome is citizens not involved with the protests engaging with the ideas raised by the protesters and starting to think differently about their own role as political actors or how they should approach the upcoming elections. And if these two mechanisms for impact -- progressive groups and other sympathetic citizens -- link up with one another, then there could be a genuinely powerful shift in the political landscape. The biggest imperative for progressives is to engage seriously with this event and these ideas. That means either experiencing it directly or at least using this as an opportunity for introspection about what progressivism is and what it ought to be.

BC: What would be the best long-term change to come out of this movement?

SR: First: a shift in the broader political conversation. If the protest changes the discourse so that it engages more directly with issues of inequality, political accountability, unemployment, and the economic crisis, then a lot of important policy changes become more possible.

Second: a longer-term focus on building channels for participation and political engagement. If the protests inspire us to think seriously about institutional reforms along with the substantive issues of economic policy, then that might open up another form of lasting change.  Democracy is not just an abstract notion of wanting to participate or be involved; often when we talk about improving democracy we view it as a separate concern independent of other substantive policy issues. But what is really compelling about the protest and what progressives should pick up on is that the substantive issues -- inequality, the economy, post-Dodd-Frank financial regulation -- are intimately bound up in questions of political power and empowerment. And combining the two dimensions makes for a very powerful political argument: that current policies are on the merits flawed, but that the way to change things isn't simply by replacing one set of elites with others. Rather, it's about shifting political power in a way that makes government more accountable and pushes it to respond to the kinds of things people are really worried about.

At its best that's what Obama's 2008 campaign rhetoric was really about. He argued that we have these problems in our country, and they are bound up with the idea that ordinary people need to be empowered and engaged in politics. That's what made his campaign so compelling, but it was a promise as yet unrealized. Democratic empowerment is part and parcel with having a more just economy; the two go together. And that is the best argument progressives can make for social change.

Which group is still abiding by the important capitalist principles of accountability, competitiveness, and equal justice?

Today, some of the leading capitalists in the nation are located on Wall Street. Sadly, it is the protesters outside who are literally on the street who embody the ideal rewards and responsibilities of capitalism, not the financiers who occupy the buildings.

This is the first in a short series of articles that explores the nature of a well-functioning capitalist system and how this system is now applied to the occupants of the buildings on Wall Street and those who are, quite literally, on The Street.

Capitalism is not an abstract ideal. It is as real as any market or currency. And it is the organizing principle that has, for over two centuries, powered the strength and resilience of America.

As we think about capitalism, it's also useful to make an important distinction: It's not what you say, it's what you do. You may espouse capitalist ideals, but if you oppose responsibility, dishonor contracts, oppose competition, and embrace government subsidies, you are not a practicing capitalist.

For capitalism to work, there are several fundamental requirements: accountability, equal justice under the law, a clearly articulated purpose (and accompanying cost) for government subsidies of a specialized class of citizens, competition, and a relationship between the creation of profits and the creation of real wealth for the larger society.

Many of the protestors in New York City and around the country are jobless college graduates. The majority in all likelihood financed their education through federally subsidized student loans. A central characteristic of today's generation of student loans is that, unlike most debts, they cannot automatically be discharged in bankruptcy. As a consequence, they are one of the few expenses in our society for which an individual is likely to be accountable throughout his life. As a nation, we teach our most promising youth, from the age of 18 on, the importance of accountability. We use the federal government to subsidize an investment in human capital. In return, the beneficiaries enter into a lifetime of responsibility and accountability. It is a sacred contract. It is arguably one of the best, and potentially harshest, lessons of accountability associated with capitalism in our society today.

Now, let's contrast this high accountability with the behavior that occurred in our financial sector. When our largest financial firms created havoc in the U.S. economy through undisputed greed, mismanagement, and extreme risk, some important things happened. First, the government bailed the companies out without demanding any substantial change in behavior, and then the individuals responsible were not held accountable through civil or criminal law. As a result, the people who brought the nation close to the brink of economic collapse and caused untold pain and suffering -- which continues to this day -- returned after a brief hiatus to record levels of compensation. Individuals who earned tens of millions of dollars continue to earn these extraordinary sums. They have never been called to account for their deeds.

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Can this be right? What about the many civil settlements negotiated by the federal government and the SEC? I would argue that, in light of the extraordinary profits these firms and individuals generate, such settlements are now viewed as a "cost of doing business." They appear to have almost no impact on the behavior or attitude of the nation's financiers.

Now let's contrast the kids on the street with the employees of The Street. The kids are accountable for their debts. They know it, and they simply want jobs so they can fulfill their civic responsibilities. In contrast, the occupants of the building on Wall Street act as if the rules of accountability -- which are central to a viable system of capitalism -- apply to everyone except them. Instead, many of the Wall Street elite have developed a dangerous sense of entitlement.

I would argue that in a true, competitive capitalist society, the idea of entitlement is anathema to all participants. It suggests that rewards are disbursed because of who people are, as opposed to the tangible wealth they create for the nation.

It's worth noting that old timers on Wall Street may still remember that until 1970 the New York Stock exchange mandated that investment banks be organized as some of the most accountable businesses in existence. Prior to going public, in the late 20th century Wall Street firms were organized as old-fashioned partnerships. The central idea of these partnerships was that every partner was fully liable for all of the debts incurred by the firm. If the partnership could not meet its obligations, the partners were required to meet these obligations with their own funds until they were personally bankrupt as well. It was a self-policing system that provided high incentives for investment banks to manage the risks they undertook. When every partner is liable, each has the highest possible incentive to ensure that the firm is not exposed to potential default. If they fail in this responsibility, both the firm and the individual partners can be wiped out. This rule was meant to avoid precisely what happened in the financial crisis.

Now these same publicly held financial institutions have been bailed out by the government and the high-paid executives are apparently immune -- both with respect to their pay, their sources of employment, and their personal funds -- from any day of reckoning.

The philosopher John Rawls is widely recognized for his theories of justice. In one exercise, his "veil of ignorance," he suggests that if you are faced with a decision you should pretend you don't know what kind of participant in the process you will be, so that "everyone is impartially situated as equals." Since you are blind to your own interests, you are likely to develop the fairest answer. (I have found this to be the perfect exercise for sharing desserts. I cut the cake and then let each individual choose a piece. Since I don't know what piece I will end up with, my cutting is far more likely to divide the pieces equally.)

Now let's apply a variant of Rawls's ideas to the situation on Wall Street today. You are a visitor from a foreign country or an alien world with no knowledge of Wall Street or capitalism. Then the principles of capitalism are explained to you and you are asked to identify the capitalists in this confrontation: the people in the buildings or the people congregating on the street. Which would you choose?

Bruce Judson is Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute and a former Senior Faculty Fellow at the Yale School of Management.