The number of African-American entrepreneurs in America appears to be growing slightly, according to a new survey—but they still lag behind their white counterparts. In the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, which includes responses from 290,000 employers, only 2.1% of American businesses with at least one employee were black-owned in 2014. About 14% of those black-owned businesses were operating for less than two years. (Fortune)

For young minorities entering the tech industry it can be a challenge managing their newfound tech wealth and setting expectations for how much of it they can share with their loves ones. (Inc)

Airbnb announced potentially far-reaching anti-discrimination policies Thursday in response to complaints about hosts' racism against black and other Airbnb guests that came to the fore in the spring, crystalizing around the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack. (USA TODAY)

Black Wall Street (BWS), a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the number of minority entrepreneurs who successfully grow scalable businesses, announces the return of its signature event, Black Wall Street: Homecoming, October 12-14 in Downtown Durham. (PRWeb)

African American women are critical for the country’s economic stability, yet they still continue to face barriers to their success. (Black Enterprise)

Many of us accept that as common sense -- overwork = underproductive. So why do we continue to self-sabotage and feel bad about the time we don't spend getting things done? Read on to learn the different ways we let guilt overtake our productivity, and why we do it. (HubSpot)

Thus most of the work of diversity and inclusion approaches in companies to date has focused on empowering the "out" groups or training the "in" groups about their unconscious biases. This has succeeded only in annoying everyone. Meanwhile, most senior executives are still white men. The more companies talk about it all, the more skeptical everyone becomes. (Harvard Business Review)

The European Central Bank kept its stimulus program unchanged in a sign that policy makers don’t see an immediate danger to the euro-area recovery from risks including Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. (Bloomberg)

He jumped to the bank as they try to win back trust in a EU wounded by Britain’s Brexit vote. EU officials are livid at their former boss Jose Manuel Barroso for taking a job at Goldman Sachs that has drawn public scorn just as they are trying to win back trust in a European Union wounded by Britain’s Brexit vote. (Fortune)

When Western Illinois University cut its African-American studies major this summer, enrollment and graduation numbers were dismal. Thirteen students had picked it as their primary field of study in the 2015-16 school year, and three students had graduated with a bachelor of arts in the discipline in 2016, according to university data. (Chicago Tribune)

Craigslist competitor OfferUp is the latest technology company to join the elite group of privately-held Silicon Valley startups valued at $1 billion or more. (Fortune)

Elon Musk's solar energy company wants to equip 5 million homes in the U.S. with its new solar-powered roofs, according to The Guardian. This comes a month after Musk revealed SolarCity's plans to create entire roofs made up of solar panels. When installed, they would look like traditional roofs--thus potentially removing the aesthetic obstacle inherent to going solar. (Inc)

500 startups is raising a $25 million dollar microfund to make early stage investments in Black and Latino founders. This fund will invest in ~100 companies and give Black and Latino founders the access to capital, networks, and expertise that they need to grow their businesses. The fund will be led by Monique Woodard, Venture Partner at 500 Startups and co-founder of Black Founders. Monique has access to some of the best deals in this market and her network has a massive pipeline into game-changing founders. (Black Entrepreneur)

Michael DeWalt is an entrepreneur on a mission. In an effort to give Black customers a service that caters to them, he launched Ride. The answer to many African-American’s concerns with Uber and Lyft, Ride is a car-sharing service geared toward improving the Black economy. (Atlanta Black Star)

Meet Tiannia Barnes, a successful engineer turned high-end Italian shoe designer. She is an NYC-area resident, and a native of Oklahoma City. She is also an alumna of Clark Atlanta University and Georgia Institute of Technology, where she holds a dual degree respectively, in Mathematics and Industrial Engineering. Additionally, Barnes holds an M.B.A. from the University of Maryland, and has had a long and successful career in IT consulting. If you think this is impressive, what she’s accomplished next will inspire you to move beyond your comfort zone. In 2013, this STEM guru did what many only dream of doing. She turned a life-long love for shoes, into a business. (Black Enterprise)

By many key measures, the economy has looked fine in recent months. After gradually sliding for most of 2015, industrial production has bounced up. Consumer spending has done well. The economy added 151,000 jobs last month. Initial jobless claims are near a four-decade low. Yet most economists, when asked to assess the odds of a recession in the next year, have continued to place the odds at about one in five. Not a prediction of imminent doom, but double the odds of a year ago. (The Wall Street Journal)

You've probably heard by now that Americans have a bit of a retirement problem. According to the Planning and Progress Study conducted recently by Northwestern Mutual, 69% of Americans believe there is a chance they could outlive their savings. About a third of all respondents believed there was a better than 50-50 chance they wouldn't have enough money to last throughout retirement. (USA TODAY)

Mortgages to borrowers with spotty credit histories have yet to come roaring back from the financial crisis, but they are on the rise at the private equity giant Lone Star Funds. Its wholly owned mortgage business, Caliber Home Loans, is one of the few financial firms to report a significant percentage increase this year in the dollar value of subprime mortgages it is managing and servicing for homeowners. (NYT Dealbook)

Michael Dell and Meg Whitman may be business competitors, but they can each claim a technology industry superlative. One has overseen one of the largest mergers in the tech industry. The other has engineered its biggest breakup. Different as they seem, both deals were in reaction to tough competition and declining markets. And so far, neither has provided a clear way for how a storied giant can survive changes like the rise of so-called cloud computing that are undermining the way they operate. (The New York Times)

The United States—almost by accident, and almost alone among the world’s nations—has created an innovative, practical structure by which a company’s employees can own the business they work for. Today, according to the nonprofit National Center for Employee Ownership, about 7,000 U.S. companies are substantially or entirely owned by their employees. These are not tiny co-ops or buyouts of bankrupt firms; they are conventional profit-seeking businesses, most of them thriving. (The Atlantic)

Are you a Millennial? Do you want to run your own company? If you answered yes to the first question, chances are you answered yes to the second. Surveys show that Millennials aspire more to running their own businesses than to climbing the corporate ladder while working for someone else. (Inc)

On their face, the items that help tell the story of black entrepreneurship in America at the forthcoming Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture are a random assortment: a gas mask-esque contraption, a bed frame designed for quick assembly and a mini parachute, just to name a few. (Washington Business Journal)