Founders told Autistic Pride Day their businesses were built for jobs and control

One founder had a phrase for why their business exists. “I’m working on the problem, not the profit”, the founder told the entrepreneurship session at the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne. Profit, the founder said, had never been the incentive, and that was also why the business had been profitable. The goal was to make sure it made no loss, and the business was there to create jobs.

The founder was responding to a point a panellist had just made about who becomes an entrepreneur and why. Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, had asked whether government and policy could bridge the gap in access to funding the panel had been discussing. The panellist answered that entrepreneurship spanned every interest area, and many of those areas were not looking for venture capital at all. The panellist described “people who are choosing entrepreneurship because of the ability to control their work environment”. For them, the panellist said, the number one goal was neither a big business nor venture funding. It was earning money doing something they were passionate about, in a way that accommodated their needs and let them thrive and have a great lifestyle. That, the panellist said, was the end of the field they mostly worked in, self employment for people who would otherwise have to ask an employer, please, for accommodation.