Abstract: This study relies on data the author collected in a 1971 survey of entrepreneurs and a 1993 follow-up survey in surviving firms in a major Indian city. The book analyzes the characteristics of entrepreneurs that contribute to their success and the survival of their firms. The major questions of the study are the extent to which entrepreneurs were upwardly mobile to success in business, the effect of education on entrepreneurial success and survival, the impact of India's liberalization reforms of the 1980s and 1990s on entrepreneurial activity, and whether innovative entrepreneurs' firms were more likely to survive than the firms of other entrepreneurs. The research indicates that the caste, age, and investment in education, training, and human capital by the founding entrepreneur greatly influence firm survival, although not in the ways expected. The work is one of the few field tests of the views of economic liberals with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, who contend that liberalization reforms in developing countries, such as price and license decontrol and the free entry and exit of firms, reduce government's damage and increase the efficiency of screens to the entry and success of entrepreneurs. The study reconfirms a major component of liberalization, but also supports critics of the liberal view of the role of the capitalist entrepreneur.