3 hours ago - Business
What America gets right
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
We're alive at the single greatest moment in U.S. and human history. By a lot.
Why it matters: It's not even close, by almost every empirical measure. We live longer, better, richer, healthier and freer than those before us.
Yes, we screw a lot up. Always have. Always will. But nothing bothers me more than the widespread pessimism and plummeting patriotism — when it should be a time of great hope and possibility.
- To me, that yawning gap between our reality and how people feel about it is among the biggest macro issues facing us.
So at least for today, let's remember:
- There's no better place on Earth to start a business, take a risk, dream big — doing what you chose to do, where you chose to do it.
- We're the widest, deepest, richest, most transparent economy anywhere — the engine behind phenomenal growth and wealth.
- We're the greatest meritocracy on earth, unshackled from limits of age or pedigree. We're wired for risk.
- We can think, say and worship as we please without fear of imprisonment. Faith may be fading, but the freedom to practice is unfettered.
- We stir and enjoy a magical cocktail of democracy, capitalism and individual freedom that produces history-bending ideas like AI.
- We're protected by the world's strongest military — at once the most feared and the most sought after by other nations for help.
- We've got two protective oceans on our shoulders, friendly neighbors to our north and south, and abundant energy beneath us.
- We've racked up four straight years of record energy production on our soil.
- We've created history's longest-surviving democracy, with a rare ability to evolve and meet the craziest challenges.
- We're still young — and learning.
The bottom line: Most people are NORMAL. They're good, hardworking, generous. They volunteer, help you shovel in a storm and don't dunk on strangers online.
Risk as reward
250 years in, and America is still the only economy on earth built to reward risk and power unimaginable, enviable, free market growth.
Why it matters: Our economy is a product of that deal. It gives us room to experiment with abandon and then get paid when we're right.
- The beautiful twist: The system doesn't punish failure — it rewards those who take their lumps, learn, adapt.
The numbers don't lie: We are crushing it.
- America is home to roughly 1 in 24 people on earth, about 4.2% of the planet. Yet we produce 26% of all global GDP.
- One in 25 people. One in four dollars.
Put it another way: The U.S. economy alone is bigger than China, Japan and Germany combined.
- U.S. stocks are now 65% of the entire world's equity value, up from 40% a decade ago.
- America deploys 57% of the world's venture capital.
- When they can't beat us, they join us. The London Stock Exchange lost 88 companies in 2024, its biggest exodus since the financial crisis, and the bleed continued into last year. The biggest defectors picked New York.
- Keep looking across the Atlantic to grasp our strength and growth. In 2008, the E.U.'s economy was slightly larger than ours. Today, it's a third smaller.
- We hold the door open. Almost half of the Fortune 500 last year was built by immigrants or their children.
So much of what we read about America these days might make us think it's screwed, thanks to our broken politics and sealed-off media bubbles. I've spilled plenty of ink on it.
- But, empirically speaking, we're cooking with grease.
Business is booming
Data: U.S. Census Bureau; Chart: Axios Visuals
This place is a startup — and innovation — machine.
Why it matters: It's not by accident that the Internet, AI and most modern technological advances are America-made or led.
- We're a new business and idea-creation superpower. AI has the POTENTIAL to allow people without capital to join the startup revolution, too.
By the numbers: New business applications across America have averaged about 5.5 million annually since the pandemic. The average pre-COVID was closer to 3.5 million.
- High-propensity applications — the ones that the Census Bureau flags as most likely to be successful — are also running well above their pre-pandemic levels.
- The share of new startups launched by a single founder jumped to 36.3% last year from 23.7% in 2019. AI tools can let one person do what it used to take a staff of 10 or more to accomplish.
- There's a lot of money to be made on your own, and it's coming fast. Solopreneurs clearing $1 million more than doubled and those crossing $5 million–$10 million nearly tripled between 2023 and 2025, according to a recent Stripe analysis.
- One guy who later hired his brother built a $1.8 billion telehealth provider in a couple of months using AI as his backbone. He's not going to be the last.
The bottom line: We have problems. Building and growing stuff ain't one of 'em.
Wait, there's more!
Data: National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System; Note: 2025 figure is provisional; Chart: Axios Visuals
We just hit peak Staying Alive.
- The U.S. overall death rate in 2025 fell to its lowest point ever recorded, thanks in part to a steep decline in drug overdoses.
🥳 Worth celebrating: The rate dropped across virtually every age and demographic group tracked by the CDC.
Our giving nature
Data: Giving USA; Chart: Axios Visuals
The same instinct that keeps America's risk engine running fuels our philanthropy as well.
- Americans gave a record $617.2 billion to charity in 2025, according to Giving USA — more than any other nation, and consistently among the highest as a share of GDP.
🍻 🇺🇸 The bottom line: I'll end with my anchor belief: most Americans are good people — generous, hard-working, idealistic — who need and deserve better leadership around them.
📈 If you're a CEO or on a CEO's team: Ask to join Jim's new weekly Axios C-Suite newsletter.
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