Scott Gerber is a self taught serial entrepreneur, sought-after public speaker, internationally syndicated business columnist, television commentator, and author of the book ”Never Get a “Real” Job”.

He’s been widely recognized as the world’s most-syndicated columnist on the subject of entrepreneurship. His columns appear regularly on TIME, Inc., MSN, CNBC, CNN, Mashable, The Next Web, and The Huffington Post. Scott is also a regular contributor on MSNBC, Fox Business and CNN.

Scott is the founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council, a non-profit organization that promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and under-employment, and co-founder of Gen Y Capital Partners, an early-stage investment company. He has been a featured speaker at the White House and has rung the NASDAQ Stock Market Closing Bell. In 2011, he was named one of Mashable’s “4 Young Social Good Entrepreneurs to Watch.

He has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, TIME, CNN, Reuters, Mashable, CBS Evening News, ABC World News Tonight, MSNBC, US News & World Report, Fox News, Inc. and Entrepreneur.

The Young Entrepreneur Council

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), founded by Gerber in 2010, is a nonprofit advocacy group with the mission of fighting youth unemployment and underemployment by helping young people build successful businesses and offering alternatives to traditional career paths. The organization has several hundred members, all successful entrepreneurs and business owners, ages 17-40 – a group that includes the founders and leaders of Living Social, Airbnb, Reddit, College Hunks Hauling Junk, Modcloth, Mint.com, myYearbook, Thrillist, Yodle, iContact, 2tor, Threadless, Grasshopper, Likeable, Hootsuite, Kissmetrics and Blip.tv.The YEC provides its members with access to tools, mentorship, and resources that support each stage of a business’s development and growth.

Youth Entrepreneurship Act

Gerber’s YEC is co-author of the Youth Entrepreneurship Act, proposed legislation designed to make it easier for young people to start a business. The Act includes student loan forgiveness programs, expanded access to micro loans, and increased investment in entrepreneurship education.

More specifically, the Act, co-written with Youth Invincibles, calls for federal action to:

• Expand, and more directly target, federal incentives for education in entrepreneurship at both secondary and post-secondary levels.
• Encourage entrepreneurship through agency-sponsored student entrepreneurship events and learning, modeled after United States Department of Health and Human Services initiatives.
• Provide greater flexibility in the use of Title 5 “Well-Rounded” funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) so that local and state educators can better support entrepreneurship education programs.
• Double the capital available and restructure the Small Business Administration Microloan Program, target outreach to young people, and ensure that intermediaries are not putting up barriers to accessing these dollars due to lack of credit or collateral. Target loan programs to young people without college degrees and in communities of color.
• Incentivize innovative private sector programs that provide start-up capital and services to young entrepreneurs.
• Implement a federal student loan deferment, reduction, and forgiveness program for
• young people who start businesses, and maximize the existing Income-Based Repayment program.
• Target federal government procurement at young small businesses.

Gen Y Capital Partners

In October 2011, Gerber announced the creation of Gen Y Capital Partners, a collaboration with the White House to create a new investment model for Generation Y entrepreneurs to get their companies off the ground. Co-founded by Gerber and 2tor co-founder Jeremy Johnson, Gen Y Capital Partners has committed to investing in as many as 100 start-ups over the next several years and, through subsequent funds, several hundred over the next decade. The program was announced by the White House on October 25, 2011.

Never Get a “Real” Job

Never Get a “Real” Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business, and Not Go Broke is Gerber’s auto-biographical story of a hard-working, self-taught 26-year-old hustler, rainmaker, and bootstrapper who has survived and thrived despite never having held the proverbial “real” job. Gerber challenges the social conventions behind the “real” job and empowers young people to take control of their lives and dump their nine-to-fives—or their quest to attain them. Drawing upon[case studies, experiences, and observations, Scott dissects failures, shares hard-learned lessons, and presents practical, affordable, and systematic action steps to building, managing, and marketing a successful business on a shoestring budget. The book aims to teach unemployed and underemployed Gen-Yers, aspiring small business owners, students, and recent college graduates how to quit 9-to-5s, become their own bosses, and achieve financial independence.