It must have been in 2007 or 2008, during my graduate studies at a business school in Helsinki, Finland. I was sitting in a classroom with 30 fellow students when one of them asked us to raise our hands if we were considering a career as an entrepreneur after graduation. I looked around and saw a solitary hand being raised shakily. Out of 30 or so students, only one came out of the corporate closet, so to speak.

This anecdotal evidence was in line with the zeitgeist back then. This was the era of multinational corporations, and anyone landing a job in one of those behemoths was unquestioningly seen as a high performer. Conversely, becoming an entrepreneur was seen as a plan B — a fallback for university graduates whom the corporate world did not deem employable. Entrepreneurship in Finland also had negative connotations because of the major recession that had taken place in the early 1990s.

Fast-forward to the 2010s, and Peter Vesterbacka — formerly known as "Mighty Eagle" at game maker Rovio — asks a lecture hall packed with students about which of them would like to become entrepreneurs. This time, hardly any hands remain down, and instead it feels as if everyone is vying to be the one whose hand is held the highest.