Take a 32-year-old junior manager: talented and ambitious and enterprising. They’re trying to decide where to go with their career. They’re enterprising enough that they don’t want to be a middle manager at a big company. But they’re rational enough to know that founding a company is a long-odds bet. What to do? Search funds offer a middle path. A search fund is established by the young manager alongside financial backers. The fund looks for small, profitable and promising businesses to buy. The manager takes a stake in the equity, runs the business, grows it, and eventually sells it. The…