My wife just sent me this article from the NYT about "hypomanic" entrepreneurs who seem to teeter on the edge of being brilliant and mentally illness. It reminded me once again about our deep seeded societal notion that successful entrepreneurs have a special personality type - charismatic, risk taking, hard charging, passionate yet abrasive, etc. This is usually evidenced by cherry picking certain famous entrepreneurs (Steve Jobs! Henry Ford!), while ignoring the vast majority of successful entrepreneurs who don't act this way at all.
I've met and read about thousands of successful entrepreneurs over the years and I can't point to any personality trait they tend to share in common. They all work hard, are passionate about what they do, etc. But I've found that that their success usually has much more to do with execution than whatever their brilliant idea was, which often turns out to not be so brilliant when it gets right down to it.
Personally, I wouldn't invest a dime in the young man in the article who wants to "build the game layer on top of the world." That doesn't mean he won't succeed - maybe he will. After all, I also won't be buying a lottery ticket on my way home tonight.
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No investing in a game layer on top of the world? How about the "Pen Pal" as pitched in last year's night class?
ReplyDeleteTo think that you have to be on the verge of insanity to be a successful entrepreneur is just crazy. But I actually thought scvnger sounded like a pretty good idea. Great reading either way.
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