There's nothing ruinous about holding the entrepreneurial spirit on a pedestal. It's the entrepreneurial spirit that drives innovation, whether it's inside the R&D department of a massive corporation (one can still be entrepreneurial while an employee - it was entrepreneurial ism that brought us Gmail), or someone's basement, or a few friends in a loft on the east side of Milwaukee.
That said, one cannot completely dismiss "business" as a skill. Management, business direction, and market "intuition" are all skills, and when properly used, they give the necessary direction to the true creators: engineers, craftsmen, etc to allow them to excel.
Agreed. I think that saying that people mistaking entrepreneurship for innovation is an "ideology that has been slowly and quietly ruining America and the world" is a bit of a dramatic overstatement.
Entrepreneurship is directly related to innovation. Innovation does not have to mean inventing the light bulb. It can also mean coming up with new ways to do things (e.g. Southwest Airlines). Entrepreneurship is an integral part of what makes capitalism work.
Additionally, just because you're a craftsman doesn't mean you can never be a businessman also. Any individual craftsman that wants to make any money from their creations will have to at some point become involved in business. Even if you're just selling your new technology to a big corporation and not starting your own company, you're still having to make a sale (which I'm pretty sure would go under the business category).
That said, one cannot completely dismiss "business" as a skill. Management, business direction, and market "intuition" are all skills, and when properly used, they give the necessary direction to the true creators: engineers, craftsmen, etc to allow them to excel.
What would Woz be without Jobs?
reply