The age of entrepreneurship

After years of downsizing and restructuring, top managers are once again thinking about growth. But growth does not come as naturally or as automatically as it once did. Revitalization of industry and the creation of new jobs must increasingly depend on the development of new products and new markets to satisfy unrecognized and unmet public and personal needs. Such creation of economic value by perceiving and pursuing new business opportunities is what practitioners and scholars have in mind when they speak about the need for entrepreneurship.

Much has been written about independent entrepreneurship, which refers to an individual or a group of individuals striking out on their own to start a new business. Stories of entrepreneurs who have created new industries and new wealth, such as Steve Jobs at Apple Computer and Bill Gates at Microsoft, as well as pioneers of the new economy such as Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com and Meg Whitman of eBay, are now part of the American folklore. The academic community has made great strides in both teaching and writing about this subject. Independent entrepreneurship has created substantial job growth in the United States, and is the envy of other nations trying to emulate it. It is also evident that independent entrepreneurship is not well suited to the pursuit of opportunities requiring large capital investments and long time horizons because venture capitalists are typically impatient and prefer small bets.