The Danger of Celebritizing Entrepreneurship
blogs.hbr.org
The Danger of Celebritizing Entrepreneurship
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Re: The Danger of Celebritizing Entrepreneurship
#2The reverse seems to be more prominent, the entrepreneuralization of celebrities.
Re: The Danger of Celebritizing Entrepreneurship
#3The reverse seems to be more prominent, the entrepreneuralization of celebrities.
Good point.
I am also concerned by the growing amount of word alizationing and izing.
Re: The Danger of Celebritizing Entrepreneurship
#4The fundamental question is whether there is such a thing as too much entrepreneurship. I personally think no. Also I think having more entrepreneurs is better than more investment bankers. Net net, I think there is a greater benefit to society through even failed entrepreneurship.
Anyways, market forces will weed out all these starstruck entrepreneurs out within 6 months and they will be back working for big co in no time. Also with the low cost of starting a company now, one can write off the failed biz as a short term MBA course.
(posted from my phone)
Re: The Danger of Celebritizing Entrepreneurship
#5I don't think it's necessary to actively quell increased entrepreneurship. If these "starstruck entrepreneurs" really don't have the chops to survive in the market, they wont. Also I think one great benefit is that this increased celebritization isn't just of entrepreneurship in general, which has been popular long as anyone can remember a guy striking it rich with his own company, but technology entrepreneurship. It's encouraging more and more bright youth to pursue careers in technology and engineering; finally, programmers are receiving due respect, and as a result we're getting stronger and brighter young talent in the industry that would have otherwise pursued more popularly rewarding career paths.
Re: The Danger of Celebritizing Entrepreneurship
#6Re: The Danger of Celebritizing Entrepreneurship
#7I agree with other comments stating the market will weed out people who are too busy getting high on momentary fame to create something of lasting value. The OP's argument that this is a mis-allocation of resources is bunk -- these resources are EXACTLY where they need to be, and to me this reads like a very outsider look at Silicon Valley. People do dumb stuff, fail, and then either come back stronger with lessons learned or give up and are weeded out (as founders). Often they go on to make awesome startup employees.
Re: The Danger of Celebritizing Entrepreneurship
#8I think this statement is incredibly short-sighted (or spun to make it easier for hot startups to hire):
> The second type of Starstruck Entrepreneur is far more dangerous. This type includes engineers and designers who have a lot of talent for building technology products, but, because they've been infected by celebritization hype, limit their ambitions to being able to say, "Hi, I'm the Founder and CEO of Self-Aggrandizing Apps." So instead of applying their talents to a company that is actually poised to solve an important problem and become a transformational company, they build another vapid iPhone app that nobody wants."
First of all, I am this person. I am building my own company and it now pays me close to what I made at the last "important, transformational startup" I worked at, but this time I own my own schedule and I own my own company. And people want my products and are paying for them, so I don't know how his former point implies the latter.
We are in an era of unprecedented personal empowerment, especially with tech people. I say more power to those who want to create their own value and live an independent life, rather than devote yourself to 0.1% ownership of a rocketship that could never make it. Just because you raised a big round doesn't mean you are doing more for the world.
Re: The Danger of Celebritizing Entrepreneurship
#9I believe celebritizing entrepreneurship is a good thing. Entrepreneurship is a noble calling that has high social value.
To some extent I feel that PG's essays tend to celebritize entrepreneurship. However, I think this a bit of a conflict of interest, and can come off as predatory. The reason is that he makes more money the more (or more highly qualified) entrepreneurs he can convince to take up the cause. However, the odds of failure are still quite high. In essence, these essays convince more people to buy him lottery tickets paid for with their entrepreneurial sweat. The fact that the lottery tickets have shared payouts is of little consequence to the moral argument when the odds of a single ticket winning are so slim. The only real winner is the incubator, which holds hundreds if not thousands of tickets. To minimize the hazard, I would like to see the odds of failure emphasized more.
Re: The Danger of Celebritizing Entrepreneurship
#10I was expecting the headline to just link to a photo of Kevin Rose.