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I'm a faculty member at Arizona State University and teach an entrepreneurship course. I don't believe you can teach someone to be an entrepreneur. Business, ma

I'm a faculty member at Arizona State University and teach an entrepreneurship course. I don't believe you can teach someone to be an entrepreneur. Business, management and leadership skills are teachable (all of which certainly contribute to the success of a startup). I believe being an entrepreneur is a combination of certain personality traits and temperaments. It's a maker's passion and drive that defines an entrepreneur. So why do I teach entrepreneurship? Simply to show 40 young adults a worldview which most have not yet been exposed, with the hope that those innate entrepreneurs will choose this different path in life, a path which most parents, professors and friends discredit. I would be fulfilled if just one of my students took the entrepreneurship route and made a large impact on the world over the typical route of accepting a corporate job.

sentientmachine 13y ago
The maker's passion and drive can be re-ignited in some extreme circumstances. For example, drop the critter down on a deserted island where their only way off is building a boat. Will the boat get built or will they call for help until they die of thirst?
- seancoleman 13y ago
  In that case there will certainly be a drive to build a boat, but just in order to survive. It's the innate drive to build that boat without the survival instinct that makes the entrepreneur IMO.
  - flyinglizard 13y ago
    Very nicely put, and describes the difference between people who can excel in a corporate environment (resourceful, adaptive, survivalists) and the risk takers that go out to build stuff just because they feel it needs to be built.
rikacomet 13y ago
I have to disagree with you. You said it yourself, being an entrepreneur requires certain traits and temperaments. we all start blank, and based on our circumstances, we learn entrepreneurship. we are never born with it. Being born with it, is just a saying, its not true.. as seen in the history very few successful people had even more successful kids. Entrepreneurship, for me is more like a balance of the things we all possess.

sentientmachine 13y ago

The maker's passion and drive can be re-ignited in some extreme circumstances. For example, drop the critter down on a deserted island where their only way off is building a boat. Will the boat get built or will they call for help until they die of thirst?

seancoleman 13y ago
In that case there will certainly be a drive to build a boat, but just in order to survive. It's the innate drive to build that boat without the survival instinct that makes the entrepreneur IMO.
- flyinglizard 13y ago
  Very nicely put, and describes the difference between people who can excel in a corporate environment (resourceful, adaptive, survivalists) and the risk takers that go out to build stuff just because they feel it needs to be built.

rikacomet 13y ago

I have to disagree with you. You said it yourself, being an entrepreneur requires certain traits and temperaments. we all start blank, and based on our circumstances, we learn entrepreneurship. we are never born with it. Being born with it, is just a saying, its not true.. as seen in the history very few successful people had even more successful kids. Entrepreneurship, for me is more like a balance of the things we all possess.