3 ms·

Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made?

13 points by obiefernandez 17y ago

obiefernandez 17y ago
I'm quite interested in how many of you (self-employed types) have parents that were self-employed. My great grandad owned a tabacco factory in Cuba and my grandfather was an entertainer and writer. My dad had a variety of businesses from schlepping Encyclopedia Brittanica to real estate broker and my mom owned/operated a bridal gown shop. None of my parent's ventures were particularly succesful but they definitely had the drive.
- auston 17y ago
  Mother attempted to start a business twice / failed. Aunt attempted to start a magazine / failed. Grandmother ran her own hair salon / sold it. Grandfather started and sold 2 gas stations, owns an auto-repair shop currently.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Grandfather was a pretty successful tailor. The generation after that one son another tailor.
- leftnode 17y ago
  My father started a software company in 1990 and it just celebrated its 19th anniversary. Made it through some tough times, but he's doing very well. He's also not a programmer/technologist whatsoever, which I think really helped. Now I've started my own software company. Having a successful parent definitely helps.
- mildavw 17y ago
  Self-employed: mother, father, both sisters, two uncles, aunt Employed: aunt Wow. I never tallied it up before! None of these I would consider especially entrepreneurial, but rather they make a living doing things they're interested in: photographer, horse trainer, marriage counselor, graphic artist, automated machinery manufacturer owner (builds big robots). I like to design and build software and that's what I employ myself doing. In my family, self-reliance and keeping yourself happy/engaged in your work are the guiding principles.
- jlees 17y ago
  Neither of my parents was self-employed but my grandmother ran a successful business in London for many years. My grandfather on the other side ran a pub his entire life.
- zaidf 17y ago
  In his teens, my grandfather moved to the city and started as a delivery guy for a bakery. He was soon leading a team of delivery guys--kinda like a union leader. When the owner of a bakery was doing a poor job managing his bakery, he asked my grandfather to become the manager. Later my grandfather would end up buying that bakery along with buncha others. There is a widespread feeling in our larger family that you can never make enough to feed your family by holding a regular job.
fnid 17y ago
everything is heritable, including that which controls our responses to nurture. Everything.
- tokenadult 17y ago
  From a recently published research journal article announced on another thread on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838534 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838534 Johnson, W., Turkheimer, E., Gottesman, I., and Bouchard, T. (2009). Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 4. 217-220. "Moreover, even highly heritable traits can be strongly manipulated by the environment, so heritability has little if anything to do with controllability. For example, height is on the order of 90% heritable, yet North and South Koreans, who come from the same genetic background, presently differ in average height by a full 6 inches (Pak, 2004; Schwekendiek, 2008)." (Alas, now the pay wall workaround for that article is no longer available. I have a complete copy of the article, obtained from one of the authors.) It is generally true that nearly all human behavioral characteristics show greater concordance among closely related individuals than among presumptively unrelated individuals (which is what "heritability," a pre-Mendelian concept, is about). This is not at all to say that young people couldn't be trained to be entrepreneurs, and thus made rather than born.
  - eagleal 17y ago
    I think too they have not done clearly the research. Yes, some aspects of the behavior of a person are in the genetics, but it's more the environment that models it. Eg. in my family we have a strong tendency to identify new business opportunities, but this doesn't mean it's 100% because of the DNA. It's more about about the environment (in my case family) type of culture and education. Thanks for the name of the report. Can you send me a copy?
    - tokenadult 17y ago
      I think too they have not done clearly the research. Who is "they"? Are you referring to the authors of the article I cited above, ohnson, W., Turkheimer, E., Gottesman, I., and Bouchard, T. (2009). Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 4. 217-220. published in quite a respectable peer-reviewed journal? Anyone who follows this research should be familiar with the name of Thomas Bouchard, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Bouchard,_Jr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Bouchard,_Jr. who is one of the most eminent researchers on human behavioral genetics. Eric Turkheimer, http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/ http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/ another of the co-authors, should also be well known to anyone who has done research in this field at all. But, yes, this latest paper makes clear than even highly heritable traits are very subject to environmental influences, as the quoted paragraph above says. P.S. I might be able to find another work-around for obtaining the full paper for persons who post full contact information in their HN profiles.
yannis 17y ago
I very much doubt it. Trading which is the nearest to being an entrepreneur is very recent possibly just around the time of the Phoenicians or a bit earlier. Highly unlikely that this was adequate time for selective pressures to have any real effect on the human genome. In addition most of the time most of the profits from such trading went to the Kings and Nobles. However, certain traits that define entrepreneurs are probably hereditary (risk taking, opportunity seeking etc..)
- xiaoma 17y ago
  http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-evolution11dec11,0,5882337.story http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-evolution11dec11,... "In the last 5,000 to 10,000 years, as agriculture was able to support increasingly large societies, the rate of evolutionary change rose to more than 100 times historical levels, the study concluded."
BRadmin 17y ago
"The tendency to be an entrepreneur and personality traits of extraversion..." Extraversion is highly correlated to entrepreneurship?
- ellyagg 17y ago
  I was wondering that too. I'm not extroverted, but highly entrepreneurial. Honestly, I'm not too big into new experiences, either. I just like solving problems and making money.
- skmurphy 17y ago
  I think dyslexia is more strongly correlated to entrepreneurship: the proportion of dyslexics who are entrepreneurs is higher than in the general population, it's not clear that the proportion of extroverts is higher among entrepreneurs, there are many introverted entrepreneurs. Julie Logan has done two studies that demonstrate a correlation between dyslexia (which is an inherited difference in brain structure) and entrepreneurship: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-dyslexia.4.8602036.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/worldbusiness/05i... http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/media/stories/story_8_45816_44300.html http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/media/stories/story_8_45816_44300...
pg 17y ago
From what I've seen, some of each. Some people start with an advantage that, whether or not it's inborn, is pretty well established by 18. But training and encouragement seem to be able to multiply whatever level of ability people start with.
johnm 17y ago
Nuture nature.

13 points by obiefernandez 17y ago

I'm quite interested in how many of you (self-employed types) have parents that were self-employed. My great grandad owned a tabacco factory in Cuba and my grandfather was an entertainer and writer. My dad had a variety of businesses from schlepping Encyclopedia Brittanica to real estate broker and my mom owned/operated a bridal gown shop. None of my parent's ventures were particularly succesful but they definitely had the drive.

auston 17y ago
Mother attempted to start a business twice / failed. Aunt attempted to start a magazine / failed. Grandmother ran her own hair salon / sold it. Grandfather started and sold 2 gas stations, owns an auto-repair shop currently.
jacquesm 17y ago
Grandfather was a pretty successful tailor. The generation after that one son another tailor.
leftnode 17y ago
My father started a software company in 1990 and it just celebrated its 19th anniversary. Made it through some tough times, but he's doing very well. He's also not a programmer/technologist whatsoever, which I think really helped. Now I've started my own software company. Having a successful parent definitely helps.
mildavw 17y ago
Self-employed: mother, father, both sisters, two uncles, aunt Employed: aunt Wow. I never tallied it up before! None of these I would consider especially entrepreneurial, but rather they make a living doing things they're interested in: photographer, horse trainer, marriage counselor, graphic artist, automated machinery manufacturer owner (builds big robots). I like to design and build software and that's what I employ myself doing. In my family, self-reliance and keeping yourself happy/engaged in your work are the guiding principles.
jlees 17y ago
Neither of my parents was self-employed but my grandmother ran a successful business in London for many years. My grandfather on the other side ran a pub his entire life.
zaidf 17y ago
In his teens, my grandfather moved to the city and started as a delivery guy for a bakery. He was soon leading a team of delivery guys--kinda like a union leader. When the owner of a bakery was doing a poor job managing his bakery, he asked my grandfather to become the manager. Later my grandfather would end up buying that bakery along with buncha others. There is a widespread feeling in our larger family that you can never make enough to feed your family by holding a regular job.

fnid 17y ago

everything is heritable, including that which controls our responses to nurture. Everything.

tokenadult 17y ago
From a recently published research journal article announced on another thread on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838534 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838534 Johnson, W., Turkheimer, E., Gottesman, I., and Bouchard, T. (2009). Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 4. 217-220. "Moreover, even highly heritable traits can be strongly manipulated by the environment, so heritability has little if anything to do with controllability. For example, height is on the order of 90% heritable, yet North and South Koreans, who come from the same genetic background, presently differ in average height by a full 6 inches (Pak, 2004; Schwekendiek, 2008)." (Alas, now the pay wall workaround for that article is no longer available. I have a complete copy of the article, obtained from one of the authors.) It is generally true that nearly all human behavioral characteristics show greater concordance among closely related individuals than among presumptively unrelated individuals (which is what "heritability," a pre-Mendelian concept, is about). This is not at all to say that young people couldn't be trained to be entrepreneurs, and thus made rather than born.
- eagleal 17y ago
  I think too they have not done clearly the research. Yes, some aspects of the behavior of a person are in the genetics, but it's more the environment that models it. Eg. in my family we have a strong tendency to identify new business opportunities, but this doesn't mean it's 100% because of the DNA. It's more about about the environment (in my case family) type of culture and education. Thanks for the name of the report. Can you send me a copy?
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    I think too they have not done clearly the research. Who is "they"? Are you referring to the authors of the article I cited above, ohnson, W., Turkheimer, E., Gottesman, I., and Bouchard, T. (2009). Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 4. 217-220. published in quite a respectable peer-reviewed journal? Anyone who follows this research should be familiar with the name of Thomas Bouchard, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Bouchard,_Jr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Bouchard,_Jr. who is one of the most eminent researchers on human behavioral genetics. Eric Turkheimer, http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/ http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/ another of the co-authors, should also be well known to anyone who has done research in this field at all. But, yes, this latest paper makes clear than even highly heritable traits are very subject to environmental influences, as the quoted paragraph above says. P.S. I might be able to find another work-around for obtaining the full paper for persons who post full contact information in their HN profiles.

yannis 17y ago

I very much doubt it. Trading which is the nearest to being an entrepreneur is very recent possibly just around the time of the Phoenicians or a bit earlier. Highly unlikely that this was adequate time for selective pressures to have any real effect on the human genome. In addition most of the time most of the profits from such trading went to the Kings and Nobles. However, certain traits that define entrepreneurs are probably hereditary (risk taking, opportunity seeking etc..)

xiaoma 17y ago
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-evolution11dec11,0,5882337.story http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-evolution11dec11,... "In the last 5,000 to 10,000 years, as agriculture was able to support increasingly large societies, the rate of evolutionary change rose to more than 100 times historical levels, the study concluded."

BRadmin 17y ago

"The tendency to be an entrepreneur and personality traits of extraversion..." Extraversion is highly correlated to entrepreneurship?

ellyagg 17y ago
I was wondering that too. I'm not extroverted, but highly entrepreneurial. Honestly, I'm not too big into new experiences, either. I just like solving problems and making money.
skmurphy 17y ago
I think dyslexia is more strongly correlated to entrepreneurship: the proportion of dyslexics who are entrepreneurs is higher than in the general population, it's not clear that the proportion of extroverts is higher among entrepreneurs, there are many introverted entrepreneurs. Julie Logan has done two studies that demonstrate a correlation between dyslexia (which is an inherited difference in brain structure) and entrepreneurship: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-dyslexia.4.8602036.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/worldbusiness/05i... http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/media/stories/story_8_45816_44300.html http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/media/stories/story_8_45816_44300...

pg 17y ago

From what I've seen, some of each. Some people start with an advantage that, whether or not it's inborn, is pretty well established by 18. But training and encouragement seem to be able to multiply whatever level of ability people start with.

johnm 17y ago

Nuture nature.