This is the ideology that has been slowly and quietly ruining America and the world. Innovation has nothing to do with entrepreneurs. Innovation happens when craftsmen, not businessmen, find better ways of practicing their craft. The people that built/are building the technologies that are radically improving the lives of the public do so out of a drive to build. We don't need more Carnegies, and we _certainly_ don't need more P.T. Barnums. We need Benjamin Franklins.
Innovation has nothing to do with entrepreneurs. Innovation happens when craftsmen, not businessmen, find better ways of practicing their craft.
That's categorically false, unless you have very narrow definitions of entrepreneur and craftsman. It seems like in practice, the line gets pretty blurry. Aren't all entrepreneurs craftsmen in some regard (if not with respect to their product, then to customer experience, process, or something else)?
For instance, Honoré le Blanc, Eli Whitney, et al pioneered the concept of interchangeable parts for business purposes. Were these guys businessmen or craftsmen? On the one hand, they eliminated a lot of the art of gunmaking, but on the other hand, they made more reliable guns.
I would have to go with businessmen first. The advent of the interchangeable part directly contributed to the development of the assembly line, and with it, the emergence of the unskilled or semi-skilled worker, the very antithesis of craftsmen.
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).
Benjamin Franklin _was_ a successful businessman/entrepreneur. He became very wealthy as a publisher, and retired at 42 to pursue science and politics.
He made money, but he was not primarily an entrepreneur. He ran a publishing house to feed himself and then was able to turn its management over to his partner so he could focus on furthering the enlightenment. If he were really an entrepreneur he would have kept a monopoly on the franklin stove, or bifocals, or any number of his inventions.
This is alike to saying Paul Graham is not primarily an entrepreneur, he made money to feed himself and later sold it to focus on furthering his ideas of a second enlightenment.
Amen! Unfortunately, it seems popular "Western" culture is inspiring lots more Carnegies and Barnums than Franklins. But how can a shift in culture be brought about?
In hindsight, the tone of my comment seems condescending to business and marketing types. This was not intended, and I apologize if any offense was taken.
Those are just as important to economic progress as the engineer type. Assuming there is a real global shortage of a given type of skill and an excess of others, we all benefit if appropriate reallocation is inspired.
A shift is impossible so long as the Western culture doesn't care how exactly you make money, that is, whether it's out of thin air or out of the thick urge to create wealth. Luckily, the laws of free markets are on our side and the present crisis seems to be trying to fix just that. I understand this view may be too simplistic, but it's probably the best explanation of what's happening in the world now. And what's happening is potentially a slight positive shift in culture.
True; although, both have a place in the conversation.
Dale Carnegie = Marketeer
-He authored the bestseller: "How to Win Friends and Influence People". The book continues to sell today even though it was first published in 1934. I'd recommend it even to non-Marketeers.
Andrew Carnegie = Business Guy
-He's remembered as a Business guy for doing titanic mergers and acquisitions in the Steel industry. However he did not come from a wealthy family and started his first steel company from the ground up.
