Entrepreneurship...

Years ago, one of my teachers used to repeat this phrase, “If you’re interested in learning, study, but if money is where your interest lies, then don’t study”. Like a good child, I didn’t believe any of this as I was a firm believer in what was drilled into us even before we saw an alphabet – “Studies are your only path to success”.

Changing world

Well, and that was how the rest of the world was. You could hear it from everyone in the mid-80s. I am not saying that the scene is very different now-a-days but, at least there is a small change in the general attitude of the people, partly because of the recognition that the other avenues especially sports have gotten over the last decade. So, when fifteen years back, everyone wanted to be Birlas, Tatas and Ambanis of the day, we now have Tendulkar, Dhoni, Sania and even Sreesanth or Munaf aspirants.

Examples

However, looking back at it today, and thinking more about it, I realize that he was perhaps not mistaken, and what was said probably as a tall claim is truer than everything else. As an example, I would like to point to Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Hershey etc. who were mostly high-school dropouts, who started early in their careers, scaling new heights of success, in the process, becoming the best that there ever was their fields, and were also blessed in monetary terms, thus lending a strong support to the claim of the said teacher.

But, as it is, there are a larger number of failures in Bill Gates, Branson, and Hershey wannabes. So, is it something very inherent in these person that made them the very best, and that they would have been the same, even if they would have completed their education. Probably, but equally probably, they wouldn’t have been the same.

However, there is an equivalent number in a different breed of entrepreneurs that significantly weaken the claim mentioned in the first paragraph – Akio Morita, George Soros, Murdoch, JP Morgan, Narayanmurthy, and a lot many of them, across times and geographies. They have done equally well in similar industries.

So, what my teacher said was perhaps not correct. It was something personal, and that education has nothing to do with the fact as to what kind of entrepreneur you turn out to be. But, let us look at the above names once again.

Re-looking at the examples

Bill Gates started Microsoft in 1975, a teenager, and never completed his college. But, more importantly, he had gotten into software and operating systems at least 3 years before Micro-Soft (that was what it was known as), and that he was from a very well-to-do family.

Richard Branson failed in a couple of business ventures by the time he was 15, and by 17 he had started a magazine. Hershey too “made his bones” when he was young.

Akio Morita started Sony Corp., with his partner Ibuku at the age of 25, in a war ravaged Japan, creating the largest electronics company in the world.

Soros entered US, where he made his money, with a paltry USD 5000. In 1992, he is famed to have made a billion dollars in one night, and is still known as the “man who broke the Bank of England”.

Back home, Narayanmurthy started the USD 2 bn. Infosys with a total investment of USD 250.

The harsh truth

All these examples look wayward and stress only on the personal prowess, the strength of their personal determination, and their grit with which they were able to overcome the conditions around themselves, and make a mark for them. They invented and innovated. Right?

Wrong, not taking away anything from them or their achievements, I read the above examples once again and besides their grit and determination, I place their success and all this determination and grit, squarely on their situation when they started out. Look at the common factors across all these people and all the other entrepreneurs. The situation they started from was when they were either too young or too distressed. The position that they were in was something they wouldn’t have lost anything from. Bill Gates would have completed his graduation and taken a cushy job, and would have Branson. Soros or Morgan would have died as successful investment bankers or investment professionals. Morita and Narayanmurthy would have become the head-engineers or head-software engineers. But that’s not what they were destined to because they had nothing to lose, and they took that risk.

Stuck in the middle?

If you’re stuck in the middle, you’re stuck there. No one has got out of a comfortable job to create an enterprise, so large, so successful, and so big. No successful investment banker has gone out and created a Microsoft, or a Sony, or an Infosys, names that will live even after they will be dead.

So, Coming back to the first paragraph again, I now understand the meaning of the words which contain more than what they say. As we study more, we become more risk averse, because we have invested so and so number of years in our education, and once we get into a job, we are done, all our dreams remain limited to that single job, the salary at the end of the month, and the bonus at the end of the year, a fixed number of holidays. These are the biggest things we end up thinking, losing the only thing – risk appetite, most important for being an entrepreneur.

Other Interesting points

Also, there is another thing that I would like to draw the attention of people on. It was not as if Sony was the first company to manufacture miniature transistors, or Bill Gates was the first one to build an OS, or a Graphic user interface. Companies like Apple, etc. were doing it long before Gates arrived on the scene. Narayanmurthy’s Infosys wasn’t the first software company of its kind in India. Nor was Hershey’s first chocolate company, as Virgin wasn’t the first record company. They did the same thing that the others were doing essentially, but they did it differently eventually overtaking whoever had the famed “first mover’s advantage”

Also, there were better engineers than Akio Morita, Bill Gates, and Narayanmurthy. So, it was more than just their knowledge of their respective fields that made them.

How do you become an entrepreneur in our country? Believe me a Google-search won’t yield any fruitful results, if that is your mantra for success. Yes, it will, but if you broaden your search and have a look at a website from Pakistan. That’s the only government website that gives you some generous words on how you should go about doing things.

Perhaps, entrepreneurship has died in our country, and what we heard 15 years back is true finally – “Studies are your only path to success”. Add some sports to it, but not entrepreneurship please.

Conclusion

To conclude, I would repeat Tyler Durden from the cult movie “Fight Club”, “It’s not until you lose everything that you are free to do anything” and, an age old saying, “Great people don’t do different things. They do things differently”. After all, entrepreneurship doesn’t denote “having the best knowledge”, but being the risk-taker who can organize the best resources for himself.