10 Big Words (If You Want to Change or Start Something Cool)

Merriam Webster defines an entrepreneur as “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.” 

I don’t love that definition. I don’t like the emphasis on risk.

Because frankly, if you’re not an entrepreneur, and you instead work for someone else, you’re taking some massive risks on the strengths, character, and good fortune of whomever you’re working for.

(Sorry to all the business owners whose employees I just made question their working relationship.)

Anyway, here’s my favorite definition of entrepreneurship, although it too has some challenges. It comes from Howard Stevenson, a professor emeritus at Harvard Business School:

"the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled."

I interviewed Stevenson a few times for my 2010 book, The Intelligent Entrepreneur, which was all about entrepreneurship and Harvard Business School.

I think I had to say his definition out loud 10 times before I began to understand it. There are really only two…