The New Entrepreneur

The New Entrepreneur reflects the new requirements for success in the new environment in which companies are being created and grown. First of all, there is no such thing as a lone entrepreneur in a successful high-tech startup. Although individuals become the icons for companies and entrepreneurship, the real story is that every successful company is truly built by a team. This has always been true: Packard had his Hewlett, Gates had his Allen, Jobs had his Wozniak, Yang had his Filo. Today, it is even more true and more necessary.

Silicon Valley did not invent the entrepreneur, but it certainly shaped the stereotype over the years: from Bob Noyce and the Fairchildren with their Cold War pocket protectors and engineer buzz cuts, to Jobs and Wozniak shaggy and jean-clad, dropping out and changing the world from their garage, to Page and Brin parlaying a Ph.D. project into billions. Famous entrepreneurs throughout high tech are elaborations and variations on the stereotype-Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell-and have created for us the model of the bold, brash, aggressive, passionate, wildly successful entrepreneur.

William Reichert, Garage Technology Ventures

Full Article: http://www.nwen.org/venturer/1204/article1.htm