Why do people have this bottomless need to claim to be things they're not? Why can't they just revel in and promote the wonderful things they already are?
entrepreneur |ˌäntrəprəˈnoŏr; -ˈnər| noun
a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.
--- I think your article might be a bit narrow at least for how I read, hear, and associate meaning with the word.
That said, I respect your opinion.
You call yourself a journalist and student of computer science. Who am I to say you aren't? Sometimes your dreams become reality when you work to make them so, but for a while, you have to fake it till you make it. :-)
I don't call myself a programmer or a hacker -- I'm simply a student.
And "faking it" is despicable. How about "be what you are, and become what you want to be."
For example, you're posting to "hacker news" when this has nothing to do with "hacking."
On this site, "hackers as founders" is a strongly expressed correlation, and hence, all of the wonderful startup, business and entrepreneur postings. None the less, the original definition of "hacker" was someone good at solving problems through programming computers. The term was later redefined as someone who breaks into computer systems, and redefined again as someone who breaks into computer systems for profit, or steals via computer systems.
If one did not know the "hackers as founders" idea/definition here on HN, then a post about "entrepreneurs" would seem out of place with any of the more common definitions.
And the "hackers as founders" thing is kinda what Y Combinator is all about, yes?
> And the "hackers as founders" thing is kinda
> what Y Combinator is all about, yes?
After thinking about it for a bit, your article against people using of the term "entrepreneur" shows a lack of experience with "hackers" (as per it's original definition). The vast majority of the greatest hackers I've known absolutely suck at business, marketing, socializing and other important aspects of entrepreneurship. If you read up on Steve Wozniak or Robert Morris, you'll realize their success in business probably would not have happened without having someone else around willing to learn and do all the other stuff required by a successful venture. From what I've read of Paul Graham, including "On Lisp" and "ANSI Common Lisp," he seems to be a rare breed; good at tech and good at business. Most of his writing, HN and YCombinator all seems to emphasize and encourage people to be good at both. In essence, he promotes the idea of hackers as entrepreneurs.
There will always be those self-embracing the term "hacker" or the term "entrepreneur" who really are not what they claim to be, or do not meet the higher/highest end of the definitions. They are both terms of endearment and respect, but they are great things to aspire to be.
Why do people have this bottomless need to claim to be
things they're not?
My girlfriend just wrote a thesis on a subject related to entrepreneurs. Her definition of 'entrepreneur' definitely does not contain 'having a staff' and 'having received outside investments'. 'Being solely responsible' is a common characteristics of a starting entrepreneurial firm, but isn't a defining characteristic. Established firms, with management and all that, can be entrepreneurial in nature, if they have proper innovation processes in place. 'Having a product' is also extremely common, but there are entrepreneurial firms that render only services. Finally, claiming someone doesn't become an entrepreneur until he has a 'legally recognized firm' is ridiculous. At some point you have to have a firm, but you can be an entrepreneur long before that. An official government stamp for abiding by the law does not confer the status of 'entrepreneurship' (supposing the other items in your list all applied).
It would be nice if I could provide a short list with the defining characteristics of 'entrepreneurship', but unfortunately there simply is no such thing. Like the traditional philosophical example of 'game', what falls under the denomination is fuzzy and debatable. If people can call 'dating' a game, the people you seem to be addressing can call themselves 'entrepreneurs'.