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Comment by herval | Hacker News Reader

IMHO, entrepeneurial skill is not a 'human trait', gift or anything - it's just a skill, like any other - you can develop it if you absolutely need it to survive (usually the case for microlenders). I'd say the reason why there are usually less entrepeneurs than 'normal' people is more on taste than 'talent': if you're doing just fine with a paycheck, why bother?

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I'm curious to see your evidence. I have noticed in life many businesses that pay the salary and the rent, but I wouldn't count them as entrepreneurial - they lack the explosive upward trajectory, and I don't think I was just seeing the slow part of the exponential. Real skill as an entrepreneur seems to me more like perfect pitch - a mutation.

Part of being an entrepeneur is the ability to exploit information from not only prices, but also non-price information that would be hard to find from simply looking at prices.

Another part is the ability to marshall resources to capture these opportunity. That may take a perfect pitch, an eye for talents, or something else entirely.

an entrepreneur is "a person who organizes and manages a business undertaking, assuming the risk for the sake of the profit."

so your definition of entrepreneur is probably a bit narrower than the usual definition... :-)

with regards to becoming an entrepreneur for simple need, I've seen this happen a lot in my country (specially in my region, which is quite poor): a lot of people doing business simply because there aren't really any other options. Same happens in the countryside (many people don't see agricultural activity as 'entrepreneurship' though).

Also, the number of startups tends to rise during recessions could be interpreted the same way: the more people lose their regular jobs, the more entrepeneurs enter the rig. Talented or not, willingly or not... [1]

[1] http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/n...

IMO, entrepreneurialism is an inate human trait. However, this doesn't mean it's expressed in everyone you meet, day-in-day-out. It clealy isn't. It's possible technology is simply an accidental expression of this trait. Which is interesting yet terrifying if true.

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