I usually don't comment but this just hits the nerves so hard I couldn't resist; Larry Ellison is as not an entrepreneur, he is a public figurehead chosen to be the face of a company started by a small team of programmers with ties to the intelligence community who then mysteriously got a huge government contract with no company history to speak of despite competitive bids by established, larger companies with experience and concrete histories. Like how, oh, I don't know, another company these days is being shoved in our Face(book)s as a model of success for no other reason than its strategic value to the intell community. Or how Steve Wynn was marketed as a genius developer but it turned out he was just a front for the mob who needed stay in and compete with corporations but couldn't raise funds on wall street due to criminal records. Or how Bill Gates was a "genius" because he insisted on licensing Winblows instead of selling it even though history went on to show that he actually tried to sell it to IBM numerous times but IBM's then CEO, who was a friend of his family and lived a few blocks away in the same neighborhood actually came with the idea to the table and insisted that IBM license the software instead of buying it, which basically set Microsoft with a huge source of un-earned cash just as it was starting up and helped create the mythos of the "genius" entrepreneur.
The only thing this is proof of is inexperience, gullibility and lack of insight into the real workings of the world.
You want to see a good example of an entrepreneur? Look at Jack Ma. No social background, no spoon in mouth, just a lot of optimism hard work and a sense that success can be mutual and open-looped. Started in China, a country notorious for government/business/family-relation corruption but chose not to seek help from the obvious places and instead earned business the hard way - going door to door and manufacturers and asking them to sign up, one boring conversation at a time.
You couldn't make a hollywood movie out of that because its so boring. But it's reality. Any startup story that can have a hollywood movie around it is usually just a public business sockpuppet around a group of allied interests with money to throw around at the next "genius" they want to prop up to create a magical story/script for the next IPO.
The only thing this is proof of is inexperience, gullibility and lack of insight into the real workings of the world.
You want to see a good example of an entrepreneur? Look at Jack Ma. No social background, no spoon in mouth, just a lot of optimism hard work and a sense that success can be mutual and open-looped. Started in China, a country notorious for government/business/family-relation corruption but chose not to seek help from the obvious places and instead earned business the hard way - going door to door and manufacturers and asking them to sign up, one boring conversation at a time.
You couldn't make a hollywood movie out of that because its so boring. But it's reality. Any startup story that can have a hollywood movie around it is usually just a public business sockpuppet around a group of allied interests with money to throw around at the next "genius" they want to prop up to create a magical story/script for the next IPO.