A paper from a dissertation written by Brian Wu of the University of Pennsylvania won the "Best Doctoral Paper" award at the annual meeting of the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) held in beautiful Palm Springs. I attended this meeting and offered a few highlights in recent posts. But, I have to admit I chose to highlight the speeches given by Denny Dennis (NFIB) on the future of real tax reform and Paul Orfalea (Founder of Kinko's) on his definition of success rather than this paper. Well, better minds than mine decided that this paper was of more interest than anything I wrote about from this conference.
First, Business Week wrote about Wu's paper (OK, maybe I am a little jealous that my dissertation never got close to this kind of attention).
"Researcher Brian Wu says they (entrepreneurs) aren't unusually risk tolerant. It's 'overconfidence in their ability' that allows them to take the leap."
Then BusinessPundit chose to ponder the question of whether entrepreneurs enjoy seeking risk or if they are taking care of their big egos based on Wu's research.
"My entrepreneurial ideals were really more work driven than anything else. I just find regular jobs so slow paced and boring. I never seemed to find fulfilling work. People say 'do what you love,' but what I love is to not do the same thing all the time, which rules out most jobs for me. Entrepreneurs get to wear many hats, and I like that."
Well, better late than never....My take on Wu's findings is that the best entrepreneurs are prudent risk takers. They need a strong enough ego to pull the trigger and commit to act on their idea. Also, a healthy ego serves us well as we suffer the slings and arrows that face us around every corner as we build our businesses. I don't think those that pursue a venture to satisfy an inflated ego get very far, as they tend to be the reckless ones who eventually make poor decisions simply to save face rather than do what's best for the business.
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