A woman goes to work for a large corporation like IBM. She is intelligent, ambitious and hard-working. She is also good at solving problems. She likes the security of a definite salary and the security of knowing that there will always be a defined job to be done, a definite direction in which to exert her abilities. Perhaps the consciousness that ability will be rewarded is also important.
A man goes to work for the government service. He is competent and hard-working, but he is not ambitious. He does not like to work under pressure or in a competitive environment. His real interests lie outside work in his lore of music.
A brash young man who wants only to work for himself proceeds to set up his own business, starting with a hamburger franchise for which he borrows money. His satisfaction is to see things happen. He wants to be able to make things happen. He wants to look at the accounts at the end of the month and see what has happened. He wants the maximum responsibility and the maximum reward; he does not mind the risk.
It is the urge to bring something about that defines the entrepreneur. This urge is not unlike that of the painter or writer. There is an urge to make something happen, something that was not there before. The medium chosen by the entrepreneur is action or operation. The aesthetic satisfaction is that of seeing something happening effectively, of seeing decisions correctly made. This satisfaction is made concrete by money. Money is the indicator of success but not necessarily the driving factor. The test would be simple: if an entrepreneur were suddenly given as much money as he wanted, would he stop his activities or use the money to develop new ones History is very much on the side of the new activities.
The entrepreneur seeks out opportunities; he tries things out; he makes decisions based as much on hunch as on analysis. Quite often he starts up a successful business which grows to such a size that his entrepreneurial style of management is no longer the best and he has to resign if the company is to survive.
Entrepreneurs are the risk element in society, the evolutionary element that brings about change as distinct from the operating element that keeps things ticking over. In too many countries they are discouraged as being greedy and selfish.