LinkedIn Founder Says “Every Individual Is Now An Entrepreneur.”
Reid Hoffman is the founder of LinkedIn and has been involved with PayPal and has invested in other startups. He was on the Charlie Rose Show on March 4th, and part of his comments were focused on the role of the entrepreneur.
You can view the interview (54 minutes worth) here.
Among the compelling things Hoffman said are:
I actually think every individual is now an entrepreneur, whether they recognize it or not. . . . Average job length is two to four years. That makes you a small business. . . . You are the entrepreneur of your own small business.
But I think that one of the key things — the reason why I think risk tolerance is important is because what happens is people delude themselves they’re not taking risks. They say, oh, I’m going to get a job at, you know, Hewlett-Packard or I’m going to get a job — and that’s not risky. Well, look at current economic climates. Everything in life has some risk, and what you have to actually learn to do is how to navigate it. And people who take risk intelligently can usually actually make a lot more progress than people who don’t.
Regarding the current economic crisis, Hoffman said,
I’m a huge believer in the way that you actually get out of these economic downturns is through entrepreneurship, because that creates new kinds of jobs that actually have longevity and strength to them.
I have a modest hope — this is back to the change-the-world stuff — because I think entrepreneurship is really what has a chance of accelerating us through the recession, that LinkedIn kind of providing the tools for entrepreneurs will help with that.
Tags: Entrepreneurship