Entrepreneurial Scars

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

It seems that in business, it’s easy to think that everything is new all the time especially in the ‘New Economy’. At times I think that the “New” economy isn’t so new. Any reference to it sounds as though, the business world has done something that’s never been done before. And that new technology is really new.

Maybe we have accomplished something that’s never been done before and maybe technology advancements ARE really ‘new’. But I have a feeling that over the years, every new initiative in business and technology were thought to be new.

I haven’t studied business history all that much, but it would appear that the Dirty 30s were worse than this downturn. Of course, I could be wrong, and I wouldn’t know because I wasn’t alive then, but my Grandmother won’t even discuss that period of her life. Meanwhile we’re all chatting about the downturn so my guess is that the 30s were worse. So how did people survive in business then? What did they learn that we could be using in our business practices now?

We, business people of the “New” economy, all seem to act as though technology is a new thing that’s never happened previously. As though the invention of the PC is more significant than any other invention. And not to knock those great technologists and inventors that made the PC possible, but wasn’t the invention of the wheel a pretty big deal?

Did they have routers and circuits before the wheel? Could they have been possible without a whole host of inventions before? I think I might have liked to invest in a company that patent the idea of a wheel? Guess they didn’t have patents then either, and that was before my time.

Maybe we have learned a few things in the last 10 or 20 years that help us today… Take the town of Hershey for example. Ask Michael Moore, but they seem a far better off than the town of Gary ever was. But perhaps if Gary hadn’t happened, the people of Hershey wouldn’t be so worried.

Poor Martha Stewart. I would hate to be made an example of the way she is these days. I suppose that’s what happens in the life of an entrepreneur. And I certainly wouldn’t want to be Kenneth Lay either.

It doesn’t seem matter if you ‘bake cakes in a gas oven’ or if you ‘cook the numbers on gas acquisitions’, the Justice Department will still find you. And the average people that work hard, save money, build close-knit families and then retire, will not only loose their retirement plans but a lifetime of building their family’s future. These are the people that don’t get enough credit for betting on entrepreneurs and maintaining our economy.

Between ImClone, Omnimedia, Enron, and Worldcom it seems like a lot of entrepreneurs got wealthy then got greedy. I feel like they give entrepreneurs a bad name beyond just the issues around corporate governance, responsibility and then there are just good home-grown ethics and morals.

This can’t be a new problem. It seems old and well-crafted. Yet, I wonder how easy it is – to start a business, grow it, take it public and then realize it’s not yours anymore? I wonder how easy it is to realize that the average American now owns your company, and you have a responsibility to protect those individuals. To me, the bet on entrepreneurs in a greater way because they have so much less to be with yet so much more to lose.

Abraham Lincoln said: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. And so we have something to learn from, like so many have before us.

Today’s economy offers a challenge to all entrepreneurs, not just about survival in a tough environment, but also one about morals, values and business ethics.

By Suzi Bonk
Sofalogic, Inc
suzi@sofalogic.com
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