Entrepreneurs mitigate risk

(written by Lawrence Krubner, however indented passages are often quotes)

This was a pet peeve of Peter F Drucker, the myth of the entrepreneur as risk taker. Here is another take, in which the writer compares his chances against Bill Gates:

Growing up as I did, with an early interest in business, it was almost impossible not to envy people like Gates, and even measure myself against them. Gates had placed all his chips on the table at one time and walked away richer than Croesus. And me? Well, I’d never even sat down at the table. The way I saw it, I couldn’t.

I graduated from a state university with a stack of loans to repay. No sooner had I begun to dig my way out of personal debt than I met my wife (who failed to bring her own shovel). I remember her father joking with me soon after we got engaged. “Son,” he said, “I want to let you know about Lori’s dowry—you get her student loans and her bad teeth!” He laughed from deep in his chest. I moaned from the same spot. Add to that three children born within five years, and I felt like I was slogging through quicksand.

If only I was in a different position, I used to think. If only I had the courage to take on more risk, like Bill Gates, like lots of others I used to list to myself. And then finally, years later, I realized that that’s not how it happened at all.

William Henry Gates III was born October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington, to a family with a rich history in business, politics, and community service. His great-grandfather had been a state legislator and mayor, his grandfather was the vice president of a national bank, and his father was a prominent and very wealthy lawyer.

Because young Bill excelled from his earliest school days, especially in science and math, his parents saw that he was enrolled in prestigious Lakeside Prep, known for its intense academic environment. This was in the late 1960s, when the world of computing was just beginning to peek over the horizon and carried a golden price tag. But no problem. To assure Lakeside’s students wouldn’t be left behind, the school held a fund-raiser and, with the proceeds, rented what it thought would be a year’s worth of time on a computer owned by General Electric.

Bill Gates, his close friend Paul Allen, and a few others torpedoed that plan in a big hurry. They started hanging out in the computer room day and night, learning everything they could, even to the detriment of their other academic obligations. Within a matter of weeks, the expected year’s worth of allotted computer time was gone, but that was no problem either. The school simply struck a new deal, this one with Seattle-based Computer Center Corporation, to get additional computer time at good rates.