They are the heroes of free market economists and conservative demagogues.

The word entrepreneur evidently derives from the French verb, entreprendre, the combination of  entre  (from Latin for between or in the middle) and  prendre  (to take or to grasp). Grasping, taking middlemen doesn’t seem like such a complimentary description, but a French economist, Jean-Baptiste Say described this undertaker as one who shifted economic resources to areas of greater growth.

In the rest of the world certainly, but in the United States particularly, those who start businesses entrepreneurs, “the business engine,” the “job creators,” are uniquely lionized. They are the “something from nothing,” “visionaries,” and “innovators” that  all journalists write about, and everyone else wants to be.

In US culture, inventors like Benjamin Franklin (lightening rod, bifocal glasses), Thomas Alva Edison (commercial light bulb, phonograph, kinetoscope or early movie camera) Alexander Graham Bell (telephone), George Washington Carver (hundreds of products from the lowly peanut, but not peanut butter) hold an outsized place.

Businessmen, who didn’t invent anything themselves, but built huge industries, entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie, (steel), Henry Ford (automobiles), Bill Gates (software), Fred Smith (overnight package delivery), Elizabeth Arden, Estée Lauder, Mary Kay (cosmetics), Oprah Winfree and Arianna Huffington (media), Steve Jobs (computers and smart phones), Sara Blakely (shapewear),  Elon Musk (electric vehicles, space rockets, satellite and social networks, and brain chips) are also glorified, despite visible personality flaws.  

To be fair, I have no business criticizing entrepreneurs. While I have started some small consulting businesses, I have never built anything on the scale that these people have. I have, however, worked as an employee or a consultant for entrepreneurs enough to have some observations.

Entrepreneurial companies are tremendously exciting workplaces. Start-ups especially have an excitement of working with people who truly believe that they are changing the world. I experienced this myself as employee number seven at McKinsey spin-off Katzenbach Partners in my fifties. Everyone except Jon Katzenbach himself was younger than me, and it was an enthusiastic and passionate atmosphere. It was an “everybody does everything” kind of business  structure that gives great opportunity to people based upon interest, enthusiasm and willingness to work hard. Jon was not what I’d call a typical entrepreneur, but he did have a passionate point of view about organizations and business.

Earlier in my career I worked for a founder of a booking agency for celebrity speakers. The business was about ten years old when I joined. The founder had developed the college lecture circuit, changed it from a stodgy academic environment to one that showcased political activists, and free thinkers of the 1960s and 70s. He described his business concept as “The Fourth Media,” the uncensored exchange of ideas.

The founder was incredibly talented at getting press. There were always journalists, photographers and camera crews around the office. The articles and TV stories seemed to always be about him. Once a senior manager who had been with him since the beginning complained about that.

“What did you contribute?!” He placed his fingers in an ‘O,’ raised them to his lips, and feigned spitting through them. “Ptooie, Bupkis, hole in the bagel!” The man ultimately left to start his own agency and the founder made the motion of flicking insects or dandruff off his shoulders.

Greek dramatists would have called this particular curse of the entrepreneur hubris, competing for glory with the gods.

I have personally witnessed and read about entrepreneurs with an outsized view of their own relative contribution to the founding and success of the business. The Steve Wozniac and Paul Allen contributions seem minimized in the view of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates or at least in the press interviews of these founders who remained with the business.

Entrepreneurs are often passionate visionaries. They are also often perfectionists, who don’t celebrate their achievements, but look for constant improvements or the “next big thing.” This can be a little frustrating for others to be around.

Entrepreneurs may “work all the time” themselves and seem oblivious to the fact that other people have lives, or want boundaries between work and home. Evidently  entrepreneurs have a divorce rate that is roughly double that of the general population.

Some complain that “employees are not as committed” as they are. The founder can’t sleep or relax because they are the one’s who are “always on,” always focused upon success.” This kind of self-centered whining doesn’t win them friends. Some learn to correct this; some just work more.

Some founders recognize that they like to start things but not “run” them and hire someone to manage the operation of business. Some have good attitudes about that transition.

“I have had the great fortune to have surrounded myself with good people. Now I get to come up with ideas and they get to struggle with the details,” an entrepreneurial client confided to me.

Some approach this transition somewhat less magnanimously.

“We’re not friends. He works for me,” an entrepreneur once told a new acquaintance who mentioned knowing me. I didn’t work for him much longer.

Some are forced out by financial investors, when the entrepreneurial curses and entitlement become a burden for the business.

Given the curses of the entrepreneur, narcissism, perfectionism, impatience, overwork, and interpersonal failure consequences, why would anyone want to start a business?

Fame? Wealth? Power?

Yeah, maybe.

I do think that those “benefits” appear later for most entrepreneurs.

I think that many entrepreneurs start with an idea, something they see as a gap in the market, or a useful technology. Their vision and enthusiasm are contagious. They attract others. Perhaps they are right, as they always “knew” they would be, and they are an overnight success. Or maybe they fail three times and finally hit on something that succeeds beyond anyone’s imagination, and perseverance becomes a religion for them.

Then the curses of the entrepreneur slither in unnoticed. Fame becomes hubris and narcissism. Wealth becomes greed and is never enough. Power becomes megalomania.

Or, maybe…

Some event or friend holds a mirror and the entrepreneur sees the curse reflected, and becomes a human again. I’ve seen that happen, not often, and not without a lot of work, but when was overcoming a curse ever easy?