Lecture 5: Six Myths of Entrepreneurship

What this lecture covers

This lecture directly challenges popular assumptions about who entrepreneurs are and how they operate. Aulet goes through six widely believed myths and explains, with research and examples, why each one is false and why believing them can actively discourage people from starting companies.

After watching, you should be able to name the six myths, explain why each is misleading, and understand why the course is titled "disciplined entrepreneurship."

Key ideas

• Myth 1 - smartest in the room: entrepreneurs are not typically valedictorians; they tend to focus intensely on what excites them and neglect the rest, which is why some drop out of school.
• Myth 2 - lone individuals: research from Ed Roberts shows teams consistently outperform solo founders, up to a point, making entrepreneurship a team sport.
• Myth 3 - born not made: there is no statistical link between having entrepreneur parents, or any specific gene, and becoming an entrepreneur; it is a learnable skill.
• Myth 4 - love risk: successful entrepreneurs avoid gambling and instead take calculated risk in areas where they hold an asymmetric advantage, while "de-risking" everything else, as illustrated by the MIT Blackjack Team.
• Myth 5 - charisma drives success: MIT leadership research links success in change-making to vision, sense-making, relationships, and execution ("innovation engineering") rather than charisma.
• Myth 6 - undisciplined: real entrepreneurs need extreme discipline to compete as the resource-poor "attacker" against better-resourced incumbents, which is why Aulet calls his framework disciplined entrepreneurship.

Before you watch

• Watch the earlier lectures in this course, since this one assumes familiarity with the course's framing of entrepreneurship as a teachable discipline.

Check your understanding

1. What does the research on entrepreneurs and academic achievement actually show?
2. Why does team size correlate with a higher chance of success, according to Ed Roberts's research?
3. How does Aulet distinguish "calculated risk" from the kind of risk-seeking often attributed to entrepreneurs?
4. What five qualities does Aulet substitute for charisma as drivers of successful change?
5. Why does Aulet argue that discipline, not looseness, defines successful entrepreneurs?