Thursday, April 19, 2007

Where Entrepreneurship Connects to the Classics : Dr. Elliot McGucken in Business Week Magazine Online

Where Entrepreneurship Connects to the Classics
----BusinessWeek Online

Elliot McGucken, a professor of entrepreneurship at Pepperdine University, bemoans that "a lot of schools have dismissed the idea of teaching the great books." In a recent lecture at Pepperdine, McGucken points out that that one lesson of the classics is, "Chance favors the prepared mind.. Instead of viewing risk as a bad thing, we can also view it as a good thing."

The classics inspired America's Declaration of Independence, which McGucken sees as an entrepreneurial document. Life has a way of "calling us to adventure," he concludes. Though many entrepreneurs launch businesses based on some "whimsical occurrence," it's their educational and life backgrounds that enable them to recognize the opportunity. Thus, John Bogle was able to found Vanguard based on a business-magazine article, while actually pursuing a "higher ideal" associated with making stock ownership available to large numbers of people. See this blog for more information and a related video. --BusinessWeek Online

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