Entrepreneurship–predefined

I quoted my friend Paul Gompers here and here in the past as saying that management is the optimization of resources and entrepreneurship is the optimization of opportunity.

Now I find what I assume is the original source of the quote from HBS professor Howard Stevenson:

Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.

This is a slightly purer form of the concept … not optimizing, but pursuing opportunity. I like it. Gompers’ juxtaposition of management and entrepreneurship is itself elegant and powerful, but more as a comparison than the Stevenson wording where entrepreneurship stands alone.

Hat tip to whoever pointed me at the Inc article where this was uncovered, apparently in a preview copy of the book Breakthrough Entrepreneurship by Jon Burgstone and Bill Murphy, Jr.