Questioning the Professor-Entrepreneur

Friday, March 16, 2007 at 06:27pm by Brian Lash in School

A friend of mine needed to interview an entrepreneur to fulfill a requirement for his Strategic Management class. His professor — a self-proclaimed entrepreneur — requires as much.

I agreed to the interview on the grounds that I would be helping a buddy. Anyway, I was curious.

I mean, what�s an entrepreneur-professor?

With few exceptions (a la the successful entrepreneur who becomes a Professor of Entrepreneurship late in life because he can no longer live the entrepreneurial lifestyle), aren�t professors the antithesis of entrepreneurs? The ones who ready us for — ugh — �real jobs?� For the corporate ladder and cubicles and pensions and 401k�s?

My friend had four pages of questions for me. They were dull. They were academic.

Here�s one of my favorites:

�What were the gaps? Did you anticipate them? How did you fill those gaps? Were your remedies effective?�

What�s he mean by �gaps?� Opportunity gaps? Or sensitive points in the business model that required extra attention? In either case, why not say as much?

The other questions were equally dull: �What was your greatest strength when you started? What�s your greatest strength today? What was your greatest weakness? Your greatest weakness today?�

As we proceeded through the Q&A session I began to think of the other entrepreneurs who were answering these questions. What did they think of the interview? And of the professor who developed such �textbook� questions?
I don�t mean to pick on this guy; After all, there�s a good chance I don�t understand his motivations. Perhaps he�s going to �wow� his students when he explains that the point of the exercise was to show them that entrepreneurship can�t be captured in the responses to a series of one-dimensional questions.

�right.

I criticize the academic�s approach because it�s so, well� academic. I felt like I was answering questions for a survey. Questions that were of little consequence to the broader picture of the entrepreneurial experience.

But maybe I�m biased — I�m certainly predisposed to question the professor-entrepreneur.

But that�s because I (like most entrepreneurs I know) have adopted the philosophy that unless you�ve started a business, unless you�ve developed an uncommon way — by virtue of your hard work, innovation, and thoughtful execution — to solve some problem, you�re not an entrepreneur. And if that�s the case, what business do you have teaching it?

Brian Lash is founder of The Tipping Blog and writes about the entrepreneurial experience at BrianLash.com

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5 Comments

David Askaripour

March 16th, 2007 at 6:45 pm

Well f*cking said! I often wonder the same thing: why do colleges have a bunch of adjunct professors who never started a business in their lives teaching entrepreneurship classes — just doesn’t make sense. Oh, I get it, “let’s save money by getting cheap professors who can teach with textbooks instead of real world experiences.”

I’m telling you, in the near future there are going to be more young entrepreneurs better qualified to teach than there are professors in college.

Chris

March 16th, 2007 at 11:56 pm

Dudes, go up the street and sit in on some of the entrepreneur classes at CMU’s Tepper school. Most of the entrepreneurship classes are taught by old fat guys with fat wallets and fat bank accounts. Several of the professors I know started companies that were sold for millions. The profs bring in other successful entrepreneurs for lectures throughout the semesters. I swear you could sit in on a class, get a lot out of it (depending on the lecture) without any questions asked.

Lawrence of a USA

March 17th, 2007 at 2:58 am

i agree.

most professors just reiterate what you have read in the textbook.

but then again…some entrepreneurs aren’t good teachers.

lol…i guess it goes back to that old adage:
those who can’t do teach, and those who can do - do

David Askaripour

March 17th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

Yeah, some school are doing a good job, but most aren’t. I want there to be a college strictly for entrepreneurship — nothing else. Now that’d be great. All in time… all in time….