2001: An Entrepreneurial Odyssey

Even corporations appear to be distancing themselves from themselves. Witness the invention of intrapreneurs. Companies are creating companies within their organizations and letting intrapreneurs make daily decisions--and profits--with minimal interference from above. (See "Internal Affairs," page 110.)

Petzinger, who has written for The Wall Street Journal for 21 years, calls the evolving world of the entrepreneur "stunning." Twenty years ago, he says, people who went into business saw themselves as "lone battlers facing a hostile world with customers who ripped them off or vendors who took advantage of them. That partly reflected the underdog mindset immigrants brought to entrepreneurship--because entrepreneurship was really an immigrant activity for many generations."

Say goodbye to the old pioneers of business. Today, as Petzinger sees it, pioneers who are blazing new business trails represent every group from Generation X to baby boomers. More and more entrepreneurs are taking the route of social goodwill in the way that companies like Newman's Own, The Body Shop and Ben & Jerry's have attempted. (See "Goodwill Hunting," page 112.)

Baby boomers in particular are making radical changes to the business landscape, says Petzinger. "To paraphrase somebody I quoted in the book, the people who danced naked at Woodstock didn't leave the planet--they still have some of their old values, and they're bringing more creative, more holistic views about cultural and commercial life into their visions of business."

Holistic and business are two words that aren't usually found in the same sentence, but they will be with more frequency, according to Chin-Ning Chu, a business consultant and the author of Do Less, Achieve More (Regan Books). "Spirituality is going to be a very important element in how we approach business," asserts Chu. "The elements of spirituality in this century have been separate from business: This is your business; this is your spirituality; this is your family life. I think in the next century we're going to see a subtle understanding that when we're good at one thing, it helps in all areas."

These blurred lines are hardly new, says Petzinger. It's only been in the last century that workers have commuted to offices. "When you think about it, it's a completely unnatural arrangement," contends Petzinger. "Where did business come from? It came from the farm. Who ran the farm? A family. It was your life. Then when economies and cultures became urbanized and you had bakers, shoemakers and so on, where did these merchants work from? Their homes. Now, we're getting back to that."

This article was originally published in the April 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: 2001: An Entrepreneurial Odyssey.