Editor in Chief Amy Cosper on the DNA of Entrepreneurship and Motivational Leaders Do you choose entrepreneurship or does it choose you?

Over the past 30 years, the meaning of the word entrepreneur has undergone multiple transformations, including a Dark Age (mail-order bride franchise, anyone?) and a renaissance (the Branson-assic Period). Right now, we are in the latter stages of what I like to call the Musk-azoic Era.

This evolution brings to mind an essential question: Do you choose entrepreneurship, or does it choose you? It's a topic we toss around frequently.

In my observation, those born into the discipline share several traits. They see things others do not and therefore innovate in ways others cannot imagine. They create something where nothing existed before. They make petulant employees. Most don't color in the lines, and most are too impatient to wait out an MBA program. Add to that the ever-present thirst for risk-taking, and you've got yourself the genome map of a true entrepreneur.