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BILL AULET: I want to
talk about the six myths

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that people have about
entrepreneurs, which are not

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only not true but not helpful.

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And, as we think
about this and think,

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in looking through
as to how we're

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going to educate you
to be an entrepreneur,

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it's important to understand
these six myths are not true.

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First of all, entrepreneurs
are the smartest, most

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high-achieving
people in the room.

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This is a myth that's
perpetuated by entrepreneurs

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themselves, I think, sometimes,
and they're rewriting history.

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Most of the entrepreneurs I
know are not the valedictorians

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of their class.

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In fact, it's very
rare they are.

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Entrepreneurs are not looking
to please other people.

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They are, in fact, trying to
figure out what they really

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think they have passion
about, and then they kind of

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reject everything else.

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So they're more likely to
get A-plus in one class

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and not go to the other classes.

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In fact, that's one of
the reasons why they often

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drop out of school.

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They don't see the
relevance of it.

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Now, I am not encouraging
you drop out of school.

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But I am saying that you can
see this pattern, where people

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get very excited about
one thing, focus on that,

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and then don't do some of the
other things they should do.

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So the first myth is smartest
and high-achieving people

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in the room.

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OK?

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So that's just not true,
and data shows that.

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The second thing
entrepreneurs are individuals.

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They're mercurial
individuals who

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make things happen
by themselves,

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a kind of Horatio Alger story.

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That's not true either.

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Ed Roberts's research
shows that, in fact, teams

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are much more likely to
succeed than individuals.

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If you have two
people on your team,

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you're more likely to succeed
statistically than one person;

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three, more than two;
four, more than three,

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up to a certain point.

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So it is not an
individual sport.

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It's a team sport.

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So entrepreneurs as
individuals, not true.

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You need to be
looking to find people

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to join your team all the time.

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The third thing is entrepreneurs
are born, not made, again

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a story that's often told.

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The research shows,
again, that entrepreneurs

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don't come from parents
who were entrepreneurs.

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There's no statistical
correlation between that,

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nor is there a gene that
makes you an entrepreneur.

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It's basically a skill
that can be acquired,

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and that's what we're going
to be working with you on.

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At MIT, everyone
says, well, it's

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all because people
are smart at MIT.

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Well, there are a
lot of other places

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where people are very smart,
and they don't start companies

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at the rate they do at MIT.

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So entrepreneurs being
born, not made, not true.

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You can become an entrepreneur.

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This is possible.

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That's what happens.

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The fourth one is
entrepreneurs love risk.

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You know, I hear
this all the time.

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They love risk, they love risk.

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No, let me tell you
what entrepreneurs--

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I don't like to go to a casino.

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Entrepreneurs I know don't
like to go to casinos,

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because that's kind of stupid.

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You're not in control
of your own destiny.

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What we like to do is
take calculated risk

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where we know we have
an unfair advantage.

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Now let me explain that.

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We actually de-risk risk.

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So we say we have an
advantage in this one area,

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and then we take the risk
out of everything else.

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But I'll take risk in an area
where I have an advantage.

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I have asymmetric information.

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I have a particular
asset that will give me

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competitive advantage
over everybody else.

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I will then bet on that
and think of the long term,

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and then I'll de-risk
everything else.

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Great example of this,
the MIT blackjack team.

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Very interesting, the movie
21 or the book Bringing

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Down the House.

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These people became
entrepreneurs.

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You think, well, they did all
these algorithms and things

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like that, they become
hedge fund managers.

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And it was very
interesting on the panel,

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when I worked with them, I was
able to moderate with them.

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And, asking the
questions, you understand

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why they become entrepreneurs.

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They know how to take risk
and use it to their advantage,

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and then patient
in the long term.

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The next thing is-- four, risk,
misunderstanding of risk--

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the fifth one is successful
entrepreneurs are charismatic.

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That's what makes a successful.

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In fact, entrepreneurship
is about effecting change.

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And effecting change
is about leadership.

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And the MIT Leadership Center
here, led by Deb Ancona,

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actually has shown that charisma
is not correlated with success

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and changing the world.

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What it is, it's made up of
basically five other things.

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It's do you have a vision?

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Do you have a
sense-making capability

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to understand what's
going on in the world?

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Fourthly, do you have
the relationships

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to make that happen?

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And then-- sorry, so thirdly.

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And then fourthly it's called
this thing which I will

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call innovation engineering.

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How do you take where we
are today, the as-is state,

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and get to a future state
that hasn't existed before,

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and then have a personal
signature on that,

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which is the fifth point.

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So you have the vision
that's a possible state.

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The sense-making state is the
as-is state where we can go.

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Who are the people,
the relationship?

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And then how do we move
into a world that's

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never been done
before and then do

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that with our own,
personal signature?

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So it does not have to do
with charisma, the fifth myth.

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The sixth myth, I would
say, is that entrepreneurs

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are undisciplined.

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And this, in fact, is why I
called my book Disciplined

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Entrepreneurship.

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Because, as I said that,
some people would say,

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disciplined entrepreneurship?

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No, entrepreneurs
are undisciplined.

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That's an oxymoron.

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Nothing could be
further from the truth.

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It is essential to be
disciplined when you're

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an entrepreneur,
because you are,

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as my colleague
Howard Anderson says,

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you are the attacker going
up against the defender.

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As the attacker, you don't
have a lot of resources.

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You don't have a lot of time.

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You have cash flow.

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All that belongs
to the defender.

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You just have this small,
small thing called passion.

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And how do you execute
against this bigger

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foe requires an extraordinary
amount of discipline.

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So we at the Center
say, you know,

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to be a great
entrepreneur, you have

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to have the spirit of a
pirate, which means we're

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trying to do something new.

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We're creatively irreverent,
we're thinking of new ideas.

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How do we innovate?

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But you also, while you
have the spirit of a pirate,

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you have the execution
skills of a Navy SEAL Team 6.

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So all the
entrepreneurs you see,

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if you think they're not
disciplined, look closely.

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And you'll see they actually
are very, very self-disciplined.

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So these six myths, that
you have to be smartest,

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high-achieving person
in the room, not true.

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You have to be passionate.

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They're individuals.

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Not true.

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You're a team, and you have to
get people to work with you.

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Three, born, not
made-- not true either.

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You can become an entrepreneur.

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We teach it.

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We see it happening all today.

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It's not just in the
classroom, it's outside of it.

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Risk-- how do you de-risk
risk, and how do you

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think about that
in the long term

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and use it to your advantage?

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Fifth, charismatic.

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Not true.

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There's a whole kind
of skill set that you

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can learn to effect change.

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And six, discipline.

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These are myths that
have to go if we're going

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to be effective entrepreneurs.

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