Forget the myth of the hermetic genius working in the garage on the next world-changing startup. It’s time to upgrade that thinking and pay more attention to how much entrepreneurial innovation is woven into the fabric of daily life.
So says Derek Lidow, a Princeton professor and former corporate executive. Lidow is the author of The Entrepreneurs: The Relentless Quest for Value, which analyzes the factors that give rise to entrepreneurs—and, in turn, the important social changes brought about by their innovations. In a nod to the thinking of the political economist Joseph Schumpeter, Lidow writes that entrepreneurship is “a vastly underappreciated, potent force of social change.”
Drawing on thousands of years of entrepreneurial history, from “the Neolithic bead-producing people of Wadi Jilad” to Marie Tussaud, Lidow argues that social trends have been central to invention. It was the development of a materialistic class of consumers that enabled entrepreneurs such as Josiah Wedgwood to mass-produce fine branded products in the 18th century. And the evolution of urban centers at the turn of the 20th century allowed Harry Selfridge to create the idea of the modern department store by innovating ways to attract and serve customers.
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