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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Opinion -> 
The entrepreneurship bubble
    2018-04-23  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

Priyanka Sharma

consultpriyanka1@gmail.com

ENTREPRENEUR is a French word that first appeared in the French dictionary in 1723.

French economist Richard Cantillon called entrepreneurs “the risk-takers who would look for new opportunities to be exploited in order to maximize financial returns,” and justly so.

Entrepreneurs have existed for as long as one can remember. History is full of adventurers who traveled across land and sea in search of new resources and opportunities. The arts and trade boom of the Renaissance, colonial expansion, and the Industrial Revolution were all results of entrepreneurial efforts.

But it wasn’t until the 2000s, and in no small parts thanks to the great recession, that entrepreneurship took the shape and form in which we know it now. Entrepreneurship wasn’t just another new business looking to make profit but a venture that offered an innovative product or service that had social, humanitarian and environmental goals, something progressive and contributing to the greater good of the society.

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and others who chose to go after their dreams and their success made the rest of their generation believe in the possibility of a different future than a nine-to-five job; self-reliance and financial independence was not just for a select few anymore.

Authors such as Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter, who co-penned “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” only confirmed what the recession-burned population was feeling: there was no security in working for someone else, happiness cannot be found in a nine-to-five job and that they have got to get out of “rat race.”

Now more than ever, entrepreneurship became the road to nirvana, and startups, the new Mecca.

It was good while it lasted, but now almost 20 years into the trend and with and entrepreneurs sprouting at every nook and corner like wild mushrooms, what I often wonder is with the rate the population of entrepreneurs is growing, what will happen the day the scales are tipped and there are more entrepreneurs than employees?

In fact, I would go as far as to say that it already seems to be happening and is more vividly apparent if one lives in a rapidly developing city like Shanghai, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hong Kong or one of the fastest developing city in the world, Shenzhen, where entrepreneurship seems to be the primary bread and butter of the masses.

With a wide range of oxymoronic social media tools available, everybody seems to have some sort of e-commerce business or at the least a website offering some or the other “niche” service.

Accountants, IT, sales and marketing, even human resources used to be some of the fixed departments with permanent employees in an office, but now every accountant wants to have their own practice, IT technicians want offices to outsource their work, sales and marketing professionals want to be independent consultants, and the same goes for every other professional.

But how long until this entrepreneurial bubble bursts? How long will the offices be able to compete with the self-starters and investment funded startups? At the pace that we are going, I think we will know soon enough.

(The author is an aspiring writer with a passion for travel and photography.)

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