|
|
 |
|
| Opportunities & Exposures: Entrepreneurship |
The Breakthrough Temperament
John D. Gartner
06/01/2005
|
Entrepreneurs in the United States—brimming with infectious energy, irrational
confidence and big ideas, you know the type—are often described as manic. Are
entrepreneurs really manic? No. They are hypomanic. Hypomania is a mild form of
mania, which is much less known but far more common than the manic state
associated with bipolar disorder. Mania and hypomania run together in families,
and both may be genetic in origin. Unlike their severely mentally ill relatives,
hypomanics are not crazy, but they cannot be described as normal, either. Their
energy, creativity and audacious confidence provide a competitive advantage I
call the hypomanic edge. As a group, this edge manifests itself in
far-above-average income, occupational status and creative achievement. But it
is a double-edged sword. Their grandiosity, impulsivity and bad judgment can
lead to disaster, as many tech stock investors can attest.
Many American
entrepreneurs exhibit this genetically based temperament. As a preliminary test
of this hypothesis, I interviewed 10 Internet CEOs, read them each a list of
hypomanic traits synthesized from the psychiatric literature and asked them if
they agreed these qualities were typical of an entrepreneur:
• filled with
energy
• flooded with ideas
• driven, restless and unable to keep
still
• pursues wildly grand ambitions
• works on little sleep
• feels
brilliant, special, chosen—perhaps even destined to change the
world
• sometimes euphoric
• easily irritated by minor obstacles
• a
risk taker
• overspends
• acts out sexually
• acts impulsively in ways
that can have painful
consequences
• fast-talking
• witty and
gregarious
• charismatic and persuasive
• a little paranoid
All of
the entrepreneurs agreed that this overall description was accurate, most of
them with great excitement: “Wow, that’s right on target! How did you know?”
Having learned in our conversation that he was hypomanic, one CEO finally
understood why he repeatedly rented palatial office space he could not afford.
Another understood what drove him to send emails at 3 in the morning to his
employees, radically revising his company’s mission.
 The United States has
always had an overabundance of such characters. In fact, the American character
itself has long been described as energetic, driven, zealous, optimistic,
innovative—all traits associated with the hypomanic entrepreneur. Alexis de
Tocqueville found us “restless in the midst of abundance,” and thought our most
defining characteristic was that we were “constantly driven to engage in
commerce and industry.” Today we work more hours, move more often, earn and
spend more money than anyone else on Earth. Americans make up 5 percent of the
world’s population and account for 31 percent of its economic activity.
One
possible explanation for this entrepreneurial compulsion lies in our origins. A
nation of immigrants represents a highly unusual population. Immigration itself
is an entrepreneurial undertaking, risking human as well as economic capital.
People who leap across the sea into the unknown are, by and large, a
self-selected group of energetic risk takers. Immigrants have an entrepreneurial
temperament, and consistent with this, they are self-employed at rates far
higher than native-borns. If their character is genetic, their descendents must
inherit it. Thus it is no coincidence that the top three nations in new company
creation in the 1990s were the United States, Canada and Israel—all nations of
immigrants. If I’m right, the source of our great wealth is our hypomanic genes,
gifted to us by our immigrant ancestors.
Internet mania was not a unique
chapter in U.S. history. Market manias have energized our economic development
since George Washington’s time, when rampant speculation in Bank of the United
States stock—dubbed Bancomania by the press at the time—caused the financial
panic of 1792. From Bancomania to Internet mania, the United States has ridden
the waves of irrational exuberance. We are not likely to change course, now or
ever. It’s in our blood.
Art by Matt Mahurin.
John D. Gartner, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University, is the author of
The Hypomanic Edge.
|
|
|
|
|
