Rule Breaking and Entrepreneurship

September 26th, 2005 • Comments Off Entrepreneurship + Startups

Given that I now have a nearly hour commute in the morning and evening to and from school, I have time to contemplate things as I drive. Add to that the fact that my radio antenna died and so I’m only listening to CDs, I get a lot of time to think. One thing that struck me recently is how Americans don’t follow the generally accepted rules of the road for passing. A few years ago I was driving in England and drivers there will not pass on the slow side of your car (which there is the left side, in the U.S. it would be the right side). They will only pass in the faster lane (again, on the right side in England which would be the left side in the U.S.).

So this got me thinking. Is there any random correlation between willingness to flaunt rules and willingness to become an entrepreneur? India drivers flaunt traffic regulations to an extreme (one could argue to a dangerous extreme in fact) and workers there have no qualms working for a startup. Perhaps in that case the correlation is more due to economic status than a willingness to go against convention.

Anyone know if there has been a study about entrepreneurship and rule breaking/risk taking that is measured in non-business terms? It would be an interesting study I think. If no one has, maybe I’ll do one one day. But not one day soon.