We need to stop glorifying Entrepreneurship.
Or atleast take it down a notch.
Entrepreneurship in today’s world has become more than a profession. It’s an emotion. It’s a lifestyle. It’s an aspiration. It’s inspiration. It’s a sense of achievement. It’s a white knight in a dark world of drones. We have successfully managed to build a giant temple of worship encompassing all the elements- startup founders, employees, VCs and more. Every single person secretly or openly prays to gain access and feel like a god. Your idea may be insipid, but if you took the chance to make that app and fail- your failure will also be glorified.
On the other hand of this spectrum is the corporate worker. He/she is called by many names- a drone, the hunchback of Notre desk, the one who has no goal in mind, the one who excels in excel sheets, the one who dreams but does not have the balls to go after his dream, I could go on. The answer to their broken spirits- entrepreneurship, of course! Why work for someone else, when you can and SHOULD be your own boss? RIGHT?
If you can glorify every aspect of the startup life, I have a problem with the hate being shown on the people who have regular jobs in the corporate ladder. Getting from manager to VP is not an easy task. It takes every bit of leadership, quantitative and qualitative skills to keep an enterprise of billions running and innovate to reach new targets every single year.
Take my close friend for example- he is at a very high position at an Indian retail enterprise and is responsible for a growing portfolio of brands. His regular day is no less filled with challenges across various domains. He has had a meteoric rise in the organisation, is a valuable asset, and is ranked in top tier management. But sadly, there will be no article on the internet detailing his story, because even though he decodes crazy excel sheets burning the midnight oil, works 20 hours a day, has core leadership skills- his story is not “jazzy” enough. It doesn’t have pizzaz. Let alone the fact- that he takes home a pretty hot pay packet too, that most entrepreneurs would take years to make.
Until my move to Pune 3 years ago, I had a career for 9 years in the TV sector. I was not a slave! I pride myself on rising up from a mere news trainee to a programming manager of a respected channel and enjoyed every single minute of it. My freelance story is a pure product of adapting to a new city with no significant media presence. 3 years ago, my first move was to apply to content jobs in various agencies! Since that didn’t pan out quite well, my next move was freelancership.
The point I am trying to make: let’s not diss the corporate sector. It is every bit demanding, imposing, tiring and satisfying as entrepreneurship. Sure, there are drone days, but how sure are we that startups don’t have those too? Climbing up the ladder is respectable, a sense of steady instigates a sense of calm and your work contributes to the real world.
Don’t all startups become full fledged companies in a matter of years too? Ponder on that, won’t you?
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