Comparison of Entrepreneurs - Report Example

College: Comparison of Entrepreneurs The principal responsibility of an entrepreneur is enabling the local region and community to pursue sustainable development. The main focus of the paper will be on some of the most influential entrepreneurs, their life as well as factors that motivated them to become successful in business. Additionally, it will also focus on their personality styles, management methods, as well as challenges facing their businesses. The two entrepreneurs under scrutiny are Mark Zuckerberg; CEO and co-founder of Facebook and William (Bill) H. Gates; CEO and co-founder, Microsoft Corporation. Mark Zuckerberg; CEO and co-founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the popular Facebook site. Not much can be discussed about the job experience of Zuckerberg since he has only held one office in his career life; the Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg was only 23 years old when he came up with the idea of Facebook (Entrepreneur Media, n.pg). Mark grew up in the suburbs of New York City where he was living with both of his parents. While here, he obtained high school education at the Phillips Exeter Academy in the town of New Hampshire. His father was a professional dentist while the mother was working as a Psychiatrist in one of the hospitals in the area. While still in high school, Mark Zuckerberg learned how to create computer programs by himself. During this time, Zuckerberg collaborated with his close friend called D’Angelo, who was also a schoolmate. D’Angelo had excelled in computer and its applications. He was a professional computer hacker. Mark and his friend later created a unique Win amp plug-in that attracted the interest of various software companies. For this reason, they were offered job opportunity by two big companies; AOL and Microsoft. However, Mark and his friend turned down this offer in order to continue pursuing their higher education. He then joined the Harvard University to pursue a degree in Computer Science, his main specialty being Programming. While in Harvard, Mark used his computer knowledge and skills to create an internet site which he named Facemash. The Facemash was a curtain-raiser for Facebook but did not have many features except the faces and brief descriptions of the Harvard students. Zuckerberg, however, obtained the records of these students by hacking the Harvard computer system. The administration reacted to this by reprimanding Mark and putting him at risk of being charged with privacy and security violation. Some of his fellow students accused him of stealing the official Facebook codes. Zuckerberg was not discouraged by this opposition from both the administration and a fraction of the students. He was determined to complete his project with Facebook. He borrowed his idea from the Harvard Facebook publication, an annual school publication that contained short profiles of the students. He also obtained some idea from social network sites such as MySpace. The year 2004 was such a big year for this young entrepreneur. He had successfully completed all the programming and Facebook was officially launched in Harvard. This site captured the attention of many in the school and within a few days, nearly half of the student population had signed up for Facebook. The good news was spread in the surrounding colleges and many students opened accounts with Facebook. Students could easily interact with each other using this social site. When Zuckerberg saw this rapid expansion, he left school to concentrate on the Facebook project. He was hooked up with PayPal and Napster co-founders whose roles were to advise him on business strategies and funding. With the help of his mentors, Mark Zuckerberg managed to raise over 12 million dollars as capital venture in the year 2005. It is the very year that he formally branded his site. With the capital venture, Mark decided to take Facebook to a worldwide level. In 2006, Mark turned down the offer by Yahoo to buy Facebook at 1 billion dollars. However, he later allowed Microsoft Company to obtain 1.6% of the Facebook shares at a cost of 240 million dollars. Today, Facebook has more than 110 million subscribers worldwide. It is one of the most visited sites on the internet. However, Facebook does not stop here. Mark Zuckerberg says that Facebook is work in progress. Google is also planning to make Facebook a public corporate company soon. Mark Zuckerberg, as a young entrepreneur, has proved to the world that one does not need to work for many years to become rich. William (Bill) H. Gates; CEO and co-founder, Microsoft Corporation William Bill Gate was born in the year 1955. His father was a lawyer while his mother was a school teacher at the University of Washington. At a tender age of 13, Gates had already written his first book on computer programming. This book was about programming of a computer game called farmers-chess. As young man, Gates had a computer with which he was very obsessed. However, this computer was very big and also too slow. He never used to enjoy its slow services at all. From this situation, he started to develop ideas of making the computer work faster and efficiently. He thought of ways of inventing more effective software. With the help Paul Allen, his youthful friend, Bill Gates started a small computer enterprise and he named it Traf-o-Data. Here, he created and sold computer programs that could be used to control the crowded traffic in the city. He also used to sell other computer equipment and accessories. In the year 1973, Gates joined Harvard University as a freshman and he assisted the institution in developing programming languages. While in Harvard, he developed the BASIC language and he was the first to use this program in a computer. Later, Gates was confirmed as Microsoft CEO. However, Bill Gates decided to leave Harvard at junior level in 1975. He wanted to go and start his company. He invited his friend, Paul Allen to become his first Business partner and co-founder of Microsoft Corporation. His main vision was to make computer software that is cheaper, easier and fun to work with. He then started to look for more business opportunities in his specialty of programming. Bill Gates became even more creative and created an Operating System called Microsoft Disk Operating System; Ms-DOS. He first sold the Ms-DOS to the IBM Company and from which other software companies obtained their licenses for the Ms-DOS. This software dominated most computers in the mid 1980s. A few years later, Bill Gates developed another software; the Microsoft Windows. The Microsoft windows still dominates computers to date. The first public offering of shares by the Microsoft Corporation made Bill Gates a Billionaire in 1986. Microsoft Corporation has since then expanded its scope of specialization. It does not only create the operating system but also make several other corporate acquisitions. For instance, in the year 2011, this company made the largest acquisition ever of 8.5 billion dollars for Skype Technologies. It has also successfully acquired the Nokia devices and services so as to enable it enter the hardware market of Smartphone. However, it was later reported in 2014 that the company had made a huge loss due to this acquisition of Nokia. Comparison of Entrepreneurial Strategies between Zuckerberg and Gates According to Devra, entrepreneurs must risk their money, time and personal reputation in order to see their visions manifested (14). Both Gates and Zuckerberg were in line with this economic theory of entrepreneurship when they decided to risk their time and resources and venture into serious business. Mark Zuckerberg spent a lot of his time while working on his programming skills so as to come up with an efficient social site. Bill Gates also took his precious time to program an effective and universally accepted operating system. Both of them started their own companies at the risk of their education. They went to Harvard but had to leave school to pursue their entrepreneurial goals. They weighed the risks and the benefits, and then ventured into the unknown and generated positive results. While in Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg risked his personal reputation by hacking the school computer system and obtaining the student records. This step was criticized by many in the school but it did not stop him. He knew he had to break some social norms in order to prove the work of technology. Bill Gates, however, had not intentionally risked his personal reputation for the sake of his business. Not that one has to tarnish his personality to become a true entrepreneur, no. In 2005, Zuckerberg risked 12 million when he decided to use it as capital venture. Gates, together with Paul Allen, also spent huge capital when starting the Microsoft Corporation. The acquisition of Nokia brought some loss to the company but this was no big deal since Gates knew that failure is sometimes part of success. It was a risk he had already decided to take. Business needs some money to start. Before an entrepreneur initiates any further steps, he must calculate how much money the enterprise will require. However, a creative entrepreneur can supplement money with other forms of resources so as to achieve the same goals. In complying with this resource-based theory of entrepreneurship, both Zuckerberg and Gates had used the available resource to start them off. They were well equipped with the human resources such as adequate knowledge and skills in computer science. Another form of human capital used by these entrepreneurs was the involvement and collaboration with friends with whom they shared ideas. In fact, this was their most valuable resource as they did not have plenty of finance capital. Zuckerberg for instance, had to get financial assistance from external sources. It can, therefore, be said of him that he had not been prepared enough to start his enterprise. Bill Gates, presumably, may have had enough finance capital since he worked as a CEO while in Harvard and made enough saving. Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, had been just a mere student. This is the slightest contrast. Psychological entrepreneurship theory dictates that an individual must have a strong mental and emotional drive for the start of an enterprise (Doutigney, 78). One must see the need of opening a business. In the case of Mark and Gates, both had strong determination to accomplish their youthful dreams in entrepreneurship. Bill Gates had the passion of becoming a millionaire before he could turn thirty years. He had even set a vision of having Microsoft running in every computer. From the age of 13, he was determined to be the sole solution for the slow operating systems. His vision came true when he eventually invented the Ms-DOS. Mark Zuckerberg also had a high self esteem in every step of his endeavor. He overcame criticism of the students and established the popular social site called Facebook. Creativity and resilience played a critical role in the achievement their dreams. They conceptualized their services before they could eventually make them real. Mark Zuckerberg saw other social sites such as MySpace and thought of how to make such ideas more creative. Bill Gates’ creation of a faster operating system was a creative problem solving. Opportunity-based theory demands that an entrepreneur sees and takes an advantage of any available business opportunity (Simpeh, 45). The opportunities will always emerge in the market. These opportunities are created by the changes in technology, social network and economy. However, the opportunities do not last; therefore, a dynamic entrepreneur needs to move very fast before anyone else seizes it. In the era that Bill Gates was a young man; the computers that existed were too slow. Most of these computer needed good programming. The world was quickly developing and, therefore, some computer applications were becoming outdated. Gates saw all these opportunities and quickly took advantage of them. At first, he noticed that the people liked the game of farmers-chess. He became creative by programming such a game and selling it to the fans. When a faster operating system was needed, he quickly came up with the Ms-DOS and sold it to IBM which offered him a readily available market. As technology kept on changing, Bill Gates saw the need of a more efficient operating system. He moved in and developed the Microsoft Windows which was very marketable. When Nokia dominated the phone market, Gates saw the opportunity to market his products and services through the Nokia Smartphone. He therefore gained the acquisition of Nokia. Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, saw the growing population of the younger generation and the need for these people to socialize frequently. He visited the social sites that existed before and leaned their weaknesses. He then came up with a worldwide socialization site that has different features and easy to navigate. Mark did not hesitate to seize this open opportunity; therefore, he left school to take advantage of this ready market. However, unlike Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg has not diversified his services. He only concentrates on the socialization. It can therefore be said that Gates is more creative and aggressive than Zuckerberg. Bill Gates has also gone ahead and wrote his own books about software. The two books are The Road Ahead and Business at Speed of Thought. This was very creative of him as he established an opportunity to share his brilliant ideas with the world and also make some income through the sale of the very books. Mark Zuckerberg, other than making a lot of money, should also think of ways to diversify his business and write some books for us. Works Cited Bill Gates: Biography. 2014. Web. 6 November, 2014. Doutigney, Erick. The Entrepreneur in Theory and Practice. The Journal of Economic Studies. 3.2(2014) Entrepreneur Media. Mark Zuckerberg: CEO and co-founder of Facebook. New York. Entrepreneur Media,Inc. 2011. Gartenstein, Devra. Basic Concepts and Characteristics of Entrepreneurship. Washington DC. Goodreadings. 2014. Print. Simpeh, Kabwena. Entrepreneurship Theory and Empirical Research. Accra. Accra University Press. 2003. Print Read More