- published: 07 Dec 2014
- views: 455075
An entrepreneur (i/ˌɒntrəprəˈnɜr/) is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and/or initiative. The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to help launch a new venture or enterprise and accept full responsibility for the outcome. Jean-Baptiste Say, a French economist, is believed to have coined the word "entrepreneur" in the 19th century - he defined an entrepreneur as "one who undertakes an enterprise, especially a contractor, acting as intermediatory between capital and labour".
Entrepreneurs become what they are for several reasons. Many, depending on the person, choose to do so to avoid workplace drama, discrimination, being taken advantage of, or just to be their own boss. Another reason people become entrepreneurs is to avoid unemployment and attain job security. When an individual cannot find work, he or she may see starting a business enterprise as a suitable alternative and a good way to ensure he or she is never fired.
Julie Meyer is an American-born entrepreneur, investor, business adviser, networking expert, broadcaster, and business commentator. She is the founder and Chief Executive of Ariadne Capital and the Managing Partner of Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund (ACE).
She is the founder of Entrepreneur Country and was the co-founder of First Tuesday sold in July 2000 to Yazam, a subsidiary of Jerusalem Global, for $50 million.
Meyer is also one of the two dragons on the BBC’s Dragons' Den online and is a regular columnist for the business paper City A.M. and regularly contributes to The Daily Telegraph’s business pages.
She has won awards including the World Economic Forum Global Leader of Tomorrow, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (October 2000) and a place in the Wall Street Journal’s 30 most influential women in Europe. She was also cited as one of INSEAD’s ‘50 alumni who have changed the world’ (2010).
Meyer was born in Dearborn, Michigan, but moved to Sacramento, California, when she was one month old. Her father, also an entrepreneur, is a pulmonary doctor who founded Pulmonary Medicine Associates in Carmichael, CA in the early 1970s; her mother was an assistant to a lawyer.