School’s Entrepreneurial Spirit Runs Deep
Contrary to popular perception, Harvard Business School isn’t just a training ground for future Fortune 500 CEOs, says author Jeffrey L. Cruikshank (PMD 51, 1986). Just as important, it’s a launching pad for thousands of graduates who bypass the corporate track to take the entrepreneurial route to success.
In Shaping the Waves: A History of Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School (HBS Press, 2005), Cruikshank debunks the characterization of HBS as a “handmaiden to the Fortune 500,” churning out only top CEOs. In fact, Cruikshank says, more than half of HBS alumni call themselves entrepreneurs. “Many HBS alums graduate with a certain attitude and inclination toward entrepreneurship and wind up as self-employed — starting, growing, and selling businesses, and starting over again,” he explains.
His book chronicles the birth and growth of the entrepreneurship curriculum at HBS from World War II to today and reveals the broad and deep entrepreneurial ethos that has permeated many required and elective courses at the School. Cruikshank also recounts how alumni have used the resources, networks, and expertise of HBS to “shape the waves of change” and launch their ideas directly (in the form of hugely successful companies like Staples and Orbital Sciences) and indirectly (for example, through the venture capital industry).
“These stories are about restless academics who can’t quite stay away from business,” writes Cruikshank. “Or alternatively, they are about entrepreneurs who can’t quite stay away from the academy.”
— Margie Kelley
