1.

A Brief History Of Entrepreneurship Contents Earliest Period Middle Ages

17th Century 18th Century 19th Century & 20th Century
2. Earliest Period Marco polo , as a go-between was an Italian. He wants to trade
routes to the far East. As a go-between, He had to sign a contract with a money
person to sell his goods. In the contract merchantadventurer took a loan at 22.5%
rate including insurance .
3. Capitalist was the passive risk bearer and merchantadventurer took the active
role in trading, bearing all physical and emotional risks. When the merchantadventurer successfully sold the goods and completed the trip, the profits were
divided with the capitalist taking most of them(upto 75%), while the merchantadventurer settled for the remaining 25 %.
4. Middle Ages Entrepreneur used to describe both as an actor and a person who
managed large production projects. Individuals did not take any risks because all
the resources used to provided by the government of the country, all an
entrepreneur should do is to manage it.
5. A typical entrepreneur in the middle age was the priest. The person in charge
of great architectural works used to build castles and fortifications, public buildings,
abbeys, and cathedrals.
6. 17th Century The connection of the risk with entrepreneurship developed in the
17th century. An entrepreneur was a person who entered into a contract with the
government to perform a service or to supply stipulated products. John law, a
frenchman was one of the entrepreneur in that period. The founder of the royal
bank of France and the Mississippi Company,which had an exclusive franchise to
trade between France and the new world. Monopoly on french trade eventually led
to collaspe of the company.
7. Richard Cantillion, a well-known English economist at the beginning of the 17th
century, understood Laws mistake. He viewed the entrepreneur as a risk taker,
observing that merchants, farmers, craftsmen, and others sole proprirtors buy at a
certain price and sell at an uncertain price, therefore operating at a risk.
8. 18th Century In the 18th century, the person with capital was differentiated
from the one who needed capital. The entrepreneur was distinguished from the
capital provider. One reason for this differentiation was the industrialization
occuring throughout the world. Eli Whitney was an American inventor best known
for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the industrial
Revolution.
9. Thomas Edison, the inventor of many inventions. He was developing new
technologies and was unable to finance his inventions himself. Edison was a
capital user (an entrepreneur), not a provider (a venture capitalist).

10. 19th & 20th Centuries In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, entrepreneurs
were frequently not distinguished from managers and were viewed mostly from an
economic perspective. The entrepreneur organizes and manages an enterprise for
peersonal gain. The materials consumed in the business, for the use of the land,
for the services he employs, and for the capital he requires.
11. Andrew Carnegie is one of the best examples of this definition. Carnegie,
who descended from a poor scottish family, made the American Steel Industry one
of the wonders of the industrial world. In the middle of the 20th Century The
function of the entrepreneurs is to recreate or revolutionize the pattern of
production by introducing an invention. Innovation, the act of introducing some
new ideas, is one of the most difficult tasks for the entrepreneur.
12. Edward Harriman, who reorganized the railroad in the United States. John
Morgan, who developed his large banking house by reorganizing and financing the
nations industries. Traditional technologies innovations (translators, computers,
lasers) that are usually associated with the word invention.
13. The Egyptian who designed and built great pyramids out of stone blocks
weighing many tons each, to laser beams, supersonic planes and space stations.

The original entrepreneurs were, of course, traders and merchants. The first known
instance of humans trading comes from New Guinea around 17,000 BCE, where
locals exchanged obsidian, a black volcanic glass used to make hunting arrowheads
for other needed goods. These early entrepreneurs exchanged one set of goods for
another.

The first known instance of humans trading with other humans comes from New
Guinea around 17,000 BCE when locals exchanged obsidian, a black volcanic glass
used to make hunting arrowheads for other needed goods.
The first known instance of humans trading comes from New Guinea around 17,000
BCE when locals exchanged obsidian, a black volcanic glass used to make hunting
arrowheads for other needed goods.
Around 15,000 BCE, the first animal domestication began taking place, and around
10,000 BCE, the first domestication of plants. This step toward agriculture was
critical for the advancement of the human species. Now, instead of having to
continually move around as nomadic tribes, seeking new places to hunt and to

gather, we could stay in one place. Agriculture allowed us to start to form larger
stationary communities and cities (the basis for civilizations), which set the stage
for the development and spread of human knowledge. Agriculture changed
everything for humans, enabling the formation of stable rather than migratory
populations and laying the foundation for human populations to grow from 15
million to over 7 billion in the millennia ahead. 1

As more people moved into these stable communities, one of the most important
advances took place with the advent of specialization. Instead of each tribe hunting
and gathering their food, different individuals within each tribe would become
experts at certain tasks, such as farming, hunting, gathering, fishing, cooking, toolmaking, shelter-building, or clothes-making. The importance of specialization in
various tasks (versus self-sufficiency in all) cannot be overstated. As some
individuals in a community focused on one activity or another, they got much better
at it, speeding up the pace of innovation. As different people got better at different
tasks through specialization, they were then able to exchange with one another for
the various goods and services needed, increasing the benefits for all.

As methods of agriculture improved, the first towns and cities were seen.
Dependable food supplies allowed people to build permanent houses and settle in
one area. As settlements increased in size, new social institutions such as religious
centers, courts, and marketplaces developed. The advent of towns produced further
specialization, creating jobs in tool-making, pottery, carpentry, wool-making, and
masonry, among others. The specialist created items faster and of a better quality
than each family making its own, increasing standards of living.

When the last Ice Age ended around the year 8,000 BCE, the poles melted, raising
sea levels and creating a divide between Siberia and North America. This divide
created two separate human civilizations for nearly 10,000 years, until European
explorers reached the Americas again in the 15th century.