Original subtitles

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entrepreneurs take risks they pour money

time and effort and ventures that may or

may not pay off

they're also controversial some people

see them as brave creative pioneers

forging ahead to make a better future

for others some regard them as

self-serving capitalists looking to get

rich at our expense who's right

is the entrepreneurs work accentuate

virtuous or vicious these are not idle

questions in the 20th century the

destinies of entire nations depended in

part on how they viewed the entrepreneur

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Brad Morgan grew up in rural Michigan

for as long as he can remember he wanted

to work for himself when he was 26 he

leased a small dairy farm five years

later he managed to buy the land with a

loan from the bank our County Extension

agents wonderful manager Lynn question

first you who is in business he come

here evaluated the books looked at our

financial statement and he looked me

right square in the eye on he says

you're broke

get out you cannot possibly make it

and I looked right back at him and I

says what have we got to do to get this

right

well at that point in time the average

rolling herd average for this county was

like 14 or 15 thousand thousand off the

count he says Brad in order for this

thing to float you've got to be well

over 20,000 pounds of milk per cow well

at that particular time there was only

one herd national economy that had that

kind of production by the second year we

was the top producing herd in Osceola

County and by the third year we was the

sixth highest producing herd in the

state of Michigan so out of necessity

you put your butt in the corner be

surprised what you can achieve for over

ten years

the Morgans led the region and milk

production per cow but then in 1999 a

new problem arose milk prices plummeted

they were again in danger of losing

their farm Morgan began looking around

for an unexploited resource sometimes

they are the most common resources that

we walk over that we ignore that we even

are perhaps repulsed by that become the

source of wealth the source of jobs the

source of prosperity

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we always bought our feed here so we had

to find a way to dispose of the menorah

that was costing me about twenty five

thousand dollars a year to dispose of

the Minar huh my father and I was

talking and basically I says dad I says

I've done some research on this and I

think we can compost this menorah I

think we can make it a marketable

product so we contacted Michigan State

and they come in and did some studies

and did all of this and they told us yes

we could and we could probably sell it

at $3 a yard $3 a yard the cost of

production is $9 yard it just doesn't

make a whole lot of sense

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they basically told me that it was

pretty much unachievable the value of

the product wouldn't be there but I was

a little independent little pigheaded

little stubborn we decided that there

was a better market out there to

question developing a new marketplace

for a product that hasn't even been

developed yet to me I think people are

pretty narrow-minded when they draw the

line that quick

the moral aspect of entrepreneurship is

that it requires certain moral virtues

if it's going to happen

it requires persistence it requires the

ability to be patient another trait I

think that would be required would be

persistence or what classically would be

called perseverance being able to take

another breath and move on

faith enables one to do this at the

darkest moment to hold on to hold steady

to go through to keep going to believe

in your vision enough and to not fatigue

not to run short how sad it is you know

for people to go right to the point and

then lose heart

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most of the equipment was already here

and available we obviously had the

property we had the raw feedstocks we

had tractor we had skid steer and we

started composting we haul in dairy

manure and we stockpile it on a smut pad

and then come spring we'll take out a

racetrack straw and mix it together with

the dairy monoi

it'll actually start heating in the pile

so I'll start breaking down for us when

this in the pile and then after that

we'll take it and we'll put it into a

window a window is a long pile that's

about it's six feet wide by four feet

high a lot of hundred yards long for the

composting business I turn the compost

we turn the windows because the living

organisms in there need the oxygen we

turn about once every three days if

every time she turns that you lose that

much steam off from that win row that's

moisture leaving the system now unless

it's replenished sooner or later that

product just dries right out that window

right there I mean it still got plenty

of moisture in there I mean when you can

ball it throw it up there and it just

barely breaks up that's about perfect

for speeding up this process from what

everybody thought it would take two

years and we're doing it in 60 days

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along the way Morgan hired Joe

Scrimgeour a consultant with expertise

in soil biology I've never paid somebody

so much money to be such a critic but

the one thing that Joe brought to the

table is if you're going to market a

product don't accept the average you

have to create a product that is better

than anybody else can make what Joe

would do is he would basically come in

and he would test it he would analyze it

he would scrutinize it and to the point

or he's almost offensive and I detect

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because as I started watching our

process as we was learning he was

learning as we was learning he was

challenging us to do more and

consequently it shows up in the

marketplace

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we've developed eight different product

lines and now we're even growing that in

to probably be ten or twelve by the end

of the season the dairy do obviously is

our base product we've got that kind of

down to a science the dairy do is

basically calf Penman or dairy cow any

kind of manure that we can get out of a

dairy herd or a beef herd we probably

take this to a level that nobody else

has probably looked at and we're

probably a little more meticulous about

it we can make a very nice compost and

it's it's a lot more stable than what

most people even recognize if we're

going to make go through this much time

and effort this much energy to make a

product we feel we have to be the best

on the marketplace

it's interesting that's the thing is fun

when you can take the raw product that

had no value and turn it into a product

that has extreme value in the

marketplace from large production

agriculture to small production

agriculture to homeowner to garden golf

courses it's wide open

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if you want to be an entrepreneur a

successful entrepreneur but you must do

is focus on what other people need want

desire and try to serve it better or in

a new way with value added in a way

nobody else has so in that sense an

entrepreneur must be other-directed you

must be watching your fellow human

beings

you know people often describe

capitalists as very self-centered

ingredient certainly there are such

beings of course you don't have to be a

capitalist to be greedy and

self-centered you can do that in any

economic sphere but entrepreneur qua

entrepreneur as entrepreneur has to be

other regarding has to be looking to see

what are the needs of the consumer

many in the composting business accept

government subsidies to collect farm

waste and turn it into low-grade compost

Brad Morgan took a different tack he

worked to create a line of high quality

compost tailored to specific farming and

gardening needs that meant risking more

capital upfront with in the end it paid

off after 10 years the Morgans business

is still expanding he now partners with

other farmers to meet the growing demand

for his compost

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our goals when we first started this

business we felt if we could sell

$30,000 worth of product we would be

just tickled pink our goals for this

year I'll be in well over a million and

a half that's not a big company but

there's an opportunity out there

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and if you think about the way in which

media portrays business people

inevitably it is the greedy rapacious

the superficial literature magazines

even Adam Smith the great champion of

capitalism was no fan of the businessman

a university professor he regarded the

rising class of tradesmen and Merchants

as self-serving and greedy even though

Adam Smith acknowledged the moral

prerequisites of a successful capitalism

he at the same time casually denounced

capitalist never did they assemble

except to conspire against the public

and you certainly couldn't depend on

their moral qualities to deliver your

bread you had to depend on their

self-interest today many of our

religious leaders depict the business

class in even partial terms I think the

history of corporate America is the

history of huge economic units the

uncontrolled will pollute our atmosphere

will move factories from community to

community to maximize profit even though

it destroys communities as they leave

unemployed behind this is what is wrong

in our international global economy that

the wealth of the world goes from the

poor to the rich the rich get richer and

richer and the poor get poorer and

poorer

when you listen to your priest or your

Minister talk what you often hear is

something like this I'm exaggerating of

course but if you have money you should

give to the church and give to other

good causes in order to to justify it if

you actually made the money yourself

there's something faintly dirty about

that a little suspicious about that as

if you couldn't earn a fortune without

cheating others without exploiting

others many people look at entrepreneurs

and say that fundamentally they must be

motivated by greed sure they're a greedy

entrepreneurs but they're also greedy

lawyers greedy doctors and greedy trade

unionists Max Weber had a wonderful line

he said people who think that the

essence of capitalism is greed are in

the kindergarden of economic history

he said greed is universal an

entrepreneur is a person who sees things

that other people don't but is also

creative with what they see someone who

can organize things and other people

around them so as to achieve the new

object that is in mind the entrepreneur

success seems inevitable after the fact

but the risks of launching a new

enterprise a real you know a lot of

people don't realize that for

entrepreneurs they very often more often

than not place their entire well-being

at risk in order to produce something

that they don't even know they have a

market for yet they have to be so

convinced of their idea that they will

and how many entrepreneurs mortgage

their homes in order to finance the

first beginnings of their enterprise

that's an admirable trait four out of

every seven new enterprises fail and

people lose their shirts they lose

everything they have

what entrepreneurs really do is put one

thing at risk behind something new

something different where they could

lose it all and do it over and over and

over again

some entrepreneurs help share the risk

of new business ventures while also

providing needed capital these may be

the most vilified of all entrepreneurs

the moneylenders

entrepreneurs often have great ideas

many entrepreneurs often however don't

have the necessary capital that they

need to be able to make an idea into

reality what banks do is provide

entrepreneurs with the capital that they

need to turn ideas into reality and to

create Frank haynam is a successful

merchant banker who first learned about

business and the value of hard work from

his father

when that was a child my brother and

father and I didn't go hunting and

fishing like a lot of kids do with their

fathers we would wake up on Saturday

mornings and we go to the office with

him and then we'd go around and look at

real estate he would have a duplex or

something like we collect rent and we

would lo the lawns and do maintenance

work and in between he would teach us

about business panel later pursued a

degree in law but even as a young

attorney if you'da students of business

it's a particular bent and way of

looking at things I practice law for two

years before going into business and

after about six months I had figured out

the compensation structure of the law

firm which was top secret but I went in

and talked to a young partner one day

and he said how do you know all this you

know more about this than I do so well I

this is a business it's a law firm but

it's a business and if I want to be in

this business I need to understand it I

need to know how people are compensated

on what what kind of incentives are

within the law firm how do we bring in

business that sort of thing I was

fascinated with the business

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so many people I know who are

entrepreneurs there's a piece of

engineer within them there's a piece of

little boy who wants to know how does

this thing work

he soon put his talent for business to

work Frank and his brother David

developed models to analyze and minimize

the risk of making various loans then

they pooled their savings of $160,000

for a down payment to borrow a much

larger sum of money alone they used to

purchase a bundle of loans the borrowers

were now Belinda's their strategy

eventually paid off and they continue

making highly leveraged investments

borrowing large sums of money but they

would then win to others for such

financial engineering the company they

found it now manages over 2.7 billion

dollars the economic value of such work

may not be obvious

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my daughter spent time with me this

summer working with me seeing what I do

so she's watching me make calls and

speak to people and read material and we

go to lunch after a couple of days and

she said to me when do you make the

money and the fact is you know first of

all you don't make the money hopefully

you create well and money is a

representation of some of the wealth

that is created but I thought long and

hard about it what does a capitalist do

a capitalist gathers lots and lots and

lots of information because generally

speaking the more information you have

the less uncertainty you have about

what's going to happen so you gather a

lot of information and you sift through

it and you discern it and you spend a

lot of time thinking about it and then

at the end of the day the capitalist

makes a decision as to where the capital

that he is a steward of as to where that

capital should be employed if he makes

good decisions then he increases the

wealth that is there because the capital

gets used like a tool in an effective

manner if he makes bad decisions he

won't be making those decisions for very

long

because the market will not continue to

put capital in his stewardship every

small business that started with alone

is connected to people like Frank Hannah

if these moneylenders failed to make

wise investments they have to charge far

more interest to stay in business but if

they're skillful they can lower interest

rates enabling countless men and women

to launch new enterprises

a farmer could till a very small plot of

land until he saved enough money to buy

a tractor or he can take an act of faith

and hope in the future that he can

borrow money to buy a tractor now and

thereby go ahead and start being much

more productive today rather than ten

years from now when he saved enough

money to buy the first tractor now what

makes that possible well in past days he

might be able to go down the road and

borrow money from another farmer to buy

the tractor but the fact is that farmer

doesn't have enough money to lend to him

and even if he goes to a cooperative the

co-operative is much more limited in how

much money they can lend because they

don't have enough of a universe to draw

from to diversify the risk what risk

well the farmer who buys - who borrows

to use the tractor he may not be

successful but it's worth taking a risk

on him if we can spread the risk over

thousands and thousands of people and

that's what happens here in New York

City whether it is credit cards

mortgages or tractors on a farm we take

all of these credit instruments that he

used to buy houses or tractors and we

pull millions of them together such that

when someone doesn't pay back

no one bears the entire brunt of that

and that process makes the entire

extension of credit the cost of the

lubrication it drops it dramatically and

more important it makes it much more

available for many many more people and

so the farmer who in the past it didn't

matter how much he was willing to pay

for the credit he could not get it today

he can get it he can walk into the

dealership and buy a tractor not

everyone sees the work of bankers and

investors in such a positive light there

was a famous movie called Wall Street

with Michael Douglas and he portrayed a

guy named Gordon Gekko

who acted as if the whole thing is just

one big slot machine or one big craps

table it's a zero-sum game it's not a

question of enough pal it's a zero-sum

game somebody wins somebody loses money

itself is lost or made its aplia

transferred from one perception to

another like magic and that might be the

most insidious misinterpretation of a

market that there is the richest 1

percent of this country owns half our

country's wealth 5 trillion dollars one

third of that comes from hard work 2/3

comes from inheritance interest on

interest accumulating the widow's the

idiots sons and what I do stock the real

estate speculation it's you got 90

percent of the American public out there

with little or no net worth I create

nothing I own a zero-sum game is like

poker we all sit down at a table and I

only win if someone else loses that's

not the way a market works that's not

the way the wealth of New York City has

been built it didn't all come from

someone else it was created

I might argue that there are two key

fundamental principles of all of

financial theory and analysis one is the

time value of money and the other is

understanding the benefits of

diversification of financial risk the

risk sharing entrepreneur can look

mundane beside entrepreneurs who invent

new technologies but the risk shares

have played a pivotal role in history I

would make the argument that but for

financial engineering and financial risk

management

the United States of America is not what

it is today I'm not sure it ever gets

discovered as it got discovered the

thing that allowed more and more ships

to come to the United States was

insurance when a ship would set sail

from Europe it was a very very hazardous

undertaking and very few people other

than royalty other than Queen Isabella

in the case of Columbus could finance it

because of the risk that the ship and

all of its cargo would go down was so

great that no one could afford to bear

that risk on their own what happened in

England with Lloyds of London was that

an insurance industry was set up whereby

the risk of all of these ships going

down was shared in a cooperative fashion

through financial engineering

there was somebody sitting in a back

room

getting paid very well because they were

analyzing statistic after statistic

after statistic of all of the accidents

at sea and making calculations as to

what those risks were and then charging

insurance premiums to the companies that

wanted a sale to the New World

and by spreading that risk one might

think what is that person in the

backroom of what benefit are they to the

economy but that analysis that

engineering that took place helped the

new world be discovered because all of a

sudden more and more people taking risk

in Europe could sail to the new world

without fear of catastrophic loss

because their risk was now shared with

everyone else who was sailing to the new

world and thus that financial

engineering emboldened people to take

these ventures and in fact enabled the

new world to be discovered at a pace

that never would have happened but for

those people in the back room managing

risk the great economic evil is the

belief in a zero-sum economy that the

good fortune of others comes at your own

expense because then of course it

justifies any kind of violence against

others it fosters envy rather than

celebrating the successes of others you

envy them and you petition to government

to restrict and suppress the successful

and all around the world that's led to

the greatest horrors and catastrophes an

attack on the successful the middlemen

the entrepreneurs when we demonize the

entrepreneur the creative person we

create a perception at that point what

we do and the phrase for it is kill the

Golden Goose we see the golden eggs that

are laid and we think if we can kill the

Golden Goose we can get rid of the goose

and get inside to all the eggs the fact

is when you kill the Golden Goose you

kill all the golden eggs to

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few stories better illustrate the tragic

effects of vilifying the business class

than the story of Jimmy line born in

1948 in the Guangdong province of

southern mainland China Jimmy Lai was

five when Mount Satan's Communist

revolution reached his village the lies

property was stripped away and their

family life decimated it was very

confused time for kids I didn't know

what was going on I was maybe four well

we were unfortunate because our friend

me was rich famiiy so naturally when

you're rich you become the enemy of the

people

when I knew anything I knew that the

adults were very busy either being sent

to labor camp

for instance my mother only came back

doing weekend to take heifers after

weekends she had to go back to labor

camp and at that time we you know me and

my twin sister and my my elder sister

only three of us were still in Canton in

the house so we were young kids left

with us we had to cook ourselves you

know and then on order we just have to

survive strike who answered as a kid

although you know luckily we were kids

we know anything better when Jim Eli was

nine he was given a job carrying luggage

in a railway station in Guangzhou when

you live in the communist country

surrounded by all the lies you know how

horrible how heritage the house I were

is

you scare but outside where we don't

know what to real real fact is outside

you know where you live but working in a

rail stations gave me the privilege to

access people who come from outside

those guys who come from outside people

become an information carrier of the

outside world I can see people how well

they dress how well this speed and how

well they treat us then I was never

trade like this in China you know

because people who had to work in a

railway station carry the bags our

people were marginal people it was an

experience that was very educational for

me it changes my purview of the world

one day was carrying the baggage for a

guy after he gate you know gave me some

tips he failed he threw his pocket and

gave me an above top ring I had the bar

talking my hand I turned and I I was so

hungry you know I turn and I fight and

it was so tasteful it was it was amazing

so I tell that I asked him so much this

is Chakri

where you from is a Hong Kong as a Hong

Kong must be having because I never

taste anything like that so that really

that was that trigger my determination

to go to Hong Kong and then from that

day on I passed to my mother to allow me

to escape

well millions of people in communist

China was starving Hong Kong was booming

two things that distinguish Hong Kong

from mainland China during this period

were its support for property rights and

the rule of law Communist China in the

1950s and 60s had a command-and-control

economy in which entrepreneurial

decisions and visions and choices were

not preserved or not respected Hong Kong

on the other hand had a minimal

provision for laws and justice what some

have called governance of benign neglect

which created space for the

entrepreneurial visions of millions of

people the biggest impediment to

economic growth is when people feel the

threat of confiscation of their gains

from wealth creating activity through

either government or other private

actors and so for example in the third

world there's a lack of stability from

both the government confiscating your

wealth and your neighbor confiscating

your wealth so that drives you

underground or drives you in this very

short term horizon so we get markets in

all throughout the world but they're

like bazaar markets you know Street

trading levels and things like that

rather than longer-term investment

projects that are wealth creating when

no one can rely on the rule of law and

the rights of property pure logic tells

you not to invest too much of your time

and energy and resources into any

property because you have no assurance

that any fruit ever comes from that

the wealthiest places on the planet are

those places where the productive

capacity of a person is increased and

those places are the places with the

least regulation and the least taxation

so it seems to me that's what you want

to do internationally is create

societies where there is the least

regulation on human creativity allow

people to do that within sane boundaries

where people are not allowed to kill

each other are not allowed to steal from

each other have their disputes settled

on the basis of courts and law but to

minimize the actions of bureaucrats and

politicians and the state and maximize

the creativity of businesspeople

I think Adam Smith summed it up best

when he said that you could move from

the lowest form of barbarism to the

highest form of opulence that all you

need is peace easy taxes and a tolerable

administration of justice if we stifle

the initiative and the creativity of the

entrepreneur to a certain point they'll

walk away from the opportunity they'll

move to some other place that has more

opportunity because the creative impulse

is still there the boy jimmy'll I knew

nothing of economic theory but in the

train station in Guangzhou he tasted

freedom for the first time I stopped to

pester my mother about allowing me to

escape to Hong Kong when I was 11 half

so it took me a year to convince her she

always said hey you know you know that

going to Hong Kong is like you going to

the moon because I would never see you

again

you know you wouldn't you know she 40 I

would never be able to go back and she

would never go to Hong Kong to see me

and she were very reluctant to allow me

to go to Hong Kong but finally I did and

but when I was trove in half line knew a

policeman who helped him get a visa to

the Macao territory in the southern

coast of China he made the journey that

night some of the fishermen there were

part of a smuggling operation where

freedom and profit met

I was put in the bottom of the junk and

fishing trunk together with like maybe

100 maybe 80 I don't remember you know

we were crammed together and after a few

hours they allow us you know when they

see no builder allow us to have some

fresh air and then went back to the

bottom and everybody vomiting because

you know you and by the afternoon we

arrived in Kowloon and at that time when

you arrived in Hong Kong you touch base

you're legalized you know you're

considered legal I was taken to my

mother's sister and she paid three

hundred seventy dollars for the

smugglers plaintiff I know how poor my

mother's sister was you know she and a

husband was living in a bed among many

beds in a compound so they had that the

food coat next to the bed and all that

you know they're very poor people their

poverty meant that Jimmy was sent to

work the same night he arrived in the

kowloon district of Hong Kong I was

taken to yours factory to work as the

object worker and I was very happy in

the morning you know I smell a lot of

food that I never smell you know the

great aroma of food that and the manager

gave me ten dollars that's bet there was

a lot of money at that time and it was I

was very happy at this I see if I

arrived in heaven although you know as a

as young kid we had to wake up like

before 7:00 we got to whip the floor

finish everything open the door before 8

o'clock people come and then we work

until like 10 o'clock but it was a very

happy time it was a time that I know I

had a future

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I'll oh and you know I know I was

choosing what we eat and sleep in a

factory because in the evening in the

packing Department you just put a few

chairs together and sleep I remember

every night you know it was so tired

that my bag is always aching but every

morning I wake up is okay you okay why

so noticed that those who were getting

ahead spoke English he began working

with an old man

to learn the rudiments of the language

by the time he left the factory at age

14 y could read and converse in English

at 18 he landed a job as a garment

salesman his work eventually took him to

New York City

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it was something very funny you know I

land in New York and I was it was almost

like you know what I what I saw in movie

fake buildings you know because it was

it was a wonderful time you know it was

very constructive

I learned almost everything I learned to

build the foundation of my life from

there yeah well I had a mentor who's her

was a very good salesman that I met an

actress stayed with him and his wife so

one day he told me as a little Jimmy I

taught you everything you had to learn

as a salesman if you owned the boat go

further in their life you got to be

educated you got to have an

international pursuit I'm gonna take you

to one of my friends house for dinner

tonight

it was 1967 it was a Tuesday night I was

invited to a retire Jewish lawyers house

for dinner after dinner because doing

dinner

I was speaking rubbish so when I left he

took a book from the bookshelf and gave

it to me and say that universe

read this it's good for you Doc's name

is called to road to serve

by venture Hyatt

that book changed my life Austrian

economist Friedrich Hayek had ridden the

Road to Serfdom near the close of World

War two he argued that the same

collectivist impulse that drove National

Socialism in Germany and communism in

the Soviet Union also threatened

democracies like Great Britain he warned

that freedom could not long survive the

state's attempt to centrally plan its

economy I had predicted that if a

democracy followed such a path to the

end it would inevitably destroy itself

you read between the lines of his

passion for freedom is like almost like

religious you know this is fantastic

nervousness so uplifting for me for

Hayek the state not just individuals

could violate the rule of law he

maintained that government efforts to

dictate economic equality did not extend

the rule of law but destroyed it Hayek

compared the rule of law to a state

providing road signs but without

commanding people which road to take

only if the state accepts its limited

role can real freedom prosper the books

passion a case for freedom lit a fire in

the young salesman on his return to Hong

Kong Jimmy Lai landed a job as a manager

in a garment factory eventually earned a

large bonus and then used the money to

begin trading in the stock market

I got a bonus of 7,000 Hong Kong it was

not enough to start a business I so I

said okay look let's try my luck and

speculate in the stock market if I'm

lucky I make some money and then I start

my own business and then before I did it

I bought a lot of books about you know

stock market books to know how to

speculate

fly proved himself in his stooge

investor and quickly built a nest egg

with his profits and a wealthy partner

he soon had the capital to think big

I've really like to create things I got

a rich friend of mine who's my partner

whose father can sign up personal

guarantee to get some money from the

bank so that that works out and that's

how I build the factory and then I went

into the retaining business from

manufacturing he moved into retail in

1981 he founded a clothing chain

Giordano which he named after an Italian

restaurant in the United States the

company quickly expanded from Hong Kong

into mainland China within a decade

Giordano had over 200 stores and was

worth hundreds of millions of dollars

lai had made it in one of the most

competitive clothing markets on the

planet his success might have marked the

beginning of a long final phase of his

career the ongoing management of an

established enterprise

but then came the pro-democracy protests

in Tiananmen Square

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when I first noticed what happened in

tanaami I was very moved

I always tried to run away from China

since the time that I've escaped from it

anything China represents is something

that I want to forget I want to be

keeping as long a distance from it as

possible at least emotionally it's

something becoming very disgusting for

me

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actually I didn't do anything about

China until Tiananmen Square happened

all of a sudden is like my mother was

coring in the darkness of the line

and my heart opened up

it's like going back to the warm of your

mother

I was very excited I wanted to get him

off

so get money and give teachers I do a

lot of things I have been s in my shop

you know ask them something to resign

and then Windows 10 M Square Heroes

t-shirt and sold it at a very cheap

price

I was I was doing a lot of things I got

involved and I was very excited and and

that's why I went into the media

business shortly after the Tiananmen

Square massacre Bly launched a monthly

magazine next and quickly established

its independent credentials I asked

myself you know I make enough money if I

just go on making money it doesn't mean

anything to me but if I go into the

media business that I deliver

information which is choice and choice

is freedom you know I was thrilled by

the idea that you know I can be part of

the institution that is delivering

freedom to a society like China of

course that which was a misconception I

for China after the June the 2/4

massacre will be over open up to the

world and to freedom for its people he

hasn't yet but not that you know we

don't we don't have to persist we have

to persist the Hong Kong media avoided

criticizing the Chinese Communist

leadership but I refused to play it safe

even going so far as to criticize

Premier Li Peng for his role in the

Tiananmen Square massacre it was a

fateful decision I wrote a letter open

letter the leap hang and says some harsh

things about him we had shops in China

and we were threatened that you know you

we you know the you if I still own the

company dangled close to empty shops in

China so that one day I was in Paris in

the morning 6:30 I received a call from

the dent see I will say that look Jimmy

you gotta sell your share in the company

the greatest potential is in China and

if we you know outdoors crows there

we finish we're toast just go ahead sell

it

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a year after the Chinese government

forced him out of Kiev Don Oh

jimmy'll I've launched a newspaper Apple

Daily undeterred by the attack on his

interests lie pushed his writers to

practice a blend of consumer and

muckraking journalism

despite some costly setbacks decade

later expanded into Taiwan Apple and

next are now among the leaders of the

crowded Hong Kong and Taiwanese media

markets

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a media magnate a merchant banker a

compost farmer each of fascinating

bundle of strengths and weaknesses of

motives and talents they encounters

other entrepreneurs create wealth every

day fundamentally transforming our world

and yet even economists who prized the

market economy can overlook the role of

the entrepreneur when we think about

contemporary economics we have this

vision of the world as being somehow

mathematically orientated and that's

something that we get from people like

Newton who were looking for these laws

that governed the universe in a very

strict unmoving way economists are

constantly creating economic models that

consists of lots of simultaneously

computed equations that simulate

economic activity they tend to eclipse

the entrepreneur

you can't determine beforehand what the

entrepreneur is going to do what he's

going to create if you open up an

economics textbooks you're not going to

find some supply demand chart with an e

variable for the entrepreneur you can

only see what the entrepreneur does

after the fact part of the problem is

that the defenders of capitalism have

always exalted free markets rather than

free men or free inventors or free

creators capitalism begins with

enterprise it doesn't begin with market

it begins only when people look around

see what needs to be done or could be

done and then have the

stick-to-itiveness and the creativity to

make it work find a way to make it work

over over all obstacles

the entrepreneurs we remember are the

great inventors since we can easily see

how their inventions produce new wealth

but most entrepreneurs create new wealth

in another less tangible way by

orchestrating the creativity of others

[Music]

and orchestra you see all of these

different individual people engaged in

some kind of activity the violinists the

cellist the oboe player the person on

the drums or percussion

all of them left to their own devices

would create cacophony but the

impresario oversees all of this

understands the various aspects may not

be able to play the violin as well as

the first violinist may not be able to

play the percussion but has an overall

vision of where this thing needs to go

and precedes an harmonious action to

hold back the one and bring in the other

and then bring them together to produce

the harmony that we know as beautiful

music

people think of entrepreneurship as

essentially an individualistic

enterprise

you know the impresario the conductor

can't conduct a symphony without the

orchestra and the entrepreneur as

entrepreneur cannot produce the kind of

wealth is needed without the talent but

many people many of whom he will never

meet many of whose languages he cannot

speak

you

entrepreneur is the creative force in

economics the entrepreneur is the person

who comes and looks at a desert or a

jungle or a wilderness and sees a garden

yeah you know seize a opportunity to

create new value unlearn risk without

knowing the isn't risk-taking list is

actuary fashion into hope you're just

dashing into the future and hoping that

is going to be better when I look at the

business successes that we have had it I

look and I see failure after failure

because you can't predict the future

perfectly and then when the checkbook

doesn't balance and there isn't enough

money to go around and I mean you're

constantly fighting the financial

battles that we was fighting it puts a

lot of stress on the family on the other

hand I look back today and I wouldn't

rewrite that book for no love nor money

the successful entrepreneur is the one

who stays hopeful and stays flexible and

stays adaptable are we successful

yeah but I don't sure it all revolves

around money I successfully measured

when I'm Lana long on

I have visions of a grandchild or a two

or three actually being involved in

something that I built if you have a

vision go for it if any one of these

kids come up with an idea or a project

I'll support him 100% but if you can do

it do it and do it well you could really

think of the first farmers is the first

entrepreneurs

it was farmers after all and farms that

made the first cities possible and it

was those cities that made the great

civilizations possible and it was those

civilizations that made things like

worldwide Commerce and science and

technology and music and philosophy

possible

without the entrepreneur economies are

barren they're dead

prominent moral and religious leaders

point to capitalists who have cheated

employees deceived consumers and

poisoned the environment and conclude

that business is inherently selfish

others argue that while no entrepreneur

is immune to corruption the

entrepreneurial impulse Springs from

something good even divine within us

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I'm not saying by this that a person who

is a successful entrepreneur is

necessarily doing the will of God or is

intentionally doing the little God but

I'm saying that there's something there

embedded in the very action that speaks

to us of the creation I think that most

entrepreneurs are motivated by the sheer

excitement of creating something that's

needed the sense of they out in some

respects participating in God's original

creative act when we think about God the

very first thing we know about God was

that he created something

it's money involved sure money's

involved that's part of our business

world and part of the physical world we

inhabit but that's not what in the end

motivates and calls to doctrine or

what calls to be entrepreneur is this

creative energy this inspirational

impulse this desire to make something

where nothing at this

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when God fashions man from the dust of

the earth and breathed into him the

breath of life and speaks those first

words of vocation to the human family he

in effect is inviting the human family

to be co-creators with him not Coe in

the sense of equal but qohen the sense

of cooperating working with him in the

continuation of the creation of the

world what an awesome location matters