The core of the authors' proposition is that entrepreneurs are a different breed, possessing distinctive personalities, attitudes, values and habits. They have an “enterprise gene”, if you like. Using recent evidence from behavioural genetics, they say the main traits of entrepreneurs – self-confidence, extraversion, high levels of energy and a willingness to embrace risk – are all highly influenced by heredity.
This debate about what makes us who we are has carried on since Darwin put forward his theory of evolution in 1859. No doubt our DNA has an influence on the course of our lives, but the idea that all our our actions and thoughts are predetermined is nonsense.
Someone who believes the opposite of Born, Not Made is Geoff Colvin, author of Talent is Overrated. His volume essentially says that hard work pays. And you know what? I agree with him. Almost every high achiever I have dealt with has got there through graft rather than some miracle endowment of brains. A few appear to have greatness in the blood. But more often than not I think they learn at their parents' feet, as opposed to doing well thanks to innate advantages. I see entrepreneurs inspired by Mum's and Dad's efforts at self-employment.
Mr Colvin gets support in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. He suggests that you need to put 10,000 hours of work into your chosen arena to outperform. He also makes the point that circumstances and timing are crucial in deciding how glorious your career is. He notes that of a Fortune list of the 75 richest people of all time, 14 are Americans born within nine years of each other in the mid 19th century. By the time they were in their 30s and 40s, the US was undergoing a massive industrial transformation – railroads, steel, manufacturing – and the opportunities were remarkable for those in that place at that time.
So what about 2009? To those who have lost or will lose their jobs in a large organisation, I say: “Seize the day.” When I left Kleinwort Benson in 1987, I felt an invigorating sense of independence and an unleashing of energy. A big employer may offer security and benefits, but what about creative satisfaction and the chance to change the world? Working for yourself is not an easy road, but few who make that choice would revert to the grey, restrictive life of a hired hand. In Thomas Huxley's words: “It is better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.”
And so I believe fervently that we can all achieve something bold and enterprising with application and luck. I absolutely reject the idea of Born, Not Made. Even in these terrible economic conditions, if someone puts enough effort in, they may just make it. After all, if inborn talent were all that determined who climbed to the top of the heap, why would ambitious sorts who lacked conspicuous natural skills even bother? Society needs to believe that we can all better ourselves. That is the story of human progress.
The current unprecedented creative destruction going on within the capitalist system will create a new order. I hope that painful reallocation of assets will not just favour giant, established corporations, but will also see many such monoliths broken up, and innovative offshoots starting amid the rubble.
The west desperately needs to reinvent its industrial strategy, and that will come only from fresh-faced managers taking entrepreneurial decisions and overturning old assumptions. Government will not solve our problems: we require armies of freelances to come up with new ideas, new industries and a bright new future.
The writer is chairman of Channel 4 and runs Risk Capital Partners, a private equity firm