Would the World Be Better with 100% Employees or 100% Entrepreneurs?

I think this is a fun question to take on so I will try my best to answer it and provide my opinion.

A Quick Run-Down of Entrepreneurs and Employees

The Pros of Entrepreneurs

• Leaders
• Driven
• Visionary

The Pros of Employees

• Take Instructions
• Task Oriented
• Niche Skills

Let's start this discussion with 2 simple questions:

Can most entrepreneurs be employees?

Yes

Can most employees be entrepreneurs?

No

I know this answer won't suffice 100% of the time, however, I do think it is obvious that the entrepreneur is much more capable of being both as opposed to just one. You could say entrepreneurs are a more refined structure, a more evolved being if you will. Entrepreneurs usually start out as employees and lack the skills of running businesses, bringing people together and leading in a good direction. A key difference between an entrepreneur and an employee is that one decides to go a step further and change that.

Employees are usually happy with the current position and content with their daily routine, at least for the time being. After time they may get to the point where they are no longer happy with the current situation and want either more money, time, freedom, ways to pursue their passion or whatever else they might want. The thing to note here is that entrepreneurs are HAS-BEEN employees that WANT something better.

In order to become an entrepreneur it usually takes hard work, time, patience, continual education and a number of other things that are generally not easy. Because of this, I see entrepreneurs as people that have taken on challenges that most employees have not yet faced, or will never face. They have grown, while employees have not. For this reason I would say it is better to be an entrepreneur than an employee. Again, I am not saying all entrepreneurs are better than all employees. I am saying in general a random entrepreneur will possess useful and important skills that an employee simply will not.

This becomes even more clear when you understand that most people go from employee to entrepreneur. Just as a baby grows to an adult, an employee grows to an entrepreneur. It is something that is worked towards and earned. Most people do not start as an entrepreneur, and if they do they were raised in a family that molded them in that direction. It is still something that they were not born with (at least completely, sure there may be DNA and all that stuff blah blah blah...)

So which is better for the world?

Well first of all I need to define better. Better could mean a number of things. I will use it in the sense of advancing society and humanity as a whole. Better would mean giving people more exciting, happy, rewarding and enjoyable lives that are productive, responsible and fulfilling.

Obviously in our society you need both employees and entrepreneurs. I think it is apparent that we live in a very dynamic society that feeds off people of all levels. But, if I had to choose which would make the world better I would say 100% entrepreneurs, and heres why.

Think about the tasks an employee can do that an entrepreneur can't. For the most part, an entrepreneurial person can do pretty much anything employees can, on a task basis. Sure the employee may know how to do some analytical computer animation that took years of practice. The entrepreneur could learn that with the same time and practice. Any task can be replicated by an entrepreneur with practice and time, the same thing the employee used to learn it.

The one thing that comes to my mind that I would see as being a problem is that everybody would somewhat be trying to work everyone else and profit or gain from them. Everyone would probably have a bit more of an attitude and be less apt to work with others. They would not like taking orders and would not be happy working for someone else. This would probably result in some chaos and the world would probably be a somewhat volatile place. However, with all this hostility, entrepreneurs are generally better with people than employees because this is a necessary skill to being an entrepreneur. Because of this I think this problem would somewhat balance itself out as people would be able to talk like winners and work together like winners, despite the drive.

I think people and society as a whole would progress like mad. People would be innovating and pushing for new things. I think people would also work less on an hourly wage/salary and work more on a partnership/results basis. This would be a HUGE improvement in my mind. Efficiency would be promoted and enforced by people looking to cut the fat from daily routine and just get it done. Gone would be the days of working 9-5 while only accomplishing 2 real hours of work. People would work more with each other and spend more time DOING and less time WASTING.

Okay, well what about all the lower end work like fast food, low-end physical labor jobs, monotonous work and all that? Well yeah, this work totally sucks and right now these jobs are handled by High Schoolers, Hispanics and other less educated people more willing to "handle" it (Yes, I just said that and I'm not afraid to state the truth. A typical visit to your local Wal-Mart or McDonalds will result in the same observation of Mexicans and others - it is what it is). So anyhow, who would handle these jobs? Well it would have to be an entrepreneur. But there are 2 things that should be noted.

First, an entrepreneur would most likely do these jobs much more efficiently and quicker. Not necessarily because they are smart per say, but because they want to get it done. They don't want to dilly dally and waste the day away. They want to get it done and move on to the next task.

And second, I think a lot of these lower end jobs would be removed or replaced by more efficient methods via automation. Why have a person do the task if you could have a machine do it, or if it's not needed anyway? I think a lot of the lower end tasks could just be eliminated all together. For instance: Do we really need people to help check you out at the store? Um, no. You can either check yourself out, or create some type of way to check people out automatically when they add an item to their cart or exit the store - something that will remove this mundane job. Done. 1 down, 1,000,000 other useless jobs to go.

The Flip Side - 100% Employees

Imagine a world of pure employees, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I think right off the bat it would be more laid back and content. I mean this is good, but it definitely would have some negatives that come with it.

Some of the negatives would be less competition and less innovation. There would be less struggle and growth. There wouldn't be anyone looking to change the current situation or do anything with their life. People would be less decisive and more apt to just drift from place to place. It would almost be a place of less thought. It would almost be like why even live at all? I think this would be a pretty worthless thing and I don't think it would make the world a better place, I just can't see it. I see too many problems happening and things clashing that will create a worse and worse situation.

Conclusion

This is an interesting little study I did and I think at the end of the day it doesn't necessarily come down to whether a person is entrepreneur or employee. I think it comes down to their personality, people skills and a number of other things. There are rude entrepreneurs and there are rude employees. There are smart entrepreneurs and there are smart employees. It becomes extremely difficult to take a group of people and form an opinion off it. There are so many factors and variables that go into being an entrepreneur and the same amount going into being an employee. There is tons of overlap and odd cases that just make it impossible to really make a discreet answer.

Despite all this, because entrepreneurs are more to employees as a parent is to a child I would say that their decision making, understanding and accomplishments are more worthwhile and important to the world.

Anyhow, that's my opinion, what do you think?