CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 96
Muhammad Yunus, the founder of microfinance and Nobel Peace Prize winner, once asked a question during a talk: "Have you seen an unemployed animal?" His point was everybody deserves a livelihood and it is simply human nature to find employment by being entrepreneurial.
Yet, employment in animals comes in different shades and sizes. Herbivores that depend on grazing low-calorie cellulose-heavy plants such as grass (antelopes) or bamboo (pandas) spend most of their day eating or ruminating. While predators spend only a small percentage of their time eating, as they eat high-calorie meat; yet they dedicate the majority of their time recovering from unsuccessful hunting sallies.
The animal spectrum resembles the hunter-gatherer societies of early humans: the gatherers were the herbivores, looking for lower-calorie plants; while the hunters were the predators attempting the occasional high-calorie kill.
Similarly, the risk profile of entrepreneurs determines to a degree the characteristics of their startups: more risk-averse entrepreneurs focus on businesses that can generate stable (even if small) cash flows, while the less risk-averse ones may work on an idea for years without pay (sometimes even a decade) in order to build up a business and sell it.
So, unemployed animals don't exist, but variably-employed animals do!
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| San tribesman from Namibia (Source: Wikipedia) |
