UNIVERSITATEA ”LUCIAN BLAGA”SIBIU

FACULTATEA DE ȘTIINȚE ECONOMICE

ANUL I ,ECTS,GRUPA 2

REFERAT LA DISCIPLINA LIMBA ENGLEZA

PROFESOR,VINTEAN ADRIANA

STUDENT,PATRASCU(CHIRTES)VASILICA FELICIA

SEMESTRUL II,2021

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What is special and unique about
entrepreneurs?

Have you ever imagined yourself as a famous entrepreneur?Perhaps said

to yourself…“I want to be like Bill Gates,”or“I want to be like Oprah The key
traits of successful entrepreneurs are their focus and determination.It’s rarely
“about the money”.However, successful entrepreneurs contribute to the
economy by solving the world’s biggest problems.They made money while
making a difference.That is why they take the risks they do.
Who is your top entrepreneurial influence?

Mine is Andrew Carnegie

Scottish-born Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was an American industrialist

who amassed a fortune in the steel industry then became a major
philanthropist. Carnegie worked in a Pittsburgh cotton factory as a boy before
rising to the position of division superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad in
1859. While working for the railroad, he invested in various ventures, including
iron and oil companies, and made his first fortune by the time he was in his
early 30s. In the early 1870s, he entered the steel business, and over the next
two decades became a dominant force in the industry. In 1901, he sold the
Carnegie Steel Company to banker John Pierpont Morgan for $480 million.
Carnegie then devoted himself to philanthropy, eventually giving away more
than $350 million.

Andrew Carnegie: Early Life and Career

Andrew Carnegie, whose life became a rags-to-riches story, was born into
modest circumstances on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland, the
second of two sons of Will, a handloom weaver, and Margaret, who did sewing

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work for local shoemakers. In 1848, the Carnegie family (who pronounced
their name “carNEgie”) moved to America in search of better economic
opportunities and settled in Allegheny City (now part of Pittsburgh),
Pennsylvania. Andrew Carnegie, whose formal education ended when he left
Scotland, where he had no more than a few years’ schooling, soon found
employment as a bobbin boy at a cotton factory, earning $1.20 a week.
Ambitious and hard-working, he went on to hold a series of jobs, including
messenger in a telegraph office and secretary and telegraph operator for the
superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In
1859, Carnegie succeeded his boss as railroad division superintendent. While
in this position, he made profitable investments in a variety of businesses,
including coal, iron and oil companies and a manufacturer of railroad sleeping
cars.
After leaving his post with the railroad in 1865, Carnegie continued his ascent
in the business world. With the U.S. railroad industry then entering a period of
rapid growth, he expanded his railroad-related investments and founded such
ventures as an iron bridge building company (Keystone Bridge Company) and
a telegraph firm, often using his connections to win insider contracts. By the
time he was in his early 30s, Carnegie had become a very wealthy man.
Andrew Carnegie: Steel Magnate
In the early 1870s, Carnegie co-founded his first steel company, near
Pittsburgh. Over the next few decades, he created a steel empire, maximizing
profits and minimizing inefficiencies through ownership of factories, raw
materials and transportation infrastructure involved in steel making. In 1892,
his primary holdings were consolidated to form Carnegie Steel Company.
The steel magnate considered himself a champion of the working man;
however, his reputation was marred by the violent Homestead Strike in 1892
at his Homestead, Pennsylvania, steel mill. After union workers protested
wage cuts, Carnegie Steel general manager Henry Clay Frick (1848-1919),
who was determined to break the union, locked the workers out of the plant.
Andrew Carnegie was on vacation in Scotland during the strike, but put his
support in Frick, who called in some 300 Pinkerton armed guards to protect
the plant. A bloody battle broke out between the striking workers and the
Pinkertons, leaving at least 10 men dead. The state militia then was brought in
to take control of the town, union leaders were arrested and Frick hired
replacement workers for the plant. After five months, the strike ended with the
union’s defeat. Additionally, the labor movement at Pittsburgh-area steel mills
was crippled for the next four decades.
In 1901, banker John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) purchased Carnegie Steel
for some $480 million, making Andrew Carnegie one of the world’s richest

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men. That same year, Morgan merged Carnegie Steel with a group of other
steel businesses to form U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation.
Andrew Carnegie: Philanthropist
After Carnegie sold his steel company, the diminutive titan, who stood 5’3”,
retired from business and devoted himself full-time to philanthropy. In 1889, he
had penned an essay, “The Gospel of Wealth,” in which he stated that the rich
have “a moral obligation to distribute [their money] in ways that promote the
welfare and happiness of the common man.” Carnegie also said, “The man
who dies thus rich dies disgraced.”
Carnegie eventually gave away some $350 million (the equivalent of billions in
today’s dollars), which represented the bulk of his wealth. Among his
philanthropic activities, he funded the establishment of more than 2,500 public
libraries around the globe, donated more than 7,600 organs to churches
worldwide and endowed organizations (many still in existence today)
dedicated to research in science, education, world peace and other causes.
Among his gifts was the $1.1 million required for the land and construction
costs of Carnegie Hall, the legendary New York City concert venue that
opened in 1891. The Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Mellon
University and the Carnegie Foundation were all founded thanks to his
financial gifts. A lover of books, he was the largest individual investor in public
libraries in American history.
Andrew Carnegie: Family and Final Years
Carnegie’s mother, who was a major influence in his life, lived with him until
her death in 1886. The following year, the 51-year-old industrial baron married
Louise Whitfield (1857-1946), who was two decades his junior and the
daughter of a New York City merchant. The couple had one child, Margaret
(1897-1990). The Carnegies lived in a Manhattan mansion and spent
summers in Scotland, where they owned Skibo Castle, set on some 28,000
acres.
Carnegie died at age 83 on August 11, 1919, at Shadowbrook, his estate in
Lenox, Massachusetts. He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in North
Tarrytown, New York.

Some say that entrepreneurs are born, not made. Whether you believe this or
not, there are some personality traits that many successful entrepreneurs
share.
For exemple Mark Zuckerberg

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 Born May 14, 1984
Birth Place: White Plains, New York, USA
Industry: Social Media Mogul
Influence: Revolutionized Online Social Media and Networking
Net Worth: About $68 billion (August 2019)
Website: www.Facebook.com
Why this famous entrepreneur made the list…
Mark Zuckerberg, is known for co-founding Facebook, Inc. and serves as its
chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder.
Not only is he one of the richest men on the planet, but he’s also had his
business story portrayed by the Hollywood giants in a movie entitled the
Social Network.
Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his dormitory room, on 4 February 2004,
whilst attending Harvard University.
It has been rumored that the inspiration for Facebook came from his former
high school the Phillips Exeter Academy which had its own student directory
known as “The Photo Address Book” which the students nicknamed the
Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg was joined by fellow Harvard university students Dustin
Moskovitz and Chris Hughes as he wanted to evolve the Facebook website.
”I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first,
then you can actually make a lot of progress.„
– Mark Zuckerberg
To begin with, Facebook wasn’t available to everybody and because of this,
competitors such as; MySpace and Bebo seemed to be the clear winners in
terms of social networking.
However, that soon changed when Zuckerberg and the co-founders of
Facebook dropped out of Harvard University in a bid to make Facebook
succeed.
By 2004 Facebook had received over 1 million users for the website.
In 2005, the capital venture firm Accel Partners invested $12.7 million into the
business to help them evolve further.

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Soon Facebook was being approached by massive brands and companies
who wanted to buy out Zuckerberg. However, we know that Zuckerberg didn’t
sell Facebook, and he still is CEO of it although some of his venture partners
have moved on.
According to Forbes magazine, Zuckerberg is worth approximately $68 billion
(August 2019).

Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs

What characteristics do successful entrepreneurs share?

Do you have what it takes to become an entrepreneur? Having a great
concept is not enough. An entrepreneur must be able to develop and manage
the company that implements his or her idea. Being an entrepreneur requires
special drive, perseverance, passion, and a spirit of adventure, in addition to
managerial and technical ability. Entrepreneurs are the company; they tend to
work longer hours, take fewer vacations, and cannot leave problems at the
office at the end of the day. They also share other common characteristics as
described in the next section.
The Entrepreneurial Personality
Studies of the entrepreneurial personality find that entrepreneurs share certain
key traits. Most entrepreneurs are
● Ambitious: They are competitive and have a high need for achievement.
● Independent: They are individualists and self-starters who prefer to lead
rather than follow.
● Self-confident: They understand the challenges of starting and
operating a business and are decisive and confident in their ability to
solve problems.
● Risk-takers: Although they are not averse to risk, most successful
entrepreneurs favor business opportunities that carry a moderate
degree of risk where they can better control the outcome over highly
risky ventures where luck plays a large role.
● Visionary: Their ability to spot trends and act on them sets
entrepreneurs apart from small-business owners and managers.
● Creative: To compete with larger firms, entrepreneurs need to have
creative product designs, bold marketing strategies, and innovative
solutions to managerial problems.
● Energetic: Starting and operating a business takes long hours. Even so,
some entrepreneurs start their companies while still employed full-time
elsewhere.

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 ● Passionate. Entrepreneurs love their work, as Miho Inagi demonstrated
by opening a bagel shop in Tokyo despite the odds against it being a
success.
● Committed. Because they are so committed to their companies,
entrepreneurs are willing to make personal sacrifices to achieve their
goals.
Ethical Choices Transform Family Business into International Brand
Ever since Apollonia Poilâne was a young girl growing up in Paris, she
always knew what she wanted to do when she grew up: take over the family
business. But she didn’t anticipate how quickly this would happen. When her
father—Lionel Poilâne—and her mother died in a helicopter crash in 2002,
France lost its most celebrated baker, and Apollonia stepped into the role. She
was just 18 years old at the time with plans to matriculate to Harvard in the
fall, but the moment her parents had prepared her for had come. As her
Harvard admissions essay said, “The work of several generations is at stake.”
With organization and determination, Apollonia managed one of the best
French bakeries in the world—based in Paris—from her apartment in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. She would usually wake up an extra two hours
before classes to make sure she would get all the phone calls done for work.
“After classes I check on any business regarding the company and then do my
homework,” she says. “Before I go to bed I call my production manager in
Paris to check the quality of the bread.” Because the name Poilâne has
earned a place with a very small group of prestige bakers, the 18-year-old was
determined to continue the tradition of customer satisfaction and quality her
grandfather established in 1932. When her grandfather suffered a stroke in
1973, his 28-year-old son, Lionel, poured his heart into the business and
made the family bread into the global brand it is today. Lionel opened two
more bakeries in Paris and another in London. He developed and nurtured a
worldwide network of retailers and celebrities where bread is shipped daily via
FedEx to upscale restaurants and wealthy clients around the world.
Experimenting with sourdough is what distinguished Poilâne’s products from
bread produced by Paris’s other bakers, and it has remained the company’s
signature product. It is baked with a “P” carved into the crust, a throwback to
the days when the use of communal ovens forced bakers to identify their
loaves, and it also ensures that the loaf doesn’t burst while it’s baking. Today,
Poilâne also sells croissants, pastries, and a few specialty breads, but the
company’s signature item is still the four-pound miche, a wheel of sourdough,
a country bread, pain Poilâne.
“Apollonia is definitely passionate about her job,” says Juliette Sarrazin,
manager of the successful Poilâne Bakery in London. “She really believes in

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the work of her father and the company, and she is looking at the future, which
is very good.”
Apollonia’s work ethic and passion fueled her drive even when she was a
student. Each day presented a juggling act of new problems to solve in Paris
while other Harvard students slept. As Apollonia told a student reporter from
The Harvard Crimson writing a story about her, “The one or two hours you
spend procrastinating I spend working. It’s nothing demanding at all. It was
always my dream to run the company.”
Her dedication paid off, and Apollonia retained control of important decisions,
strategy, and business goals, describing herself as the “commander of the
ship,” determining the company’s overall direction. Today, Poilâne is an $18
million business that employs 160 people. Poilâne runs three restaurants
called Cuisine de Bar in Paris and in London, serving casual meals such as
soups, salads, and open-faced tartines. The company ships more than
200,000 loaves a year to clients in 20 countries, including the United States,
Japan, and Saudi Arabia. “More people understand what makes the quality of
the bread, what my father spent years studying, so I am thrilled about that,”
says Apollonia.

Most entrepreneurs combine many of the above characteristics.

Sarah Levy, 23, loved her job as a restaurant pastry chef but not the low pay,
high stress, and long hours of a commercial kitchen. So she found a new
one—in her parents’ home—and launched Sarah’s Pastries and Candies.
Part-time staffers help her fill pastry and candy orders to the soothing sounds
of music videos playing in the background.
Celebrity Ashton Kutcher is more than just a pretty face. The actor-mogul is
an active investor in technology-based start-ups such as Airbnb, Skype, and
Foursquare with an empire estimated at $200 million dollars once.”A person
with all the characteristics of an entrepreneur might still lack the necessary
business skills to run a successful company.
Entrepreneurs need the technical knowledge to carry out their ideas and the
managerial ability to organize a company, develop operating strategies, obtain
financing, and supervise day-to-day activities. Jim Crane, who built Eagle
Global Logistics from a start-up into a $250 million company, addressed a
group at a meeting saying, “I have never run a $250 million company before
so you guys are going to have to start running this business.”
Good interpersonal and communication skills are important in dealing with
employees, customers, and other business associates such as bankers,
accountants, and attorneys.When Jim Steiner started his toner cartridge
remanufacturing business, Quality Imaging Products, his initial investment

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was $400. He spent $200 on a consultant to teach him the business and $200
on materials to rebuild his first printer cartridges. He made sales calls from
8.00 a.m. to noon and made deliveries to customers from noon until 5:00 p.m.
After a quick dinner, he moved to the garage, where he filled copier cartridges
until midnight, when he collapsed into bed, sometimes covered with carbon
soot. And this was not something he did for a couple of months until he got the
business off the ground—this was his life for 18 months.

Successful entrepreneurs think differently!

They approach problems, fear and failure differently to the ‘normal’ person.
Successful entrepreneurs know that the impossible is an opinion, not a fact!
Above all, the successful entrepreneur has an optimism and a zest for life that
transforms everything they do.
Failure is only failure if you believe it is
Jeff Bezos for example – founder and CEO of Amazon.com. Amazon was not
always the huge success it is today and a long the way Amazon made some
‘wrong turns’ and ‘learning experiences’ as I call them. Examples include
Amazon Auctions, Amazon zShops and more recently the Fire Phone.
But Jeff Bezos did not let those ‘failures’ define him. In referring to failed
projects Bezos told the Business Insider Ignition conference in December
2014 that “I’ve made billions of dollars of failures at Amazon.com. Literally
billions.”
Entrepreneurs aren’t just businessman or businesswoman who live on private
islands and use private jets to get around. The person who started your
favourite local café, the teenager who walks dogs for their neighbours or the
creator of your favourite YouTube channel can all be called Entrepreneur as
well.
THE ENTREPRENEUR’S MINDSET
Entrepreneurs see the world through a lens of business models. They observe
people or ‘consumers’ and see where the money is flowing. They listen
carefully to people’s complaints, understanding that in someone else’s
problem lies the opportunity for a solution that the same person might pay for.
If you want to create your own job, then you’re going to need to develop this
mindset as well.
This mindset doesn’t just require being aware of opportunities though, there’s
a bit more to it than that. An entrepreneur’s mindset must be able to navigate
the ups and downs of the business lifecycle.Entrepreneurs are not easily
defeated. In fact, they view failure as an opportunity for future success. If they
don’t succeed the first time, they’ll continue to try until they do. Most
entrepreneurs don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

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 Passion may be the most important trait of the successful entrepreneur. They
genuinely love what they do and are willing to put in the extra hours to make
their business grow. They get a sense of satisfaction from their work that goes
beyond making money.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://www.incomediary.com/
https://opentextbc.ca/
https://www.history.com/
https://www.investopedia.com/tps://www.hiscox.com/

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