Harvard Enterprise College’s Howard Stevenson Outlined Entrepreneurship in 10 Good Phrases. His Work Modified My Life

‘Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to re

EXPERT OPINION BY BILL MURPHY JR., FOUNDER OF UNDERSTANDABLY AND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, INC. @BILLMURPHYJR

Boston, Massachusetts, USA – June 25, 2026: The Bloomberg Center building, completed in 2005, at Harvard Business School on the campus of Harvard University in Boston. Named to honor William H. Bloomberg, the late father of NYC former mayor Michael Bloomberg. Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a full-time MBA program, management-related doctoral programs, and executive education programs.

This is a story about Howard Stevenson, a giant in the study of entrepreneurship who passed away over the weekend at age 85. Years ago, I met and interviewed.

But it was his work, more than our meeting, that opened a door I had never imagined would open.

Long ago, I wrote a book about West

Long ago, I wrote a book about West Point and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Toward the end, my running joke was that I had learned a lot of fascinating but impractical things about the military that never made it into the book.

For example, I was pretty sure that if I ever had to, I could figure out how to drive a tank or fire a cannon, just from all the stories I’d heard. But that probably wasn’t ever going to come up.

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For my next book, I said half-jokingly, maybe I could pick up some incidental knowledge about making a lot of money and pursuing passions.

An editor suggested—and maybe she was joking

An editor suggested—and maybe she was joking at first—that I use the framework I’d used to write about West Point, only this time write about Harvard Business School.

Mind blown. Also, eventually: book contract signed, and the next year or two of my professional life dedicated to it.

Source: www.inc.com