My father, getting started in the 1920's, never thought of himself as an entrepreneur and did not use that word. For him, opportunity and prosperity meant self-employment. He was proud of a journalist son who worked for a big wire service and then a big newspaper. But he wondered all his life why that son did not itch to start his own newspaper or buy one. For him, the entrepreneurial spirit, a term coming into vogue in his final years, resided exclusively in energetic small-business owners.
Small business has a role, of course.
But innovation and invention are its essence. More often, probably. Companies have had to routinize invention and innovation. And the big companies have the money to do this. Not all of Merck's 5,000 scientists are so entrepreneurial, but those who are, and succeed in bringing valuable research to Merck, get handsome payoffs in stock options.