To set the background for this article and get you in the mood, I’veselected “You have to admit it’s getting better” by the Beatles, 1967, from“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band.” It’ll certainly get your bloodflowing… a feeling every innovator young or old knows well and just cannot getenough of. Go to any search engine, find the tune, then crank up the sound andprepare to do your bit to ensure the future will keep getting better all thetime….

Just the other day, September 16, 2011,  something new, creative,innovative and long overdue was inaugurated the shortest walk from the KendallSquare MBTA stop in Cambridge. It’s the brand spanking new Entrepreneur Walk ofFame… and I say, “Hurrah!” and special thanks to the city of Cambridge,Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a  handful of foundationsand groups. The walk celebrates the essential importance of entrepreneurs,people who improve the nation and the world through invention and innovation,not least by being engines for the creation of new jobs; a task our nation’scapital and its bewildered office holders just cannot seem to do better.

For openers, the founders of the walk have honored 7 grand entrepreneurs,some of whom we know well, others we may not know at all, for all that we haveenjoyed in one way or another the fruit of their experience and experiments.They include…

* Inventor Thomas A. Edison.

* Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.

* Apple Inc. cofounder Steve Jobs.

* Lotus Development Corp. founder Mitch Kapor.

* Genentech cofounder Bill Swanson.

* Hewlett Packard Co. founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard.

How they were chosen.

Once the idea of the walk had been approved and financing was arranged,prospective honorees were canvassed… and, ultimately, inclusion criteriadetermined. These stated that those honored must be respected US entrepreneurswho developed an innovative, technology-based idea into a billion-dollarcompany, and who are known — and respected — as risk takers, thereby embodyingthe essence of the entrepreneur. They don’t need local ties, but must have hada big impact — creating jobs, or an entire industry. In short, these are thebiggest of the big fry.

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Why each entrepreneur was chosen.

The selection committee for the first seven honored released its reasons foreach entrepreneur selected.

* Bill Gates… for creating the software industry.

* Steve Jobs… who embodies “bouncing back from adversity.”

* Bob Swanson… “showed that anything was possible. Created the biotechindustry when he was in his 20s.”

* Bill Hewlett and David Packard. They “demonstrated the power of theteam.”

* Mitch Kapor (always a local favorite). “Changed the entrepreneurialculture.”

* Thomas Edison, grandaddy of entrepreneurs, “created both inventions and acompany.”

Inspirational quotes.

Each star in the walk is amplified by an inspirational quote. Here are a fewof them…

Mitch Kapor’s “Building a workplace which engages a diversity of employeesand brings out their best makes a far greater contribution than financialsuccess alone.”

Bill Hewlett’s “Men and women want to do a good job, and if they areprovided the proper environment, they will do so.”

Bill Gates’ offered this: “Never before in human history has innovationoffered the promise of so much to so many in so short a  time.” (I mustsay, Gates’ line is the best written, owing everything to Winston Churchill’simmortal remarks on the RAF pilots in the Battle of Britain. But then Gates hada Harvard education, though he did drop out long before he would havegraduated.)

Interactive, innovative.

Innovatively, the walk also offers pedestrians such interactive stories ashow Steve Jobs famously started Apple in his garage and how Gates left Harvardto become the richest man in the history of mankind, a tale from which restlessundergrads have drawn all the wrong implications, to the chagrin of theirworried parents who urge patience and the security of the degree Gates tossedaway without a second thought. His parents worried, too….

Thoughts on entrepreneurs.

Let’s begin with the dictionary definition of the word, always a good placeto start:  “One who organizes, manages, and assumes the risk of a businessor enterprise.” Entrepreneurs are bold, action-oriented, visionary, energetic,energizing. They can see the future and they want to do, will do, whatever ittakes to deliver it. They are thrilled by challenges, not oppressed by them…and as a result they shape the lives of the rest of us… and reap unimaginablerewards…  kudos, deference, money and — no matter how nerdy — the cute boyor girl of their dreams. It is no wonder, then, that the great age of theentrepreneur is here, now! It is a marvelous thing to be the cynosure of everyeye with the deepest of pockets.

That’s why — right this minute — young men and (increasingly) young womenthrow off the comfortable and predictable to risk everything, knowing thatfailure is always a possibility, but proceeding anyway…

These folks, crucial to the economy, to the job market, and to the good ofall, deserve just as much help as they can get. The Entrepreneur Wall of Fameand its many activities are an excellent start. Bill Aulet, managing directorof the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, and his team should take a bow….

But it is not enough…

1) Every presidential candidate needs to visit the Walk of Fame and the MITEntrepreneurship Center and see what it takes to make a better future.

2) The president of these United States should especially be invited. Heknows nothing about the needs of entrepreneurs… and as a Harvard Law studentnever went near Kendall Sq. and MIT, and we are all suffering accordingly.

3) We need to establish and enthusiastically develop and promote acabinet-level Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship where we doeverything possible for the crucial people reshaping the world to generaladvantage.

And one more thing, we ought to chastise roundly the candidates who lambastCambridge, Harvard, MIT and, in general, the brainiacs here about. Such attacksare despicable, usually are made by those on the right in an attempt tofrighten the uneducated, and get us no where. America needs entrepreneurs andtheir daring; let’s celebrate, not trash, them, for they are coming up with theideas we need, not you. 

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