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Betsy Flanagan: When you look at entrepreneurs, do you think that there’re certain personality traits that all entrepreneurs need in order to succeed or are there certain either life experience or personality traits that you look for? Or have seen a pattern for?

David Hornik: Well, they’re all insane.

Flanagan: OK, and besides that?

Hornik: Who would do this? I think, you know, it’s actually a particular kind of insanity. It’s called hypomania, and I’m completely serious now, I know it doesn’t sound serious.

Flanagan: It’s in the DSM-IV?

Hornik: It is in the DSM-IV. There’s a psychiatry professor at John Hopkins who has written about this, the idea that successful business people are hypomanic. Basically it means that, imagine if you’re bipolar and you’re manic half the time, and you’re depressed half the time or whatever. This is just the manic part. It’s like you are a completely crazy man, I call these people great entrepreneurs. You know, it’s like, “Hey, would you sit still?” “No, I can’t. Really. I’d love to but I can’t.” Entrepreneurs are very good listeners, they’re very charismatic, smart people. They don’t have to be incredibly outgoing, they don’t have to be, you know, I think they have to be somewhat articulate about their vision. But what they’re good at is that they’re convincing people that their vision is a smart one and interesting, one at which you’re willing to engage and something that they can get investors and other people to bet on. That’s incredibly important probably above all else. And they may do that in a really quiet, sort of gentle way, they may do that in an incredibly in-your-face kind of way! But if they can’t do that, then they’re just going to have a lot of trouble in every aspect of their business. But if they can do that, they can really sort of power through things that would have been problematic otherwise.

Flanagan: And you think that good entrepreneurs are born or bred?

Hornik: Maybe they can be both. I mean, you know, there are some people who just get what they want to do. Like, “I read about these people building this company and I got to do that. I just need to build my own company and I want to be my own boss.” You know, all those things. I think that’s great. I know plenty of people like that. Some people are just really good, smart people who get involved in businesses and they eventually see a problem that they want to solve and they have learned from others watching how they were good entrepreneurs, and they’re really good listeners. And so they say, “You know, I can do this and here’s an opportunity.” But once they step into those things, you know, it’s just full force, full steam ahead, and those are sorts of people who succeed. So, there are sorts of characteristics you have to have before you dive in regardless.