"The entrepreneur as a creator of the new and a destroyer of the old, is constantly in conflict with convention. He inhabits a world where beliefs preceded result, and where the best possibilities are usually invisible to others. His world is dominated by denial, rejection, difficulty, and doubt. Although as an innovator, he is increasingly imitated when he is successful, he always remains an outsider to the “Establishment”. He is usually found to be disturbing and irritating, even unemployable for the most part. Yet ideas and dreams of his become the new reality in an ever-changing world surrounding us. If he ever knew the friction and hurdles, he would endure, he might never have ventured. But then venturing is grappling with the unknown well."
(J Anthony Forstmann, Theodore Forstmann & Nick Forstmann, delivered at the annual Forstmann Little & Co anniversary dinner in 2003 )