Business bookshelf: 'World Changers'

Entrepreneurs come in a dizzying variety of shapes. John Mackey, the co-founder of Whole Foods, was a hippie. Fred Smith, the founder of Federal Express, served in the marines during the Vietnam war. Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of Infosys, was a former leftist who found himself on the wrong side of the Bulgarian police.

In "World Changers," John Byrne provides some interesting insight into what makes these kinds of people tick. Three things seem to unite them. The first is that entrepreneurs see opportunities where others see problems. A surprising number of great companies were born out of fury and frustration. Reed Hastings got the idea for Netflix when a video-rental store hit him with a $40 late fee.

The second is an ability to live with risk and failure. Entrepreneurs do not go out of their way to court risk for its own sake. Many of them are far more conscious of risk than more conventional business people. But they accept that risk comes with success. Again and again entrepreneurs have bet their futures on what sensible people might dismiss as a crazy idea.

The third feature is a determination to run their own lives. Most would rather fail as their own boss than succeed as second-in-command. Many come from difficult backgrounds. Ted Turner's father, whom the boy worshipped, sent him to boarding school at age four and beat him with a coat hanger, for example.

Had "World Changers" continued in this vein it might have been a fascinating book. Byrne is one of the most knowledgeable business writers around -- a long-term writer for Business Week and the editor of Fast Company.

But here he soon runs out of steam. He contents himself with printing his own interviews with his 25 world changers (or sometimes bits of other people's interviews) rather than writing interpretative essays. And he asks soft questions. The likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg deserve to be admired. But 276 pages of hero-worship, particularly when so much of it comes in the form of the heroes blowing their own trumpets, can wear a little thin.