An Entrepreneur is a person who organizes and operates one or more businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risk in exchange for a share of the rewards.
The word is French, from entreprendre, "to undertake." It appeared in a French dictionary in 1723 and entered English as a loanword around 1762. Economists gave it its modern shape. Richard Cantillon described the entrepreneur as someone who buys at a known price in order to sell at an uncertain one, making the bearing of uncertainty the defining trait. Jean-Baptiste Say cast entrepreneurs as the people who move resources from less productive to more productive uses. Joseph Schumpeter, writing in the early twentieth century, defined them as innovators who turn new ideas into products and business models, displacing older ones through "creative destruction."
An entrepreneur differs from a manager, who runs an enterprise without owning its risk, and from an investor, who supplies capital without operating the business. The label also differs from small-business owner in emphasis: both carry risk, but entrepreneur usually implies starting something new or pursuing growth. An intrapreneur applies the same habits inside an established company.