Great escape

The best entrepreneurship book in history (maybe) has nothing to do with business. Also, 7 other things worth your time.

Seventy-seven years ago this morning, around 4:55 a.m. local time, the last of a group 76 Allied prisoners of war managed to tunnel out of a German camp, as part of a “great escape” that was later immortalized in a 1950 book and a 1963 movie.

The whole thing has a sad ending, in that only three of the prisoners made it home, and 50 of those who were recaptured were murdered by the Nazis. However, the resourcefulness and resilience that they all showed in getting out of the camp to begin with has proven to be an inspiring and lasting story.

I read the book version of this about a decade ago, when I was also writing a book about Harvard Business School, and a professor there gave me his official definition of entrepreneurship: “the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”

That’s a nice, academic mouthful, but I quickly applied it to The Great Escape. If you can get past the fact that the book has nothing to do with starting a business, it might be the best …