# What makes ENTJ's "executives" and ENTP's "entrepreneurs"?



## sm1 (May 14, 2017)

I am looking for an explanation of the form "Being an executive/entrepreneurs requires this, this, and this and ENTJ/ENTP have these traits which make them more suitable for this and these traits which they have make them less likely to pursue the other alternative.

Note that while a lot of counter examples exist, but even if you look closely in these counter examples, you might see the judgement holds true. For example, 

even when I know a lot of ENTJ entrepreneurs (and all of them lead million dollar startups), these are folks who built, their enterprises the executive way (ivy league colleges, consultancy background, started up with defined business processes and funding, hardly did any ground level engineering/operations rather hired people and lead them, etc). 

And I know a couple of ENTP people in the C-suite. But these are people who started up when they were in college or soon after, often had multiple startups, ended up getting into corporate when their startup got acquired or they ran out of cash and had failed at enough startups and were old enough to be forced into coming into corporate (and even in corporate they even up founding either new products/businesses or trying to save failing ones. Dying companies have a knack for bringing in mature ENTP leadership).

Can anyone help me understand my observations?


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## Sugarpot (Dec 30, 2017)

The J function is much a planner while the P tends to not follow plans, but follow as things come. The main difference between xNTJs and xNTPs is that NTJs use Ni, Te, Se and Fi while NTPs Use Ti, Ne, Si and Fe. So they are completely different ways of thinking in the end.


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## Sugarpot (Dec 30, 2017)

sm1 said:


> I am looking for an explanation of the form "Being an executive/entrepreneurs requires this, this, and this and ENTJ/ENTP have these traits which make them more suitable for this and these traits which they have make them less likely to pursue the other alternative.
> 
> Note that while a lot of counter examples exist, but even if you look closely in these counter examples, you might see the judgement holds true. For example,
> 
> ...


For this precise use of Te-Ni that one can view the big picture and being a J makes one carry the plan until the end without losing sight from the vision with temporary non-realistic ideas. I identify myself an Entrepreneur but I cannot see why not an ENTP could be an Entrepreneur. Much more than ESTJs, ENTPs tend not to like the routine of executioning business, they would rather change, alter the business as it goes. And ESTJs have to take the lead there, and leave the ENTP for a more creative position than an 'executive' position. ESTJs are the executives. I think you gathered some mistyped information on this. But many names are coined to our types... ENTJ is even called the leader of leaders (which I find too much of a muchness). Just because we are good at leading other leading types while being leaders ourselves, we better organize the structure for each leader and we can end up in a co-founder position many times...


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## DAHN (May 13, 2011)

Executives tend to like managing businesses and Entrepreneurs tend to like to start businesses.


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## Sugarpot (Dec 30, 2017)

DAHN said:


> Executives tend to like managing businesses and Entrepreneurs tend to like to start businesses.


You have to be a J to be strategist (TeNi) or else you're a theorist (NeTi) and will be very difficult to stick to a plan. But in no way this means ENTPs can start businesses themselves, it's just not that much common among all ENTPs as it is for ENTJs (ENTJs vary between Military Generals and Infrastructural CEOs). There is much work that requires an ENTJ to structure it very abstractly for a group to take over the work, so very oftenly an already infrastructure of business is delivered in the hands of an ENTP who will use that infrastructure to begin their own business starting from the details of what area is of their most interest. The problem with the ENTJ is that the interests are too wide in variety and that leaves a lot of open doors for other leaders and CEOs because just one person cannot manage too many different businesses. That's how Bill Gates accidently owned the entire GUI infrastructure of Apple, when Apple figured out the only way to solve this for them was to not only use BASIC as they have the perfect floating pointer for the development of the GUI but also, the development of the GUI had Bill Gates working together with employees of Apple and a huge share of Apple is owned by Microsoft because of that... when Apple II came around and they were scared to never accomplish the GUI we use up to this day and lose it all to Microsoft. Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates (an ENTJ who was very rude, may he rest in peace, vs a better ENTJ who is calm)


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## Sugarpot (Dec 30, 2017)

Nowadays Bill Gates passed Microsoft to Steve Ballmer (ESTJ) and we can see the complete total lack of ingenuity and creativity of OSes, we just have Microsoft delivering the Windows versions each time more frequently that most people didn't catch up and we have a variety of people who go back to Windows 9, Windows 8 and specially my favorite Windows 7. Because there is not much to add to these other windows in comparison to the progress the previous had in comparison to the 7 (after that it just downspiralled from there).
But the products are always delivered, on time, or even worse... before the time!

(This is somewhat off-topic, just to brainstorm about other cognitive functions than the ENTP and ENTJ, probably for comparison)


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## sm1 (May 14, 2017)

@DAHN we both know what an executive is supposed to like, and what an entrepreneur is. What I am expecting is what psychological makeup (maybe cognitive function level description), makes ENTP entrepreneur (a true entrepreneur who just jumps is)the andTJ a c-suite executive (or a an executive entrepreneur - the type of entrepreneur who may have calculated and planned into starting up probably for years, honed skills at companies of the like of McKinsey & Co.).

I hope I am more clear now.


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## sm1 (May 14, 2017)

@Sugarpot first off I have to correct you on facts "nowadays .. Steve Balmer" - current CEO of Microsoft is Satya Nadela who to me very much seems an xNTJ. And yeah, we can see how an N leadership changed Microsoft completely - an ESTJ like Steve Balmer would never have done that. 

I urge you to not bring ESTJ into this discussion. Let it be solely about ENTJ vs ENTP.

Also when I said executive, I meant C-suite executive. ESTJ tend to be mostly middle managers, and Directors. CxOs tend to be Ns, specially in unicorn tech startups where I have had the experience of working.

Now ENTJ entrepreneur vs ENTP entrepreneur -
The ENTJ entrepreneurs I know fall in two categories -
Category 1 - these didn't startup at an early age. Most of them started with ivy league education, followed by 5-10 years in Fortune 500 companies (mostly McKinsey & Co. for business leaders and Adobe/Google for tech leaders) where they steadily rised to VP/partner/director levels. Reached financial Independence, earned a name for themselves, made all the useful contacts you can think of, etc. And then they started up. Note that I didn't say then they decided to. I have talked to 5 of this category of ENTJ entrepreneurs and they all tell me that they had decided to be an entrepreneur in their early 20s but had to "acquire the skills, connections, resources, and experience" before starting up. And while they started up late in life (late 30s or after), their startups became multi-million dollar/billion dollar companies in less than 5 years of founding)

Category 2- These ENTJ entrepreneurs started within 5 years of graduating and mostly after working at other startups before themselves starting up. The startups these folks founded are like a mini version of what the category 1 ENTJ founders did. Everything was still planned, structured, and calculated but the size of the problem they are solving is reduced based on limited time they spent in acquiring skills/experience. However, while small, these were still highly stable from start and the founder mentality to first build a structured, stable, sustainable business and then scale.

(By the way, all these ENTJ entrepreneurs tend to be enneagram 3. Any co-incidence?)

Now coming to ENTP entrepreneurs. 

(Note that I am not taking of the super creative enneagram type 7 ENTP who will startup for adventure/fun but the type 8 ENTP or the type 3w4 ENTP who will have motivations similar to any ENTJ and who are also good at organizing and leading people.)

These ENTP entrepreneurs are what you actually think of first when you think of classic entrepreneurs. They have,

1. High risk appetite
2. Bite of much much more than they can chew. They might have actual abilities less than that of the category 2 ENTJ above, but will try to be as big as the category 1 ENTJ - if not bigger.
3. Firefighting all the time and hyperactive. Because of point 2 they (and those who work with them) will be in a constant hyper activity, putting too many fires and then fighting them, compromising stability and structure for speed.
4. Way more charismatic than any ENTJ entrepreneur I have known. They know how to convince people to work for them really well.


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## Sugarpot (Dec 30, 2017)

sm1 said:


> @Sugarpot first off I have to correct you on facts "nowadays .. Steve Balmer" - current CEO of Microsoft is Satya Nadela who to me very much seems an xNTJ. And yeah, we can see how an N leadership changed Microsoft completely - an ESTJ like Steve Balmer would never have done that.
> 
> I urge you to not bring ESTJ into this discussion. Let it be solely about ENTJ vs ENTP.
> 
> ...


I urge you to keep up with the right details. It seems like you have gone around misled with too many facts about other circumstances around Entrepreneurs and Executives and we are no longer talking about any cognitive functions being explained...


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## Sugarpot (Dec 30, 2017)

sm1 said:


> @DAHN we both know what an executive is supposed to like, and what an entrepreneur is. What I am expecting is what psychological makeup (*maybe cognitive function level description*), makes ENTP entrepreneur (a true entrepreneur who just jumps is)the andTJ a c-suite executive (or a an executive entrepreneur - the type of entrepreneur who may have calculated and planned into starting up probably for years, honed skills at companies of the like of McKinsey & Co.).
> 
> I hope I am more clear now.


I thought I just had explained that...


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## Sugarpot (Dec 30, 2017)

Sugarpot said:


> The J function is much a planner while the P tends to not follow plans, but follow as things come. The main difference between xNTJs and xNTPs is that NTJs use Ni, Te, Se and Fi while NTPs Use Ti, Ne, Si and Fe. So they are completely different ways of thinking in the end.


Nobody?


Ok... Tab closed.


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## sm1 (May 14, 2017)

@Sugarpot you didn't explain. You stated that since cognitive functions are distinct, the style would be different. I was expecting a more concrete explanation. Something like - say both ENTP and ENTJ get interested in some startup idea/problem to solve, this is how an ENTJ would think, this is how an ENTP would, Te - Ni will function in so and so way in the context of starting up while, Ne-Ti will move so and why.

I hope I am now making it clear what I am looking for. And yeah, put out facts because I want help analyze my observations from MBTI lens.


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## Eu_citzen (Jan 18, 2018)

[Bringing the big 5 into the equation; simplifying my thinking]

To me it would seem like the ENTJ is more _conservative_, as in sticking with things that are known and proven.
They work more in a known frame-set and posses a high(er?) conscientiousness as opposed to openness & creativity. 


ENTP, or entrepreneur, seems like s/he might have more openness & creativity. (refer to the big 5) 
This suggests to me: Higher improvisational skills & "creative" problem-solving.
Which makes sense; since starting a new company (for example) does not have the known frame-set in the same way as a established company. You may have to improvise, improve products/services etc.


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## incision (May 23, 2010)

ENTJ, focused on the mission, efficiency and results orientation. Criticism - can be stubborn with vision for mission.

ENTP, focused on discovery, innovation and process orientation. Criticism - can get distracted and not complete mission.


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