[theBobMcCormick]

When people wonder why big companies make stupid decisions and why they are are so slow and inefficient... this is it.

If an entrepreneur sticks his neck out for an opportunity that has high risk but potentially high rewards, he's doing it because he expects to get a large portion of the rewards if he's successful. In a big "enterprise" company, your share of the reward for sticking your neck out is likely to be, if you're lucky, nothing more than a Lucite plaque and a mention in your review. But your share of the risk could be quite a bit larger (loss of your job for example). All the individual incentives in most organizations are tilted toward risk avoidance.