The Uncle Ben Principle

“With great power comes great responsibility.” — Voltaire

I loved reading about superheroes as a kid. I loved how these heroes, blessed with superhuman abilities, took on the biggest challenges in their fictional universes. It was motivating stuff for a pre-adolescent kid. These comics and graphic novels would form as a philosophical backdrop for entrepreneurship as I grew.

One of my favorite superheroes was Spiderman, aka Peter Parker. I liked him because he seemed the most relatable to me. He was a nerdy and quirky kid like me. The trajectory of his life changed when he got bitten by a radioactive spider, which imbued him with superpowers and made him feel powerful. After getting that power, Peter Parker used it selfishly to win money, but his Uncle Ben’s death cemented the magnitude of responsibility he bore to make the world a better place.

When people say entrepreneurs are superheroes, it’s often with the same sense of awe that I had for Spiderman. But that’s a flawed view. Entrepreneurs are no different from other people. They haven’t been bit by radioactive spiders[1]. The sense in which entrepreneurs are like superheroes is in the sense that they’ve chosen to take responsibility for some problem in the world, and in doing so they become more powerful.

Peter Parker was always as powerful as he wanted to be. Radioactive bug bite or not. What really made him a hero is that he saw a way to use his skills to improve the world in a meaningful way.

Thinking of Spidey and entrepreneurship, I’m reminded of the Marianne Williamson quote — “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

Entrepreneurship is about taking responsibility. So, I guess Uncle Ben was an entrepreneurship coach.

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Notes
[1] It’s said that the movie version of Iron Man, played by Robert Downey Jr., was inspired by Elon Musk. So, in this case art imitates life.