Letters

Readers react to articles from the 20th-anniversary and May 1999 issues of Inc., including "The Entrepreneur in My Bed," by Curtis Hartman and "It's Not That Easy Going Green," by Jeffrey Seglin.

Readers found nearly as much cause to celebrate our 20th-anniversary issue as we found to celebrate the event. Most wrote to say how inspired they were by Jim Ansara's story, "Out of Thin Air"; others saw the issue as an invitation to wax philosophic on the meaning of success.

Hindsight is 20/20

Jim Ansara, CEO of Shawmut Design & Construction, and Michael Hopkins, executive editor of Inc., chronicled Ansara's 20-year climb in the construction business. The following entrepreneurs, standing today where Ansara stood so long ago, were moved by his experience.

I am the owner of both an Internet company and a graphic-design company. I bought Inc.'s 20th-anniversary issue in a supermarket and stayed up until 3 a.m. reading about Jim Ansara. You did a great job of putting his thoughts, as well as Shawmut's history, on paper. I appreciate your story so much: it will make me work harder and, I hope, smarter.

Andreas Barth
President
Aworldwidemall.com Inc.
Alexandria, Va.

I appreciated an article about the anxieties and joys of a start-up businessperson, in terms of how he relates to money, personal life, and health. I hope to see more stories like this one, as they give me courage and insight, but most of all hope that I'm not alone in my toil.

Mark D. Talgo
Owner
Mark D. Talgo Design
West Hollywood, Calif.

The staff of life

In his essay " The End of the World As We Knew It," Inc. editor-in-chief George Gendron discussed how the search for meaningful, self-actualizing work is a key motivation for company building--and often the impetus for individuals to become soloists. This reader appreciated the philosophical drift.

George Gendron's essay asks the key question facing us not only in the coming decade but also throughout the next century: "Can we design businesses that grow us?" Entrepreneurship arose out of the deeply personal conviction that there had to be more to life than just operating within the system. Do we answer Gendron's question with companies that make money and seize power, or with ones that help us grow to new levels of human freedom? The Latin origins of the word company are "com" ( with) and "panis" ( bread). We have to ask ourselves, Are we creating the food of the Bible or just a product called Wonder Bread?

Mark Straus
Owner
Mabou
Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Philosophical questions were secondary to practical concerns for this reader, who was skeptical about the realities of going solo.

My compliments to George Gendron for his essay on the advantages of soloists. But how many of us with spouses, children, mortgages, and college bills can leave the "organized house of work" and embark on "a way to make a life"? Of those of us who would like to follow our longings, perhaps one in a million has the resources to do so. "Intellectual capital" is not enough. We in the great majority cannot afford to be "unapologetically wrong" and work as soloists without a safety net. What kind of an escape route would Gendron suggest for us?

John I. Kindl
Owner
Offshore Trading Co.
Redford, Mich.

Embedded wisdom

We've all heard about being married to a business, but what about being married to the person who's married to the business? Former Inc. senior editor Curtis Hartman addressed that issue in " The Entrepreneur in My Bed." This reader identified with his wife's extrafamilial fulfillment.

Curtis Hartman writes about Anne: "Her self-confidence kept growing...as she became the woman she had hoped she was and broadened her vision of the woman she could become." I couldn't have expressed it better. My husband will read Hartman's article, and I have made copies for my daughters.

Anne Hartman is lucky to have so supportive a spouse. My company is a work in progress--but more important, so am I. I am thrilled and excited by the creativity I bring to the business daily. After my husband reads this, perhaps he'll finally understand why life is too full for me to even think of retiring.

Wendy Lazar
President
Glendale Industries
Northvale, N.J.

Plus Ça change...

Among other comparisons in " In Our Time: 1979-1999," we likened a guru from 1965, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, to a guru from 1995, Stephen Covey. This Yogi devotee had yet to jump on the Covey bandwagon.