Field Report: Giant Births

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I am unfamiliar with the birthing process, particularly when it comes to giants, although I have to imagine it's a rather painful experience...especially if the respective Mothers of Paul Bunyan, Goliath, Jolly Green or Shaquille O'Neal are regular-sized...I certainly can't fathom it...

I also can't fathom creating a company from scratch and taking it to the point of being worth real scratch (grosses of $1,000,000) by the age of forty, which is why the Birthing of Giants is a fascinating microcosm of how today's entrepreneurs think.

Birthing of Giants is an executive educational program that brings CEOs together for three days each year for three years in a row. Since Inc. is a co-sponsor, I decided to stop by and hear what was on the minds of the best and brightest entrepreneurs.

It was my second year with the "Class of 2005." Since it's only a three-year program, last weekend was a combination sophomore/junior year for the group. You remember those days, glad to no longer be a lowly frosh, but still unsure of an identity, desperately trying to fit in with the popular kids and praying none of the seniors make you their designated human pinata.

Okay, so it's nothing like that, but there was one lonely writer sitting in the back room, hoping one of the popular rich kids would invite him to sit at their table...which they did. Unfortunately, it was a poker table where a bush-league, junior-high, gimmicky, why-not-just-make-all-the-red-cards-wild type of game where four nines gets beat by five freaking queens and one player ends up handing over all his chips to a CEO who doesn't need the money in the first place...

But I digress. Here's what really happened at the Birthing of Giants, year two, held June 23-26 at M.I.T.'s Endicott House:

***This group is by nature optimistic, but I got the sense during each company's update presentation to the group that many of them felt like their companies were headed north along with the general economy. Even those who had flat sales and minimal growth seemed to feel like they were through the recessionary looking glass. Whether this is perception or reality remains to be seen, but there was a collective exhale.

***The BOG is off-the-record so that CEO's can share whatever is going on in their personal and private lives if they so desire, but from what I can tell, everyone is hitting on all cylinders. Admittedly, I didn't hear all of the updates and didn't sit down with each and every participant, but the horror stories I heard were few and far between. I bring this up only because I'm curious if the BOG'ers (and their local YEO brethren) are being honest with each other.