Look you know you’re reading the blog of a real geek when the analogy made to drive a point home borrows a concept from a Harry Potter book. I was going to say the concept is borrowed from a Harry Potter movie, but we all know which came first, right?
Anyway, if J.K Rowling (the author of the Harry Potter series) harboured the type of ambition for wealth acquisition we see in the likes of Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, etc, I think she’d have capitalised further on the popularity of her work, particularly taking greater joy out of the fact that some of the concepts and ideas she discusses in her books have their own, dedicated websites for further discussion. I mean what on earth are the “Deathly Hallows” to those who haven’t quite read the book? I don’t know if they’re articulately discussed in the movie – something which always has us geeks making the argument that a book is always better than the movie it gets turned into – you just get that much of a deeper background on so many aspects of the story.
So anyway, the Deathly Hallows are three extremely powerful magical objects which if possessed by one wizard would effectively make that wizard the most powerful of all, rendering them virtually untouchable. The objects are the Elder Wand which is considered to be unbeatable, the Cloak of Invisibility which gives the possessor powers to disappear and become invisible, and the Resurrection Stone, which can be used to summon the spirits of the deceased…
Our hero in the fantasy series, Mr. Harry Potter himself had the opportunity to possess all three of these Deathly Hallows, but being the noble protagonist he is, he duly discarded of two of them, not feeling all too comfortable with thoughts of being the all-powerful wizard most villains in the story would be happy to be.
Anyway, to bring things back to the discussion at hand, the modern day entrepreneur’s Deathly Hallows seem to be hidden in plain view, but they’re extremely illusive to bring together because in many respects each of them requires an investment of a lot of time and effort to master.
Unlike in the story though, there are four of these Deathly Hallows of the modern day entrepreneur, which are programming skills, creativity, management skills and capital!
Even the likes of Bill Gates at best possesses two or three of these to the extent that they are considered to be “Deathly Hallows,” otherwise if just one entrepreneur possessed all of these traits they’d be wealthy beyond anyone’s imagination, ever!
To zone-in on another example, if you merely took a look at the person or the team responsible for the Virgin Casino promotions, in no way does that team incorporate any of the programmers who actually sat down and did the coding work behind creating the online gambling platform synonymous with the visionary entrepreneur, Sir Richard Branson. Speaking of the entrepreneur extraordinaire himself, does Sir Richard Branson have any programming skills himself? If he did, would he have to hire expensive programmers to not only create something like the online gambling platform associated with his Virgin Brand, but maintain it is well, as opposed to doing it all himself and keeping all the money generated to himself?
