如何成为一名“内部创业者”

    2009年，我拥有了一个全新的头衔—— 不是一个新的职位，而是一种重新定义自我的方式。它彻底改变了我的工作方式。

    那时我还是英特尔公司（Intel Corporation）的一名总经理，负责将一个教育类个人电脑的项目变成一门赚钱的生意。这份工作的内容包括开发人性化的产品，为英特尔公司在教育领域拓展市场。我记得我曾在哈佛大学肯尼迪学院（Harvard Kennedy School）发表讲话，谈到自己的职业定位，当时有人问我：“也就是说，你是个‘内部创业家’（intrapreneur）？”那是我第一次听到这个词，我意识到它准确地定位了我个人以及我在英特尔公司从事的大部分工作。

    5年以后我离开了英特尔，现在我是凯鹏华盈（Kleiner Perkins Claufield & Byers）的合伙人以及教育科技公司Coursera的商务总监。我每天和创业者们一起工作，这是一群拥有无限活力和宏伟设想的人，希望靠自己的努力改变世界。我发现，曾经的英特尔团队和我现在的工作职责非常相似：虽然我们过去是为一家大公司工作，但工作重点也是作出新东西。

    以雇员身份在一家大公司内部进行创业，可以收获和外部创业同样丰厚的回报和激动人心的体验。而且，这种内部创业具有巨大的优势：继续公司的工作意味着更高的稳定性，同时你可以运用所在公司强大的品牌资源，依靠内部的人际关系和共同的兴趣在企业中更轻松地招聘到所需要的人才。这样，你可以更加专心于实现既定的目标，不用为创业基金、办公地点和公司基础设施等事宜操心。

    英特尔和组织松散的初创企业截然不同，但是它给我提供了一个跟随自己的激情、将创意变成重大项目的机会。这里有一些如何成为一名内部创业家的秘诀，是我多年经验所得：

    与众不同。参与新项目并争取不同的职位，以此丰富个人经验。早年在英特尔工作时，我接受了一份在日本从事DVD标准化的工作。我的一位经理认为这是一个糟糕的人事调动，因为我缺乏足够的经验，此举将阻碍我晋升公司最高管理层的道路。但是，结果我在这个职位上做得风生水起，部分原因就是因为我的与众不同。没有人预料到，电脑公司里会有一个年轻的美国女职员努力争取那些消费型电子产品公司客户，比如索尼（Sony）、松下（Panasonic）和日立（Hitachi），但是我确实就是这么做的。

    通过不停打电话、努力结识能够提供帮助的人、在商业会议上说日语，以及大无畏的做事风格，我最终促使英特尔被相关委员会接纳，获准将DVD应用在电脑上推广，而不仅仅是在家用电器上。事实证明，人们确实喜欢在电脑上看电影。

    成为自己的CEO。成功的CEO理解公司业务各个不同的部分，深谙与人相处之道。很多所谓的创业者只有十分单一和局限的技能。你或许是一位伟大的工程师，但是对财务、制造或传播等方面知之甚少。由于初创企业的资源有限，你必须懂得招聘人才，提高团队技能。你需要承担不同的角色，即便你不是相关领域的专家。此外，你还需要永无止境地扩大自己的知识面和学习新的技能。可以学习的资源数不胜数，还可以向很多前辈和同侪请教，以此拓宽自己的视野。

    In 2009, I took on a new job title—not a new position, but a new way of describing myself—that fundamentally changed how I worked.

    At the time, I was a general manager at Intel Corporation INTL 1.01% , and had been tasked with turning an education PC initiative into a for-profit business. The job included developing user-friendly products and establishing a market for Intel in the education sector. I recall describing my role during a talk I gave at Harvard Kennedy School, and someone said, “So you are an ‘intrapreneur?’” It was the first time I had heard the term, and I realized it described me perfectly, and the type of work I had been doing during much of my Intel career.

    Five years later, after leaving Intel, I am now a Partner at Kleiner Perkins Claufield & Byers as well as Chief Business Officer at an education tech company, Coursera. I spend my days working with entrepreneurs — people with immense energy and big ideas, trying to change the world. I realize that my Intel team and I functioned much the same way; although we worked for a large company, we focused on doing new things.

    Taking the inside track to entrepreneurship as an employee in a big company can be just as rewarding and exciting as leaping into the start-up world, and it can offer some great advantages. Keeping your corporate job may provide greater stability, while also enabling you to: leverage a strong corporate brand; recruit talent more easily within an organization where you already have relationships and share a common language; and concentrate more on achieving your vision than on tasks, such as securing venture funding, figuring out office space, and building a company infrastructure.

    Intel is obviously a far cry from a scrappy start-up, but the company provided opportunities for me to follow my passions and turn ideas into projects with huge impact. Here are a few tips to becoming an intrapraneur that I learned along the way:

    Be different.Take on new projects and pursue positions that broaden your experience. Early in my Intel career, I took a job in Japan working on DVD standards. One of my managers said it was a bad move — that I didn’t have enough experience and it would take me off the fast track toward the corporate C-suite. But I was effective in the job in part because I was different — no one expected a young American woman from the PC industry would be trying to open doors at consumer electronics companies like Sony, Panasonic and Hitachi, but that’s just what I did.

    Through cold calling, finding introductions to the right people, speaking Japanese in business meetings, and generally being fearless, I was able to get Intel onto the committee that allowed us to advocate for DVDs to work on computers, not just living room devices. As it turned out, people did want to watch movies on computers.

    Become your own CEO.Successful CEOs understand different parts of their company’s business and know how to work well with people. Many would-be entrepreneurs have a single, focused skill set. Maybe you’re a great engineer, but you know little about finance, manufacturing or communications. With the limited resources of a start-up, you have to be smart about hiring and the skills on your team. You need to wear many different hats, even when you’re not the expert. You also need to commit to being someone who never stops expanding your knowledge and skill set. There are so many resources out there, as well as mentors and peers from whom to learn and gain perspective.