Last night I went to see Michael Gerber, author of the E-Myth series of books, talk about small business. In Gerber’s view, there are three business roles: technician, manager, and entrepreneur. According to Gerber, most people who start businesses are not entrepreneurs—they are “technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure.” A technician looking for independence builds the business around his skills and immediately goes to work. This, Gerber says, is just a job (a job working for a crazy boss). An entrepreneur, in contrast, makes a business that can work without him and creates real independence.