I think they need to define what they mean by a 'public entrepreneur'.<p>A private entrepreneur in a capitalist system is a fairly clear concept: someone who starts a business using funds that they are responsible for in some way, i.e. they bear the risk of failure. A successful entrepreneur is one whose business generates some degree of profit, i.e. it has a positive balance sheet. Note that a manager of someone else's money is not, by this definition, an entrepreneur, as they are not really bearing most of the risk of failure. In addition, most entrepreneurs turn to external sources of capital (VC funds, banks, etc.) to grow their businesses once they've demonstrated some degree of independent success.<p>So, what's a public entrepreneur? Someone who starts a program / business using public funds, but then puts the profits in their own pocket? Are we talking about private contractors who seek government contracts (I assume not)? Is a Congressperson who uses insider information about pending bills to make lucrative investments a 'public entrepreneur'? How about a government-funded academic trying to lever their state-financed IP into a lucrative side business?<p>Rather than public entrepreneurs, we'd be better off with reliable civil servants who are not corrupt, i.e. not taking kickbacks from private contractors, not altering regulations solely for the benefit of private parties who will later give them 'jobs', not using their academic positions as launching pads for government-funded 'public-private startups', etc.