Are Entrepreneurs born or bred?

Nature vs. Nurture. Were you born an entrepreneur or was it something that you were molded into? The debate could be the topic of an entire blog. I was recently contacted by Northeastern University and asked to participate in a study about this from their School of Technological Entrepreneurship.

Not surprisingly I fell right in the middle. 50% nature, 50% nurture. If you're curious where you would fall on the spectrum, fell free to take the survey yourself, it only takes a few minutes. They're giving away five free subscriptions/renewals to Entrepreneur Magazine if you need a little incentive :)

Everyone's story is different, but in my scenario I can't help but think that I was nurtured into being an entrepreneur. Since I grew up in the capital city of NY State, it seems like EVERYONE I know works for the government, which is about as far away from entrepreneurship that you can get.

But I was lucky enough to be in the first group of five students in the country to complete a now national program called Project Lead the Way, that puts high school students through a series of technological innovation classes.

I followed that up by attending RPI, a college whose motto is "Why Not Change the World", and is one of the most technologically advanced schools in the world. Some of the coolest tech startups in the country started in our college incubator.

Mix in a few eye-opening internships and a couple of close friends who started their own businesses, and I feel like I was BRED to be an entrepreneur. Had I not been surrounded by entrepreneurship, I don't think it would have ever crossed my mind as a possible career.

But I know for every story like mine, there's the story of an entrepreneur whose entire family were entrepreneurs. I'd love to see a study of the best of the best (Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Mark Cuban, Steve Jobs, etc). My guess is that most of them DIDN'T come from entrepreneurial families, but that's just a guess. So do you think you were born or bred?