Success Quote by Øystein Stray Spetalen

Entrepreneurship, in Spetalen's framing, isn't a romantic badge or a tech-world personality type. It's a moral stance: you own the outcomes, and you own the risk. The line is doing two jobs at once. On the surface, it offers a clean definition anyone can repeat at a conference. Underneath, it quietly redraws the boundary between "builders" and everyone else, turning responsibility into a sorting mechanism: if you're not willing to carry the consequences, you don't get to claim the title.

"Taking responsibility for yourself" is the tell. It's less about spreadsheets and more about identity politics in a Nordic key, where strong social safety nets can make the entrepreneur look like an outlier or even a cynic. Spetalen flips that: the entrepreneur isn't the one exploiting the system, but the one refusing to outsource accountability to it. That subtext flatters the risk-taker while gently scolding the comfort-seeker.

Then "taking chances" adds the necessary romance without admitting how curated most "chances" really are. In business culture, risk is often narrated as bravery after it's been hedged, financed, or socialized. Spetalen keeps it blunt, almost austere, which tracks with a hard-nosed investor sensibility: chances aren't cute, they're costly.

Context matters: coming from a businessman, not a self-help guru, the sentence reads like a worldview and a warning. If you want the upside, you accept the exposure. If you want certainty, don't dress it up as entrepreneurship.