I think a lot of it has to do with a sense that they need to use this title in order to gain legitimacy in the startup community. I met lots of people calling themselves entrepreneurs who have never started a business and I meet lots of people who call themselves founders of entities that don't require anything more than an organizer. It is all because saying you are a consultant or a financial analyst or a marketing coordinator is not sexy or interesting. Instead of figuring out what they want to be and working towards it, they dress themselves up with a title and act the part. I know there is this whole fake-it-til-you-make-it thing, but sometimes it is all just bullshit.
Insecurity and legitimacy is all I could come up with in my first pass. Anyone else have ideas on why everyone wants to call themselves entrepreneurs these days?
Maybe there's nothing wrong with it, but it seems like an annoying misappropriation.
I get frustrated when people call themselves "entrepreneurs" but have taken limited risks or made limited sacrifices. Come to me when you have literally had to make the moral decision between paying yourself more vs. hiring someone else, giving an employee a bonus vs. buying yourself some shiny things (your right to do so, but there's a societal impact for boh during a recession with people out of work) - the list goes on. In particular there's also the kind of strength of a character that "real" entrepreneurs have to have when dealing with the isolation of living in a world filled with blue pill poppers when entrepreneurs have swallowed on the jagged red pill of reality probably from the time they could walk.
I also get frustrated with people who spend VC money in a wanton fashion yet don't risk a dime of their own yet call themselves "entrepreneurs". Nej, you are a "wantrepreneur"...