#128 — The Entrepreneur: A Contemporary Leonardo?

Could Leonardo da Vinci have become Leonardo da Vinci in 2026?

Probably not. The world has become far too complex for one person to master multiple disciplines at the level Leonardo did. Yet there may be one profession that still requires something resembling his extraordinary combination of curiosity, creativity and resourcefulness: entrepreneurship.

For 30 years, Warsaw has celebrated its Science Festival every September. This year, I gave two lectures for high school kids as my humble contribution to this fantastic event.

In the first lecture I compared the contemporary entrepreneur to Leonardo da Vinci. The comparison might be somewhat stretched but I think I managed to offer some interesting thoughts and insights.

Leonardo was an artist, scholar, engineer and I argue also an entrepreneur. He was not only a creator and inventor but he managed to make a living out of his work. Much of his work had practical applications. His flying machines and some other devices were used as theatrical machinery for court performances and spectacles. He served as a military engineer in the service of Cesare Borgia.

Most impressive, however, was his unique ability to combine different areas of art and science in his work. Perhaps the best representation of this ability was the Vitruvian Man, which combines anatomy, geometry and architecture in one drawing.

All of this sounds like a textbook definition of a resourceful, adaptable and creative entrepreneur. A definition that goes beyond being a start-up owner, and includes anyone with a mindset, which allows them to find creative improvements to existing ways of doing things and make living out of it.

Today's reality, however, is entirely different. The times of lonely heroes, capable of building exceptional knowledge and making significant contributions across several domains are long past.

Technological development has resulted in a vast increase in complexity and knowledge requirements in every domain of modern life. In 1800 to practice medicine you had a relatively simple choice to make - becoming a doctor. In 2026 American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) recognised 127 specialties (38 main and 89 subspecialties). Other domains went through a similar development.

In this environment it becomes unrealistic to dream of becoming the next Leonardo. Most jobs require choices that force us to narrow down the focus to more and more specialised fields. And building the level of expertise required to become an expert takes more and more time. The 10 000 hours threshold, even if not a precise, factual measure, is a useful reminder of the hurdles in front of anyone, who dreams of becoming a respected specialist. I wrote about this threshold in another post but as a short reminder, if taken literally it translates into roughly 10 years of deliberate practice. Indeed many years of deliberate practice have been found as a common characteristic of top performers in various fields, ranging from chess to competitive sports.

I therefore posed a question during this lecture:

With one important disclaimer: unlike Leonardo, a modern entrepreneur cannot realistically expect to develop world-class expertise across several unrelated disciplines. Instead, they can become a bridge between experts, someone who knows enough about different fields to connect people, ideas and resources.

One of the students challenged my argument. Isn't connecting different areas of knowledge a form of expertise in itself? She was right. Perhaps entrepreneurs are specialists after all. Their speciality, however, is making connections between people, technologies, ideas and opportunities that would otherwise remain separate.

The conventional understanding of expertise tends to focus on in-depth understanding of a specific domain of technical knowledge, such as medicine, architecture, or engineering.

Expert knowledge requires going deeper, more precisely, like zooming in with a microscope. Entrepreneur on the other hand needs to develop breadth rather than depth of his technical expertise to know enough to enter and understand the conversation about projects, priorities, key dilemmas.

I believe that the entrepreneurial mindset can support anyone on their professional journey. Resourcefulness, adaptability and creativity make us more resilient, regardless of the path we choose.

We may no longer be able to become Leonardo da Vinci. But we will certainly benefit from learning how to think like him.

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References and Notes

1. Isaacson, W. (2017). Leonardo da Vinci. Simon & Schuster.