today's private enterprise

Every modern career is heading for entrepreneurship.

The "I work at one company for the rest of my life" is gone.

In fact, you are becoming a small business, or you're becoming somewhat of an entrepreneur -- even if your elected career path is "I work for this company, and then I work for this company, and then I work for this company,..." -- because you're transferring jobs between them, and you have all the issues that a small business or entrepreneur cares about: the brand of you, what you do, that sort of thing.

The skills learned from entrepreneurship are applicable to any career path.

-- Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn,) Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Lecture: Choosing the Entrepreneurial Path (Stanford Technology Ventures Program) [starting at 35 minutes; my minor edits]

Early in the same talk, Hoffman compares entrepreneurship to jumping off a cliff and building the airplane on the way down.

I remember my bridges and ledges; the longer I'd stand and peer over the edge, the more difficult the leap would become.