> I think you're conflating entrepreneurship with business.

And I think you're conflating competition with disruption.

Entrepreneurship and business go hand in hand, you can't have the one without the other. Someone that risks their personal fortune to open a hamburger stand by your definition is not an entrepreneur, by my definition he or she is. And that's before we look at the possible futures where that hamburger stand ends up as a chain of stores because he innovated on quality or was exceptional in service.

Disruption is not Fedex vs USPS, it's not Facebook competing with myspace for eyeballs. Disruption is AirBNB threatening the established interests in the hospitality industry, napster making record execs very worried and EasyJet causing increased blood pressure with all their fat cat competitors.

Disruption by definition can only come when a market is established, but it is definitely not a prerequisite for entrepreneurship or running a successful business.

I duly note that you don't think that either Facebook or Fedex are disruptive. by that definition of disruption, sure. Entrepreneurship is not disruptive. I rest my case

You forgot about a very big #3: find something that's working elsewhere and adapt it for a new, local audience. Lot's of countries have their own "ebay", for example and ebay tended to buy the best ones.

There are endless possibilities out there to make a business and most of them are not disruptive at all. The disruptive ones are vastly more risky.

I get your point, but disruption goes beyond concepts. entrepreneurship by way of geographic arbitrage is still disruptive to the local business scene. Whether it's facebook or studiVZ, it's still the same effect.

But in that case your word "disruptive" is so broad as to not be very useful and we already have words that mean this.