What is Intrapreneurship?

What do Google, the US Navy, and General Electric have in common?

Not a lot. One is a Silicon Valley giant, one belongs to the government, and the other was literally started by Thomas Edison.

They have, however, all thrived thanks to intrapreneurship.

What is intrapreneurship?

Intrapreneurship is simply bringing the innovative spirit of entrepreneurship to operations within a large organisation. It's when one person, or a small team starts something new within a company, in order to help the whole company move forward.

Here are Paul Frampton, Julie Doleman and Nicole Yershon to tell you what intrapreneurship means to them:

Google Maps, Google AdWords, and even Gmail (ie, things we couldn't live without today) were all the result of individuals within Google going off on their own and innovating. 

Virgin Active, Virgin Money, Virgin Mobile and more became possible because Richard Branson insisted on keeping an entrepreneurial spirit alive within his company. 

General Electric may seem like a strange organisation to have on this list, but since it's the only one of the first twelve companies that formed the Dow Jones Index in 1890 that is still listed, they must have done something right. Can you guess what it is? Yes of course, it's intrapreneurship. General Electric started when lightbulbs did, but since then they've been involved in everything from appliances, to Airplanes, to apps. So many companies stagnate and die, but because of individuals within General Electric and their relentless pursuit of innovation, the company is alive and kicking.

Intrapreneurship is the fascinating art of making meaningful change within a company. To find out more about it, look out for a course coming out next week on 42courses.com called Intrapreneurship.