By DAVID SEGAL

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

A THIN LINE SEPARATES the temperament of a promising entrepreneur from a person who could use, as they say in psychiatry, a little help. Academics and hiring consultants say that many successful entrepreneurs have qualities and quirks that, if poured into their psyches in greater ratios, would qualify as full-on mental illness. Which is not to suggest that entrepreneurs are crazy.

It would be more accurate to describe them as just crazy enough. “It’s about degrees,” says John D. Gartner, a psychologist and author of “The Hypomanic Edge.” “If you’re manic, you think you’re Jesus. If you’re hypomanic, you think you are God’s gift to technology investing.”

The attributes that make great entrepreneurs, the experts say, are common in certain manias, though in milder forms and harnessed in ways that are hugely productive. Instead of recklessness, the entrepreneur loves risk.

Instead of delusions, the entrepreneur imagines a product that sounds so compelling that it inspires people to bet their careers, or a lot of money, on something that doesn’t exist


They may have quirks, but driven, creative people like Seth Priebatsch put those qualities to work in support of a stable vision.

and may never sell. So venture capitalists spend a lot of time searching the psyches of the people they might invest in. It’s not so much about separating the loonies from the slightly manic.

It’s more about determining which hypomanics are too arrogant and obnoxious ? traits common to the type ? and which have some humanity and interpersonal skills, always helpful for recruiting talent and raising money. Some venture capitalists have personality tests to help weed out the former.

Others stress their toleration of mild mania, if only because starting a business is, on its face, a little nuts. “You need to suspend disbelief to start a company, because so many people will tell you that what you’re doing can’t be done, and if it could be done, someone would have done it already,” says Paul Maeder, a general partner at Highland Capital Partners, a venture capital firm in Lexington, Massachusetts. “ It’s kind of crazy.”

One such “kind of crazy” entrepreneur that Highland Capital thought worth supporting with $750,000 was Seth Priebatsch, a 21-year-old who has founded a business called Scvngr (pronounced “scavenger”) to build “the game layer on top of the world.”

To keep the pace of his thoughts and conversation at manageable levels, Mr. Priebatsch runs on a track every morning until he literally collapses. He can work 96 hours in a row. He plans to live in his office. Anything that distracts him and his future colleagues is “evil.” “Scvngr is a game that you play on your phone,” Mr. Priebatsch says. The game allows you to compete and win rewards at stores, gyms, theaters, museums and so on. “We play games all the time, right?” he says.

“School is a game. It’s just a very badly designed game.” American Express credit cards, with their escalating status, from green, to gold to black ? they are a game. So are frequent- flier miles. “But game dynamics aren’t consciously leveraged in any meaningful way, and Scvngr does that.” This, apparently, has enormous implications. “If we can bring game dynamics to the world, the world will be more fun, more rewarding .

” The business world has contributed more than its share of hypomanics to society . The most colorful of the breed was arguably Henry Ford. “He epitomizes the unhinged, entrepreneurial spirit,” says Douglas G. Brinkley, the author of “Wheels for the World,” a book about Mr. Ford and his company. Mr. Ford could be both charmer and ruthless jerk. With employees , he was an autocrat who never brooked dissent.

Nearly all conversations about contemporary hypomanics start with the Apple chief executive, Steven P. Jobs. Like Mr. Ford, he is a pitchman extraordinaire, and he is also described as a despot and control freak with a temper, says Leander Kahney, author of “Inside Steve’s Brain.” Scholars in organizational studies tend to divide the world into “transformational leaders” (the group that hypomanics are bunched into ) and “transactional leaders,” who are evenkeeled managers who know how to delegate, listen, set achievable goals.

Both types need to rally employees to their cause, but entrepreneurs must recruit and galvanize when a company is little more than a whisper of an idea. “We have a grid personality scorecard, across 10 or 12 dimensions, attributes that are critical to success,” says Michael A. Greeley, a general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners in Boston. The goal is to spot the really erratic characters, whom Mr. Greeley calls “rail to rail”: “One day they get up and their favorite color is pink. The next day, it’s green. ”


“You need to suspend disbelief to start a company. So many people will tell you that what you’re doing can’t be done.” PAUL MAEDER/General partner at Highland Capital


Mr. Maeder of Highland still wonders whether Scvngr is the scaffolding of a major business. At the same time, he regards the $750,000 investment as a bet on Mr. Priebatsch as much as a bet on his company. “Seth has such a fertile mind; you just know that he’ll attract great people to the company,” he says, “and the ideas will continue to flow and morph until he finds something great.” You also get the sense that Mr. Priebatsch won’t stop, even if Scvngr is a glorious triumph.

“I like winning,” he says. “I’m addicted to the act of winning, the process. When you are in the act of winning, everything is great. Once you’ve won, that’s boring. It’s cool, it’s better than having lost, but it’s boring.” Great piles of money would not slow him down, either. “I’m not anti-money,” he says. “I like nice bikes, I like nice computers. I like that money is a representation of success, but the actual entity itself is not interesting for me.

There is little that I would want that I don’t have, and the things that I want money can’t buy.” Like? He doesn’t pause. “I want to build the game layer on top of the world.”