Obama's Inauguration Message: Risk-Takers Will Get Us Out of Recession

Here's a selection of Obama's inaugural speech that I hope doesn't get lost in all the commotion:

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the fainthearted -- for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom.

Obama himself is about to join that tradition of American risk-takers. Almost immediately he's going to be faced with decisions in which he might think, "Will I regret taking this risk later?"

With good timing, business website Alibaba.com just published an intriguing article on the subject of how successful people take risks. Writer Brett Nelson asked a number of famous entrepreneurs and other successful people about the greatest risks of their lives. One example:

Michael Chasen, co-founder of Blackboard (nasdaq: BBBB - news - people ), an education technology company, went so far as to jeopardize his new marriage. Despite making nice coin at KPMG, Chasen and college buddy Matthew Pittinsky decided to start their own company making software to facilitate instruction at schools that were outfitting fully Internet-wired classrooms and dormitories.

"The biggest risk was telling my fiancé one month before our wedding that I was going to quit my high-paying job to gamble on a 'big idea' with my old college roommate," says Chasen. "Not exactly what she had signed up for." (Happy ending: They still tied the knot. "Risk averted," he adds.)

Something to watch in the early days of Obama's presidency is how he will change the calculus of risk-taking for entrepreneurs. Will his attempts to repair the economy make it less worth it to take risks? Will he strike the right balance? For more on how Obama could increase healthy risk-taking by entrepreneurs, read on here.