The word entreporn have been used quite a bit in the last few months. Unfortunately it looks like people haven’t yet agreed on a precise definition of the word, which leads to confusion on its usage. Here is my proposal of a dictionary-style definition of entreporn, hopefully it will be good enough for inclusion in Wiktionary.

Entreporn (English) a portmanteau of entrepreneur and porn. Generally refers to reverence of sensational larger-than-life entrepreneurism (as opposed to the toned-down humble yet hardworking businesspeople). Just like regular porn but the object is entrepreneurism instead of sex.

1. (noun) A genre of publication (magazine, website, blog or podcast) that idolize entrepreneurs, primarily those with multi-million dollars success stories. These publications tend to encourage the worship of these entrepreneurs and place them in a similar setting to movie stars. Example: Techcruch is mostly entreporn.

2. (noun) A fetish toward creating a startup to attract venture capitalist (VC) funding, grow the company at an immense rate, and sell it early before it breaks even (capable to return all of its investor’s money).

Etymology

The word “entreporn” was Initially coined by Amy Hoy in TechZing podcast episode 111 to describe the genre of HackerNews and to some extent the podcast itself. Several days afterwards the term was further clarified by Justin Vincent in his blog entry, “Entreporn: the fallacy that wastes your life“.