In this insightful blog post, Steve Sokol runs through the pluses and minuses of being part of a startup within a large corporation, what he calls a “virtual startup.” The pluses are many – a salary, funding and office space among them. There are also some minuses – having to play nicely with corporate systems and staying within the rules of protecting the brand are some. What I found intriguing about Sokol’s post was how far we have come from the old days of skunkworks and “new venture divisions” to now realizing that innovation isn’t a distraction from the main event – for many companies building a continuous flow of new businesses and business models is the main event. As I point out, when you’re dealing with transient advantage, you never know where the next advantage will come from or how long the existing one will last. That’s another reason why I’m so taken with the mach49 approach to helping large global companies find and develop new opportunities. This is the time for corporate entrepreneurship. Why let startups have all the fun?