> Second, it's hard to build equity as an independent. Your description of "equity" sounds more like "skills". You can always buy stocks of companies, just ma

> Second, it's hard to build equity as an independent. Your description of "equity" sounds more like "skills". You can always buy stocks of companies, just make sure to charge enough to cover those benefits. However, I argue that freelancing tends to accumulate skills. If you work at FB, you're going to be doing the same stuff with the same platforms; at best you change languages/platforms every couple years as you get moved between projects. Every freelance contract I've had has been a different set of languages and skills. In fact, one of my contracts came because I am such a generalist. I feel like the clients I've interacted with want an "expert"--someone skilled in the exact areas they need (as opposed to companies, which are a little more willing for you to have related experience but not exact experience), so the more different things you can point to having done, the more contracts are available to you. It also helps you credibly claim "I'm not very familiar with X, but I've been able to get up to speed in a day on my other projects"