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Title could be better, but I found it an OK-read. The leap from film work to software work isn't a huge one (today's startup guy is yesterday's starving artist)

Title could be better, but I found it an OK-read. The leap from film work to software work isn't a huge one (today's startup guy is yesterday's starving artist) This passage in particular is where it begins to get more general " The whole “start-your-own-company, be-your-own-boss” racket is heavily pushed by government agencies and all kinds of employers. It was first put forth as a solution to high unemployment unemployment and then, less openly, as a route to cut costs and erode worker solidarity and class consciousness. It relies on people’s underlying hatred of work, personified by the boss, and sells the dream of autonomy by telling people that they can become their own, fake, boss. The reality is different."

quesera 14y ago
Yes, sociologically/anthropologically interesting. But not relevant to the startup world in the few countries I'm familiar with. I've worked in France. Lovely place, but it's a socialist country with next to no startup culture (note, I was there more than ten years ago). I don't mean "socialist" as a pejorative, except to the extent that it inhibits the startup culture, and even then only for the HN audience. Just suggesting that many people on HN, reading the title, would have expected a very different and more relevant article. I don't agree with the characterization of govt and attitudes toward work and bosses in your quoted passage...not in my anecdotal experience, outside of France. But one truth is clear: working "for yourself" and having "no boss" is almost always just code for having no administrative support and having to please multiple customers with significant, open-ended, and sometimes conflicting demands. Learning to manage these situations is clearly more effort than "getting a job", so it's not attractive or successful for everyone.

quesera 14y ago

Yes, sociologically/anthropologically interesting. But not relevant to the startup world in the few countries I'm familiar with. I've worked in France. Lovely place, but it's a socialist country with next to no startup culture (note, I was there more than ten years ago). I don't mean "socialist" as a pejorative, except to the extent that it inhibits the startup culture, and even then only for the HN audience. Just suggesting that many people on HN, reading the title, would have expected a very different and more relevant article. I don't agree with the characterization of govt and attitudes toward work and bosses in your quoted passage...not in my anecdotal experience, outside of France. But one truth is clear: working "for yourself" and having "no boss" is almost always just code for having no administrative support and having to please multiple customers with significant, open-ended, and sometimes conflicting demands. Learning to manage these situations is clearly more effort than "getting a job", so it's not attractive or successful for everyone.