I think the actual software programmer job working for a company is different than someone working alone erratic hours, building apps, marketing, selling, and b

I think the actual software programmer job working for a company is different than someone working alone erratic hours, building apps, marketing, selling, and breaking even. It's quite challenging in itself to produce good software product let alone selling it and breaking even so it'd be interesting to see some statistics for single founder startups or micro software vendors. I would say the stress is the biggest for SaaS type of software products, as someone posted a video here about "Constant Contact", it's described as the slow ramp of death because it takes so long and hard to reach that magic upward slope. These are all just my magical assumptions based on my own situation and experience. I'm sure there's ton of positive, empathetic, emotionally intelligent coder/hacker/entrepreneurs although there's lot of Aspies, who studies have shown to be greater risk of depression.