6 ms·

Why I Stopped Selling My Time for a Living

30 points by sherm8n 13y ago

benwerd 13y ago
I'd actually kill (almost) for the schedule on the T-shirt. Which isn't to say that I disagree with the post, but the author had it pretty good!
- sherm8n 13y ago
  Jeez, what's your schedule like?
  - ryan-allen 13y ago
    Well, the post's schedule didn't have any work in it, maybe the dude actually has to do some work as well as show up 9-5.
  - ramchip 13y ago
    I think it's common to work 9:00-19:00, 9:30-20:00. That's my schedule (working at a bank). Sometimes I also have to connect in the middle of the night if there's a problem in some other time zone. I haven't ever heard of a programmer working 9-5 in Tokyo.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  The problem for most white-collar workers is that the actual work demands are low, but the emotional overhead of subordination and mandatory presence is as bad as ever. The T-shirt describes someone for whom the work demands are low, presumably because of a defective office culture that leaves everyone enervated. Easy jobs are usually emotionally harder than difficult ones, if that makes sense. Most white-collar environments boil the work down to triviality (the executives take the fun stuff, and the challenging projects aren't attempted, being "too risky") and become similar to prisons: mandatory presence beyond purpose.
phaer 13y ago
It might be off topic, but I read some posts about people working while traveling around. How does that work with taxes? I am currently working in another country, but still in the european union, and quite a hassle to get all that bureaucratic stuff done for just 3 months. I imagine it must be more complicated if you don't even have a work permit at start. Do you just do it illegal/unregistered? Are tax laws more tolerant at the places you choose? Doesn't it matter?
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Depends on how you do it. Are you working for yourself? Or for an employer? If its an employer, yes, you're going to have to handle a bunch of tax red tape. I'm a US citizen. Assume I have a webapp. I develop this app as I travel, have paying customers, etc. It doesn't matter I'm in the middle of nowhere Africa, because I'm accepting payments with Stripe into a US-based business checking account, which I then run payroll from into a US-based personal checking account. I then pay my taxes electronically from this account. In that case, your taxes are pretty straightforward.
  - gamblor956 13y ago
    I hate to burst your bubble...but it does matter. Not for purposes of U.S. taxes, but for purposes of whatever countries you are in while you were traveling. If the app is even moderately successful, those countries could treat your app's income as wholly or partially subject to their income taxes. (This is not much of an issue with Canada, EU nations, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, or S. Korea. It is very much an issue with most other countries, especially South American and African countries.) It depends heavily on the tax laws of the countries in which you are traveling, the type of work you perform, and the amount of such work in proportion to work performed elsewhere. There's a reason that so many multinational companies hold their board meetings in the Caymans, with a quorum of directors physically present. It's not because the Caymans are a great vacation destination (they are) but because they must hold the board meetings there to satisfy location requirements arising from the company's tax structure. (See e.g., the Dutch Sandwich structure and the Double Irish structure.)
rfnslyr 13y ago
I would be fired if my day looked like that. I can understand how you feel after working a 9-5, or in my case, a 9-8 because I work at a bank, and anything lower, you look lazy! 6am wake 6-7 - shower/prepare for the day 7am breakfast 8am prepare 6 meals for the day (bodybuilder) 9am leave for work 10am get in 10 - 10:30 - check mail, prioritize mail, i dont get much mail 10:30 coffee run - everyone in the office sees this as their last opportunity to fuck about for 15 minutes 11 - 8pm - literally just code, if I get up, it has to be accounted for 8pm - 1am - go to classes to finish a useless degree i dont need because my employer requests it Then at about 1am I like to fantasize about creative ways to kill myself, then sleep. I can't wait to save enough money for 3+ years of funding my own shenanigans. T-minus one year to go! Good luck OP. Technologists are the modern day bohemians.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  > 11 - 8pm - literally just code, if I get up, it has to be accounted for > 8pm - 1am - go to classes to finish a useless degree i dont need because my employer requests it This right here would be making me look for another gig ASAP.
  - rfnslyr 13y ago
    The money is really great, I work with people that are also really great, and the job is actually really fun. It's more impressive than any other gig I could find. I'm learning faster than I have ever before as well. I wouldn't drop this gig for another in the world, at least not until my contract is over.
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      To each their own. I could never imagine needing to account why I'm getting up from where I'm working. IT/developer jobs are a dime a dozen for the foreseeable future.
- matthewmacleod 13y ago
  Not to be too blunt, but why are you working in that environment? There is absolutely no shortage of high-paying jobs for developers.
DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
This seems to only be true for very, very few start-ups, all of which are small, ie, single employee. The moment that there's a second person, your life begins to depend on their schedule, involve their input in plans, etc. Even if you're the boss, it's a terrible habit to just declare you're leaving without taking in to account how it will impact other people. I'd argue you're probably /more/ restricted in many start-ups than you are in a typical office environment, where you're just one of many, because of how important you, personally, and your involvement is likely to be to the whole team/company. Many of the points also only apply to people who are doing software for execution on servers or apps or similar projects. If you're working on embedded hardware, for instance, it becomes much, much harder to just take your laptop and work somewhere else.
- sherm8n 13y ago
  I can only speak in the context of software companies. But there are many companies who have completely distributed teams and thrive. My favorite is Buffer's story: http://joel.is/post/54284926855/questions-i-ask-myself-about-working-as-distributed http://joel.is/post/54284926855/questions-i-ask-myself-about...
mlangdon 13y ago
I have a tough time relating to the attitude toward being employed (as a programmer) that gets thrown around here. I know many employers are exploitative. But you don't have to work for an evil mega corp. I work for a company where I can count the employees on one hand. All my code is used (unless I throw it away or refactor it). The work is interesting, the problems are challenging and semi-novel. I get to learn things every day. What I'm saying is, I actually love my job. If you get paid to program and you're not loving it, you can go find a company doing something interesting without a lot of corporate crap. There's also the possibility you don't actually like programming, so. This is not to say a startup is not an option, but there are plenty of other options with less skin in the game.
- jaggederest 13y ago
  > I know many employers are exploitative. By definition, they're all exploitative, even the one you work at. If they gave you the proceeds of your labor, they'd be out of business, and if they don't, they're exploitative. The only 'logically fair' form of organization of labor is a cooperative, and that only when everyone contributes according to their share.
  - mlangdon 13y ago
    You say I'm being exploited; I say you have adopted a viewpoint designed to create maximum unhappiness in the reality I live in. Potato; potato.
    - jaggederest 13y ago
      I'm not saying you should be unhappy about it. Hell I do the same thing. Just don't go in with rose colored glasses like they employ you out of charity. Businesses are there to make a profit, and being employed entails giving up some of that profit.
matthewmacleod 13y ago
This makes me feel pretty uncomfortable - maybe it's the sense of superiority the author puts across. A couple of the more irritating snippets: In a regular 9-5 job you’re selling your time to an employer Or, to look at it another way, you are collaborating with a number of colleagues to develop and sell software, and you are all sharing the income. See how that's the same thing, phrased differently? Attitude matters. You can do whatever you want now. Everything is under your control. It’s not dependent on your boss, co-workers, or other departments. You decide what projects to work on. You decide when you want to work on them. You even decide whether or not you want to get out of bed every day. You're not dependent on anything - except your customers or clients, your investors, your employees, third parties… the list goes on. Sure, you could choose to stay in bed, or leave for a week and do no work - but you'd have to consider what the implications would be for your services, your family, staff and so on. Sometimes, the illusion of freedom is more dangerous. You get to put all your time and effort into only things you’re truly passionate about. Nope - all of the grunt work still has to be done. Need a stupid feature for a large client? You'll probably be doing it. And you'll be doing all of that sysadmin stuff you hate too. Selling your time for money to an employer will put a cap on the amount of money you can make... You are generating more money for their business than they’re paying you. That’s the only way they can run a profitable business. Which means you’re getting screwed. It's a trade-off, isn't it? I think we can all accept that the self-employed will keep more of the value they generate. But the other side of the coin is that they're exposed to more risk. Not a bad trade-off, especially if you've got a family. Most of the software you write at a company doesn’t ever ship. I can count on one hand the number of features I've ever developed which didn't ship, and quickly. Maybe if you work at a dysfunctional company, this could be the case. tl;dr: don't take a job at a rubbish company you're not interested in. Enjoy what you do - have you seen what the market is like for "developer time" recently? You can have your pick of companies, developing software for almost any imaginable market, and earn an impressive salary doing it. Okay, maybe this works for you - and that's great, I'm all behind people finding work that suits their lifestyles. But I've got an awesome 9–5 job, where I am paid very well to work with great people on interesting products. There are a lot of other people in that situation, and I don't think that it's quite a clear-cut as the author makes out.
- sherm8n 13y ago
Nursie 13y ago
I do sell my time for money. Directly. As a contractor I have an hourly rate and people take me on as needed. The money is good, I like meeting new people and what I really, really like is working on a project, seeing it ship and then going on to something else entirely. Although it's also awesome that I get paid for every minute I work, if the client wants overtime I get paid more, if they don't I'm out the door at 5. I set my own vacation allowance and when an email comes in from a client at 3am to tell us how awesome the product is I don't care. So IMHO, go the other way start selling your time for a living. Stop pretending you give a crap about anything but yourself and cold, hard cash, go contract!
- sherm8n 13y ago
  Well, as a contractor you can start selling outcomes instead of selling time. So for example, you're able increase sales for a business by 9% in a month. That's a whole lot of freaking money. Suppose it only takes you 5 hours of work. Maybe you're an expert at conversion rate optimization. Your client won't blink if you tell them it will cost $X0,000. That's way better for you than charging $200/hr for 5 hours.
  - zanny 13y ago
    Charging by the hour, as the basal form of hourly wage employment or in contracting, is just the worst case scenario when you have no other metrics to effectively predict and judge performance on. But that means you have to take the fall if you aren't good at whatever alternative payment criteria you agree to. It just ends up being the default because it is somewhat safe, but if I were ever doing contract gigs I'd definitely rather charge by feature than by hour.
    - Nursie 13y ago
      That's up to you. There's a well established contract market here in the uk that does not work that way.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    I see that as consultancy, not contracting. An equally valid and even more lucrative occupation I will probably get into sooner or later. I go to clients who have a project in mind, they need a team to do it, usually full time for several months, but don't need them post-delivery. I get paid, I get to do novel work, and I get to get the f*ck out on time :)
jmadsen 13y ago
Seriously - this guy was paid a full-time salary and most of his time was apparently free to use as he chose - and he chose to spend it preparing for lunch & browsing the internet His problem was he had no drive or personal work ethic. Where he could have been learning just about anything, he seems to have just frittered his day away. So his solution is: He's going to start a business where he can take vacation anytime he wants? Based on his 2 years experience surfing cat videos? I don't think we'll be hearing about his IPO any time soon.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
austinz 13y ago
If I felt competent enough to call myself a "10X developer, marketer and entrepreneur", I'd consider becoming a consultant. But I'm not anywhere near that stage yet, and there's a lot I can learn (and am learning) where I am right now. So, the argument can be a decent one (self-employment brings certain benefits that are inimical to working for a salary), but there are also trade-offs involved.
agibsonccc 13y ago
I think there's something to be said for the general concept. Something to consider is risk vs reward though. If you're comfortable doing sales and the technical part or maybe even harder good at delegation and have some financial resources, you might be able to pull this off. A job is pretty consistent though and frankly can be less demanding even if you are learning new skills or working with smart people. That being said, I think collaborating on open source still can give you that part of work you might be missing. There are positives and negatives to both lifestyles. Some are better at certain parts of the field than others. I personally had a product take off, and and now backpacking in the valley for as long as I want. I've been able to meet one new customer a day (literally) for the past few weeks. What they DON'T tell you is what it can take to get to that. It's ok to talk about the idea of not selling time for money AS LONG as you don't sensationalize it. Everyone has their preferences.
peferron 13y ago
The beach again? It must be the 5th time I see the beach presented as some kind of ideal workplace and I just don't get it. I'd rather spend my time at the beach resting, swimming and reading a good book, and then get the work done in a place with consistent lighting, real mouse & keyboard, fast and stable internet, a second screen, whiteboards, etc. Also, startups are hard. Making twice your corporate salary by working on a laptop at the beach with a spotty internet connection sounds like a scam ("my aunt makes $5000/week on the laptop") and there's a reason why it does. It's not impossible - not much is impossible with startups really - and you might just make it if you're very lucky and very talented, but you're stacking the deck against you in a game already more than difficult enough. Finally, how are you going to fund all these travels and living expenses unless your startup is profitable from day 1? With all this money saved from the evil corporate job I guess. This is way too black & white.
inovator 13y ago
This is seriously a first world country's software engineers problem. Anyone of my friends who is not currently employed as software engineer would do anything for that schedule and $100k/yearly salaries. I think sometime people just take too much things for granted; we are just happened to love what we do and get paid/spoiled a lot by this industry. Imagine this industry is not needed; I am sure you would be begging to have this flexible office hours. From my point of view, work is the place I get PAID to learn something news from other. Someday, I stayed until 8pm or work on weekend. Does that mean I was forced to or get paid overtime? No, I stayed because I have the urge to learn and solve the problem. Now, if you think about work from that perspective then it wouldn't be so bad now, would it? FWIW, I am not criticizing anyone but just simply giving my point of view and how fortunate I felt to be pampered from this industry. And just maybe, my view is different from others because I just graduated from college and always eager to learn. Love what you do and do what you love!
Kynlyn 13y ago
Oh stop it. Get over yourself, already. I've run my own software business for over a decade now and I still have a boss. It's called The Free Market. I can decide I'm above doing certain tasks, but my customers can also decide to go to my competition if my company isn't taking care of their needs. And sometimes my customers need things that I really don't feel like doing. But I do them..because they are my customers; they pay the bills. They are the boss.

30 points by sherm8n 13y ago

I'd actually kill (almost) for the schedule on the T-shirt. Which isn't to say that I disagree with the post, but the author had it pretty good!

sherm8n 13y ago
Jeez, what's your schedule like?
- ryan-allen 13y ago
  Well, the post's schedule didn't have any work in it, maybe the dude actually has to do some work as well as show up 9-5.
- ramchip 13y ago
  I think it's common to work 9:00-19:00, 9:30-20:00. That's my schedule (working at a bank). Sometimes I also have to connect in the middle of the night if there's a problem in some other time zone. I haven't ever heard of a programmer working 9-5 in Tokyo.
michaelochurch 13y ago
The problem for most white-collar workers is that the actual work demands are low, but the emotional overhead of subordination and mandatory presence is as bad as ever. The T-shirt describes someone for whom the work demands are low, presumably because of a defective office culture that leaves everyone enervated. Easy jobs are usually emotionally harder than difficult ones, if that makes sense. Most white-collar environments boil the work down to triviality (the executives take the fun stuff, and the challenging projects aren't attempted, being "too risky") and become similar to prisons: mandatory presence beyond purpose.

phaer 13y ago

It might be off topic, but I read some posts about people working while traveling around. How does that work with taxes? I am currently working in another country, but still in the european union, and quite a hassle to get all that bureaucratic stuff done for just 3 months. I imagine it must be more complicated if you don't even have a work permit at start. Do you just do it illegal/unregistered? Are tax laws more tolerant at the places you choose? Doesn't it matter?

toomuchtodo 13y ago
Depends on how you do it. Are you working for yourself? Or for an employer? If its an employer, yes, you're going to have to handle a bunch of tax red tape. I'm a US citizen. Assume I have a webapp. I develop this app as I travel, have paying customers, etc. It doesn't matter I'm in the middle of nowhere Africa, because I'm accepting payments with Stripe into a US-based business checking account, which I then run payroll from into a US-based personal checking account. I then pay my taxes electronically from this account. In that case, your taxes are pretty straightforward.
- gamblor956 13y ago
  I hate to burst your bubble...but it does matter. Not for purposes of U.S. taxes, but for purposes of whatever countries you are in while you were traveling. If the app is even moderately successful, those countries could treat your app's income as wholly or partially subject to their income taxes. (This is not much of an issue with Canada, EU nations, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, or S. Korea. It is very much an issue with most other countries, especially South American and African countries.) It depends heavily on the tax laws of the countries in which you are traveling, the type of work you perform, and the amount of such work in proportion to work performed elsewhere. There's a reason that so many multinational companies hold their board meetings in the Caymans, with a quorum of directors physically present. It's not because the Caymans are a great vacation destination (they are) but because they must hold the board meetings there to satisfy location requirements arising from the company's tax structure. (See e.g., the Dutch Sandwich structure and the Double Irish structure.)

rfnslyr 13y ago

I would be fired if my day looked like that. I can understand how you feel after working a 9-5, or in my case, a 9-8 because I work at a bank, and anything lower, you look lazy! 6am wake 6-7 - shower/prepare for the day 7am breakfast 8am prepare 6 meals for the day (bodybuilder) 9am leave for work 10am get in 10 - 10:30 - check mail, prioritize mail, i dont get much mail 10:30 coffee run - everyone in the office sees this as their last opportunity to fuck about for 15 minutes 11 - 8pm - literally just code, if I get up, it has to be accounted for 8pm - 1am - go to classes to finish a useless degree i dont need because my employer requests it Then at about 1am I like to fantasize about creative ways to kill myself, then sleep. I can't wait to save enough money for 3+ years of funding my own shenanigans. T-minus one year to go! Good luck OP. Technologists are the modern day bohemians.

toomuchtodo 13y ago
> 11 - 8pm - literally just code, if I get up, it has to be accounted for > 8pm - 1am - go to classes to finish a useless degree i dont need because my employer requests it This right here would be making me look for another gig ASAP.
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  The money is really great, I work with people that are also really great, and the job is actually really fun. It's more impressive than any other gig I could find. I'm learning faster than I have ever before as well. I wouldn't drop this gig for another in the world, at least not until my contract is over.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    To each their own. I could never imagine needing to account why I'm getting up from where I'm working. IT/developer jobs are a dime a dozen for the foreseeable future.
matthewmacleod 13y ago
Not to be too blunt, but why are you working in that environment? There is absolutely no shortage of high-paying jobs for developers.

DerpDerpDerp 13y ago

This seems to only be true for very, very few start-ups, all of which are small, ie, single employee. The moment that there's a second person, your life begins to depend on their schedule, involve their input in plans, etc. Even if you're the boss, it's a terrible habit to just declare you're leaving without taking in to account how it will impact other people. I'd argue you're probably /more/ restricted in many start-ups than you are in a typical office environment, where you're just one of many, because of how important you, personally, and your involvement is likely to be to the whole team/company. Many of the points also only apply to people who are doing software for execution on servers or apps or similar projects. If you're working on embedded hardware, for instance, it becomes much, much harder to just take your laptop and work somewhere else.

sherm8n 13y ago
I can only speak in the context of software companies. But there are many companies who have completely distributed teams and thrive. My favorite is Buffer's story: http://joel.is/post/54284926855/questions-i-ask-myself-about-working-as-distributed http://joel.is/post/54284926855/questions-i-ask-myself-about...

mlangdon 13y ago

I have a tough time relating to the attitude toward being employed (as a programmer) that gets thrown around here. I know many employers are exploitative. But you don't have to work for an evil mega corp. I work for a company where I can count the employees on one hand. All my code is used (unless I throw it away or refactor it). The work is interesting, the problems are challenging and semi-novel. I get to learn things every day. What I'm saying is, I actually love my job. If you get paid to program and you're not loving it, you can go find a company doing something interesting without a lot of corporate crap. There's also the possibility you don't actually like programming, so. This is not to say a startup is not an option, but there are plenty of other options with less skin in the game.

jaggederest 13y ago
> I know many employers are exploitative. By definition, they're all exploitative, even the one you work at. If they gave you the proceeds of your labor, they'd be out of business, and if they don't, they're exploitative. The only 'logically fair' form of organization of labor is a cooperative, and that only when everyone contributes according to their share.
- mlangdon 13y ago
  You say I'm being exploited; I say you have adopted a viewpoint designed to create maximum unhappiness in the reality I live in. Potato; potato.
  - jaggederest 13y ago
    I'm not saying you should be unhappy about it. Hell I do the same thing. Just don't go in with rose colored glasses like they employ you out of charity. Businesses are there to make a profit, and being employed entails giving up some of that profit.

matthewmacleod 13y ago

This makes me feel pretty uncomfortable - maybe it's the sense of superiority the author puts across. A couple of the more irritating snippets: In a regular 9-5 job you’re selling your time to an employer Or, to look at it another way, you are collaborating with a number of colleagues to develop and sell software, and you are all sharing the income. See how that's the same thing, phrased differently? Attitude matters. You can do whatever you want now. Everything is under your control. It’s not dependent on your boss, co-workers, or other departments. You decide what projects to work on. You decide when you want to work on them. You even decide whether or not you want to get out of bed every day. You're not dependent on anything - except your customers or clients, your investors, your employees, third parties… the list goes on. Sure, you could choose to stay in bed, or leave for a week and do no work - but you'd have to consider what the implications would be for your services, your family, staff and so on. Sometimes, the illusion of freedom is more dangerous. You get to put all your time and effort into only things you’re truly passionate about. Nope - all of the grunt work still has to be done. Need a stupid feature for a large client? You'll probably be doing it. And you'll be doing all of that sysadmin stuff you hate too. Selling your time for money to an employer will put a cap on the amount of money you can make... You are generating more money for their business than they’re paying you. That’s the only way they can run a profitable business. Which means you’re getting screwed. It's a trade-off, isn't it? I think we can all accept that the self-employed will keep more of the value they generate. But the other side of the coin is that they're exposed to more risk. Not a bad trade-off, especially if you've got a family. Most of the software you write at a company doesn’t ever ship. I can count on one hand the number of features I've ever developed which didn't ship, and quickly. Maybe if you work at a dysfunctional company, this could be the case. tl;dr: don't take a job at a rubbish company you're not interested in. Enjoy what you do - have you seen what the market is like for "developer time" recently? You can have your pick of companies, developing software for almost any imaginable market, and earn an impressive salary doing it. Okay, maybe this works for you - and that's great, I'm all behind people finding work that suits their lifestyles. But I've got an awesome 9–5 job, where I am paid very well to work with great people on interesting products. There are a lot of other people in that situation, and I don't think that it's quite a clear-cut as the author makes out.

sherm8n 13y ago

Nursie 13y ago

I do sell my time for money. Directly. As a contractor I have an hourly rate and people take me on as needed. The money is good, I like meeting new people and what I really, really like is working on a project, seeing it ship and then going on to something else entirely. Although it's also awesome that I get paid for every minute I work, if the client wants overtime I get paid more, if they don't I'm out the door at 5. I set my own vacation allowance and when an email comes in from a client at 3am to tell us how awesome the product is I don't care. So IMHO, go the other way start selling your time for a living. Stop pretending you give a crap about anything but yourself and cold, hard cash, go contract!

sherm8n 13y ago
Well, as a contractor you can start selling outcomes instead of selling time. So for example, you're able increase sales for a business by 9% in a month. That's a whole lot of freaking money. Suppose it only takes you 5 hours of work. Maybe you're an expert at conversion rate optimization. Your client won't blink if you tell them it will cost $X0,000. That's way better for you than charging $200/hr for 5 hours.
- zanny 13y ago
  Charging by the hour, as the basal form of hourly wage employment or in contracting, is just the worst case scenario when you have no other metrics to effectively predict and judge performance on. But that means you have to take the fall if you aren't good at whatever alternative payment criteria you agree to. It just ends up being the default because it is somewhat safe, but if I were ever doing contract gigs I'd definitely rather charge by feature than by hour.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    That's up to you. There's a well established contract market here in the uk that does not work that way.
- Nursie 13y ago
  I see that as consultancy, not contracting. An equally valid and even more lucrative occupation I will probably get into sooner or later. I go to clients who have a project in mind, they need a team to do it, usually full time for several months, but don't need them post-delivery. I get paid, I get to do novel work, and I get to get the f*ck out on time :)

jmadsen 13y ago

Seriously - this guy was paid a full-time salary and most of his time was apparently free to use as he chose - and he chose to spend it preparing for lunch & browsing the internet His problem was he had no drive or personal work ethic. Where he could have been learning just about anything, he seems to have just frittered his day away. So his solution is: He's going to start a business where he can take vacation anytime he wants? Based on his 2 years experience surfing cat videos? I don't think we'll be hearing about his IPO any time soon.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

austinz 13y ago

If I felt competent enough to call myself a "10X developer, marketer and entrepreneur", I'd consider becoming a consultant. But I'm not anywhere near that stage yet, and there's a lot I can learn (and am learning) where I am right now. So, the argument can be a decent one (self-employment brings certain benefits that are inimical to working for a salary), but there are also trade-offs involved.

agibsonccc 13y ago

I think there's something to be said for the general concept. Something to consider is risk vs reward though. If you're comfortable doing sales and the technical part or maybe even harder good at delegation and have some financial resources, you might be able to pull this off. A job is pretty consistent though and frankly can be less demanding even if you are learning new skills or working with smart people. That being said, I think collaborating on open source still can give you that part of work you might be missing. There are positives and negatives to both lifestyles. Some are better at certain parts of the field than others. I personally had a product take off, and and now backpacking in the valley for as long as I want. I've been able to meet one new customer a day (literally) for the past few weeks. What they DON'T tell you is what it can take to get to that. It's ok to talk about the idea of not selling time for money AS LONG as you don't sensationalize it. Everyone has their preferences.

peferron 13y ago

The beach again? It must be the 5th time I see the beach presented as some kind of ideal workplace and I just don't get it. I'd rather spend my time at the beach resting, swimming and reading a good book, and then get the work done in a place with consistent lighting, real mouse & keyboard, fast and stable internet, a second screen, whiteboards, etc. Also, startups are hard. Making twice your corporate salary by working on a laptop at the beach with a spotty internet connection sounds like a scam ("my aunt makes $5000/week on the laptop") and there's a reason why it does. It's not impossible - not much is impossible with startups really - and you might just make it if you're very lucky and very talented, but you're stacking the deck against you in a game already more than difficult enough. Finally, how are you going to fund all these travels and living expenses unless your startup is profitable from day 1? With all this money saved from the evil corporate job I guess. This is way too black & white.

inovator 13y ago

This is seriously a first world country's software engineers problem. Anyone of my friends who is not currently employed as software engineer would do anything for that schedule and $100k/yearly salaries. I think sometime people just take too much things for granted; we are just happened to love what we do and get paid/spoiled a lot by this industry. Imagine this industry is not needed; I am sure you would be begging to have this flexible office hours. From my point of view, work is the place I get PAID to learn something news from other. Someday, I stayed until 8pm or work on weekend. Does that mean I was forced to or get paid overtime? No, I stayed because I have the urge to learn and solve the problem. Now, if you think about work from that perspective then it wouldn't be so bad now, would it? FWIW, I am not criticizing anyone but just simply giving my point of view and how fortunate I felt to be pampered from this industry. And just maybe, my view is different from others because I just graduated from college and always eager to learn. Love what you do and do what you love!

Kynlyn 13y ago

Oh stop it. Get over yourself, already. I've run my own software business for over a decade now and I still have a boss. It's called The Free Market. I can decide I'm above doing certain tasks, but my customers can also decide to go to my competition if my company isn't taking care of their needs. And sometimes my customers need things that I really don't feel like doing. But I do them..because they are my customers; they pay the bills. They are the boss.