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This pretty well matches my personal experience, fwiw. I was pretty content as a youth to have a full time job working for someone else, then I saw a couple of

This pretty well matches my personal experience, fwiw. I was pretty content as a youth to have a full time job working for someone else, then I saw a couple of really good, young, skilled people get unceremoniously "let go" one day. A few years later it happened to me, and I ended up bouncing around from job to job for a while before starting my own business. I didn't start my business solely because of employment issues. I was still employable, I could've gone and gotten another job. I wanted to be able to provide something to lots of different businesses at the same time, and striking out on my own seemed like the best way to do that. But, seeing other people lose their job and losing my own at one point completely destroyed any belief I had in job security. I naively believed at first that only "bad" employees get fired; as long as you were valuable to your employer, your employer took care of you. So launching my own business seemed like better job security. Except, that was naive too. I really didn't understand all of the benefits of employment: paid time off, a schedule, mostly reliable income, all of the resources that a larger business has, and most of all, the ability to leave work at work and go home and live an entirely different life. I think the social contract between employees and employers is pretty broken in the U.S. at the moment. Employees are spending way too much time at work on Facebook and Reddit and other things; employers largely aren't treating their workers as anything other than human livestock. But I still wouldn't recommend getting into business for yourself to most people. It's tremendously difficult. A little less than 10 years later, and I'm doing OK and my business now employs other people and is still growing -- very, very slowly -- but I'm still attracted to a stable, reasonably well paying job.

beachstartup 12y ago
> destroyed any belief I had in job security your story exactly parallels mine. living in cold, harsh reality for the past few years has really opened my eyes to a lot of things, including many philosophical questions about what society is, how it works, and how it's broken. it has also taught me to respect a wide variety of professions that i once thought were bullshit. basically, a lot of these societal 'truths' (about jobs, marriage, school, money, housing, government, etc.) that we accept as really just projected ideals that dress up reality for mass easy living. these ideals (they're myths, really) have worked for decades and are beginning to unravel. just look at the state of employment, gender relations, inequality, debt, financial shenanigans, civil liberties... it's a circus of epic proportions. yet people are so afraid of breaking out of established tracks until they're forced against a wall. it's a complete mind fuck. kind of a dark take on it, but really it's just a transitional phase, it's not the end of the world. i think a lot of people feel a general anxiety even if they can't articulate the concern. this, even though the economy is ostensibly recovering. having said all that, i would never take another tech job ever again with anything less than $10M in the bank, a very small (but real) possibility. my tolerance for bullshit from any superior would be exactly zero. sorry, can't do it. and as i'm sure you know part of 'seeing the truth' is realizing that your business could fail in a matter of weeks - you sound like the kind of guy that is also mentally prepared for that. if everything were to go south for me tomorrow, i would rather work as a bartender or whatever somewhere warm and cheap and just live out my days being a beach bum. i don't need a company or employer to work on my own hobbies. truth.
- jqm 12y ago
  You would still take a job if you had 10M in the bank? I might.. but it wouldn't be for the money. It would be out of interest (which is already what I do).
  - beachstartup 12y ago
    i want a lot of money. if i had 10M, i'd want more.

beachstartup 12y ago

> destroyed any belief I had in job security your story exactly parallels mine. living in cold, harsh reality for the past few years has really opened my eyes to a lot of things, including many philosophical questions about what society is, how it works, and how it's broken. it has also taught me to respect a wide variety of professions that i once thought were bullshit. basically, a lot of these societal 'truths' (about jobs, marriage, school, money, housing, government, etc.) that we accept as really just projected ideals that dress up reality for mass easy living. these ideals (they're myths, really) have worked for decades and are beginning to unravel. just look at the state of employment, gender relations, inequality, debt, financial shenanigans, civil liberties... it's a circus of epic proportions. yet people are so afraid of breaking out of established tracks until they're forced against a wall. it's a complete mind fuck. kind of a dark take on it, but really it's just a transitional phase, it's not the end of the world. i think a lot of people feel a general anxiety even if they can't articulate the concern. this, even though the economy is ostensibly recovering. having said all that, i would never take another tech job ever again with anything less than $10M in the bank, a very small (but real) possibility. my tolerance for bullshit from any superior would be exactly zero. sorry, can't do it. and as i'm sure you know part of 'seeing the truth' is realizing that your business could fail in a matter of weeks - you sound like the kind of guy that is also mentally prepared for that. if everything were to go south for me tomorrow, i would rather work as a bartender or whatever somewhere warm and cheap and just live out my days being a beach bum. i don't need a company or employer to work on my own hobbies. truth.

jqm 12y ago
You would still take a job if you had 10M in the bank? I might.. but it wouldn't be for the money. It would be out of interest (which is already what I do).
- beachstartup 12y ago
  i want a lot of money. if i had 10M, i'd want more.