Why would someone making 30k a week as a consultant take a job[1]?
[1]https://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/05/01/talking-about-money/
[1]https://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/05/01/talking-about-money/
1) 30k contracts don't line up, and you never know when the next opportunity arrives; steady income may be preferable even if it is lower.
2) Money isn't everything. Working on interesting problems with interrsting people is a lot more fulfilling than doing boring work that pays well.
It's very hard to do week in week out. Getting $30k per MONTH for a small business is generally a 3-6 month sales cycle. One-time projects can be shorter of course, esp. in network, but you're always on the biz dev grind if that's your model.
He wasn't 250k/yr salary for 2 consecutive years and a suspect accredited investor.
I think it's cool what he's done and what he's shared to the community, but I do think he gets glorified for his posts which are not always realistic for most people and the projection is that he's killing it when he really isn't.
Also, part of me read this and thought this was sad to see a fellow entrepreneur jump ship, even though I do like Stripe and Atlas.
Ultimately, the consulting business model for individuals or small teams sucks. You're only ever as good as next month, and juggling the sales v delivery cycles is hard, especially if sales/people doesn't excite you. (When you're charging $30K for the week, you can't bugger off for an hour to have a sales meeting.)
Consulting businesses can be scaled, but the dependence on finding the right, skilled people is harder than developing scalable product or software businesses - especially if, like Patrick, you have those skills.
It was lucrative, but not pleasant, and he made more enjoyable money working for himself.