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I've hired lots of people that used to run their own businesses and want to go back to being an employee.

Are you sure they want to or did they just go out of business? If you were the person hiring them then they would probably feel compelled to present themselves as enthusiastic about wanting to be an employee. You are probably not getting their true feelings. It feels pretty wretched to admit defeat and go begging for your job back but you do it with a smile if you've got mouths to feed.

I'm pretty sure at least a few people genuinely wanted to. they ended up being pretty happy as they ended up working at our company for many years.

I have no idea how long you've been working, but for myself, my wants and desires have changed pretty significantly over the years. Plenty of people (not just in technology) want change in their career, and are more than willing to trade off the freedom of running your own business with the freedom of being an employee, and not having to worry about the 10 zillion things you have to worry about when you're running the show.

I've also hired plenty of technologists that had similar experiences with management. Do anything long enough, and the grass on the other side starts to look a whole lot greener.

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