Workers quit jobs in droves to become their own bosses
wsj.com
wsj.com
Even self-employed, you still have many bosses (customers, etc). In fact _those_ bosses can be harder to fire depending on contracting terms... And you might find it harder to churn out the sales to maintain a steady income stream.
Even company-employed, you still should frame things in working-for-yourself. What are you getting out of the relationship? Is the employer holding up its end for you?
The traditional, paternalistic concept of employment is outmoded. It says your career growth should be managed by your employer (don't let it...). It presumes the work you do and your job are always 100% the same (they're not). It assumes a kind of one-sided evaluation of the employee, where the employer has all the power (very untrue these days).
This can't really be overstated enough.
Contracting is one of those things that sounds super easy when you first jump and you already have a client lined up.
But maintaining a steady stream of work is often far more difficult than people expect.
Getting consulting clients is a completely different skillset than doing consulting work. If you're not the type of person who enjoys networking, cold outreach, selling yourself, and chasing deals then the consulting life probably won't be as fun as it may sound on the internet.
In many freelance-heavy professions, like music and acting, having an agent handle this part of business seems to be the default. Is there something similar in tech?
If the gigs found are high paying enough I don't think 30% is unreasonable.
We pay 17%. So not quite the 15% you mentioned, but also far from the 30% others talked about.
We're only in Sweden for now, so maybe this isn't immediately accessible to you. But it shows that it can be done.
I have talked to consulting/contracting shops here in the US before, which might look superficially similar, but there you are generally a direct employee of the company who then contracts you out to their clients. I have generally had a poor perception of such places, though I'm sure some are fine. Kvadrat sounds much better!
My overhead for cold-finding new clients is <5% (against those projects), and I'm not a good salesman: I'm overly direct, opinionated, and have very low tolerance for nonsense. My overhead for recurring clients and referrals is <1% (against those projects), which is also the majority of my business.
Admin, billing, accounting, etc is also <1%, so it's a non issue.
These sales organisations have _much_ better salesmen than me, yet they need >3x the cost to do the job, and they produce worse results?
My guess is: if you actually tried to spend one day per week (20%) for sales and networking you will get a better result. But for many (including me) it is uninteresting / uncomfortable / annoying / etc and therefore many of us overestimate the difficulty of sales.
There is also very likely a notable difference in interest alignment between the sales partners/employees and you. They will make more money/h the faster they sell you and therefore have greatly reduced monetary interest in working significantly more for a higher quote or a more specialised project. They also do not have the deep domain knowledge you do in your areas, and you are much better at judging how well you will enjoy working with a prospective organisation and how interesting you will find any given project.
My experience: Yes they can sell you. They will get lower quotes than you will get yourself. They will find worse projects than you will find on your own. And they cost too much. Still, I had fun with all the groups I've tried, and I still recommend them as a social luxury. Fun, overpriced, business friends.
Being a freelancer myself, I've often asked recruiters about this, and they always dodge the question or reply something like "there's much more to our job than you think". I have not yet figured out what that is exactly.
My best guess, from personal experience, is that they charge 15% and upwards because... they can. Because a lot of (especially technical) contractors are really bad negotiators and just accept whatever is offered.
Given the huge competition between recruiting agencies nowadays (at least where I live in Europe, it seems like there's 10 recruiters for every senior developer), I would think that a new recruiting agency could gain a huge competitive advantage by simply advertising clear & fair commissions.
Instead, all my cold calling, contract negotiations, billing and accounts receivable — things I'm not good at and don't enjoy doing — get taken care of. I'm happy to pay for that. The "luxury" of "business friends" is included.
However, I'd be fine with any kind of work, it doesn't have to be firmware.
In my previous position we built a lot of wearable devices so having a dev system at home was no problem since they're portable by definition. Likewise at my current position, we have larger, but still easily movable development/debug systems since the product I'm working on fits on a desktop. Takes up more room with everything splayed out on a back plate, but still fits on a tabletop.
But going back two jobs where the machines we built were large, very complex and floorstanding, it would be much more difficult.
It's also much easier when the hardware is stable. When you're still in the "bring up" phase, there's a lot of shipping hardware back and forth, or occasional office days together if feasible, especially if you need a $70,000 tool that the company doesn't want you taking home.
As the pandemic has progressed, embedded development has adapted. The biggest reason it's likely to reverse is simply that a lot of companies prefer to have their people onsite.
But the employee gets let’s say $150k/y and f you are hired out for $5k a day you still get your same salary regardless.
I did it for a year and it was miserable. It was great for the first few months, but then I started getting put on more and more menial tasks just to fill out my contract duration and I realized that there was no real point in understanding the systems I was working on in much depth beyond what it took to execute my task.
The other contractors who'd been at it for longer wrote some of the worst code I've seen, even though they were obviously very talented; they just didn't see the point of writing beautiful code if they're not going to be around in a few months to maintain it.
In freelance tech recruiting, the jobs are the scarce resources, not the candidates. Freelance recruiters focus their effort on obtaining new positions for them to fill in, and only then they look for suitable candidates. You can see that in how they angle to find out about other companies that you're interviewing in - they do that, because they very much need it as another lead.
In other words, nobody would care about becoming your agent, because you're fungible. That's why it's not done in our industry. I suspect actors are much less fungible (you can't cast a 20 years old white cheery woman to play 50 years old broody black male who can ride on horses and do a british accent), hence market dynamics are different there.
The commodity in cinema is entirely actors whose name the audience knows and remember.
You can definitely staff a film entirely with superlative talent from the indie world.
In perm hire recruiting, the recruiter is typically paid a percentage of the candidate's starting salary. That means the recruiter and candidate are aligned in negotiation - if the recruiter can negotiate a higher salary, both the recruiter and the candidate are beneficiaries.
Therefore, the more the candidate makes, the more the recruiter makes. Win/win.
For contracting roles, a recruiter is a middleman and trying to maximize their margin, defined as the difference between bill rate (what the client pays the recruiter) and pay rate (what the recruiter pays the candidate).
There are only a few ways the recruiter can maximize margin.
The most obvious is to negotiate the bill rate UP and/or the pay rate DOWN. A less obvious way is to simply try to make sure the candidate with the lowest pay rate gets the job. So if I have two candidates and one is asking for 100/hr and the other is asking 120/hr, if I can get the 100/hr candidate into the job, that means an extra 40K in the recruiter's pocket for a year (based on 2000 hour work year).
I'm admittedly oversimplifying a lot of things here, but the typical recruiting model is not aligned with candidates for contract hiring.
As a recruiter, you could have a similar model for contractors and promise a fixed % of the daily rate. That way, the higher the rate of the contractor, the bigger the commission for the recruiter.
However, I do see your point and I notice most recruiters not being very transparant about their commission, nor do they want to give it up & work with a fixed fee instead. I know one small agency who's very open about their commission and promise to only take a cut for the first year. I hope eventually other freelancers will wise up and choose those types of recruiters over the more shady businesses.
In other words, let's say market rate for your programming skill is 150/hr. I'm your recruiter, and I make you an offer for 170/hr. You should be ecstatic. But what if you find out that I am billing the client for 1000/hr? Would you still be happy? Probably not - you'd feel you're being robbed, even though you are being paid above the market rate.
So should YOU be rewarded for my ability to negotiate the client's rate to 6x market rate?
I'm not saying this is fair or a good way to do business, but I'm just offering you the recruiter's mindset on this.
It's really not this dramatic.
People need software developers. All you really need to do is let enough people - who can hire you - know who you are and what you do. I do this entirely online.
I will say it's way easier when you specialize in a particular industry however.
Right, that's what I said: If you're not the type of person who enjoys networking, putting yourself out there, and setting up contracts with clients then it's going to be a pain to do this.
> I will say it's way easier when you specialize in a particular industry however.
I looked at your profile and it appears you are very specialized in a smaller (fewer overall specialists) market. Big fish in a small pond makes consulting easy. The average developer doing generalized work isn't going to have the same experience, though.
LOL fair point. I guess I never really thought of what I was doing as networking. I don't exactly think of myself as a very extroverted, salesy kind of person. I just went about it from first principles - problem 1 was no one knows I exist, solution was let people know I exist.
> I looked at your profile and it appears you are very specialized in a smaller (fewer overall specialists) market. Big fish in a small pond makes consulting easy. The average developer doing generalized work isn't going to have the same experience, though.
While there is some stuff in my industry that's different (low connectivity and older users) - really the day to day work is not that much different than writing software for any other. I'm sure most people could look at their past employment history and find themselves a market.
Years ago I tried selling myself as a freelancer, but in spite of doing fine work for one or two people, I couldn't find clients, so gave up - I realized that the trick is, you've got to have boss-tier or management-tier friends (aka, be upper middle class).
If that is out of budget, find a partner that can build that aspect of the business.
And it's infuriating how many people keep passing this off as easy or "not that hard". Building up to deals is VERY hard unless you have the skillset for it, and it takes either a LOT of time to develop such a skillset (if you can at all), or it takes natural talent.
Maybe I just lucked into the right niche in the right locale at the right time because I definitely don't have some kind of amazing deal-building skills.
When it was all done and dusted, every ounce of my energy had been poured into this one job for so long, the payment was like a middle finger and barely filled the hole of bad debt that had grown to cover basic living expenses, and it took a couple more months to reconnect with old clients and drum up some new work as I'd essentially fallen off the face of the planet in their eyes. It also took months to recover emotionally and start to feel some joy in life again.
It was a painful, very real education, whereas as an employee you're shielded to an extent from the direct effects of this type of thing since your employer is still legally bound to pay you whether they make good or bad decisions client-wise.
The risks in contracting and self employment are often subtle and not realised for many months until the trap is seen, and I doubt everyone making the transition is aware of all the tricks (net 30 EOM) etc that seem innocuous at first glance but in combination really screw contractors down to terms much less comfortable than sitting in a cubicle 8hrs/day dealing with latent passive aggression from middle management. In the current system at least we just have to weigh up which option suits us better. I was certainly unprepared, but I survived and am stronger / more experienced now with only slight residues of latent psychological damage (mostly self-inflicted).
tl;dr I agree. It's not all roses. Very simple mistakes based on subtle information can have very real, very painful consequences long term and a lot of this knowledge is only gained through hard-won experience. With more inexperienced contractors entering the market it seems like a field day for unscrupulous types looking to lock in some cheap labour without the annoying hassle of traditional employment laws but that's just my hot take. I'd encourage people to think very carefully before making any transition one way or the other that's for sure.
Edit to add - as per your experience the team themselves were pretty good to work with but in my case they had no sway (or at least said they didn't) with whatever archaic nested babushka-esque financial and legal mechanisms this century-old institute had. Perhaps if I'd put my foot down and refused to work it would have forced a proper renegotiation and worked out better in the end but it was a constant state of "we'll be finished next week, just one more thing" so the old sunk cost fallacy was always in deadlock with pragmatism and the frog slowly boiled.
As a contractor/freelancer you can do any kind of contracts. You can commit to free work for whole year if you want (or are stupid enough to sign a contract that requires you to work for free).
With normal employment there are lots of laws that protect you so you don't have to think about your contractual duties. Just turn up and do what is told and you will get paid. When you do contracting it is quite different game.
Don't, under any circumstances, do that.
If the client asks for a fixed price, then don't propose an implementation cost. Instead, propose a discovery cost. I can easily say how long I'll need to figure out what needs to be done and deliver a documented solution with an estimate of the work needed.
If they refuse this approach, then the only other option is "time and materials", i.e. I will send you a log each week of the hours I've worked and the product I've delivered, and you will pay me each week.
If they refuse discovery as well as time and materials, and insist on fixed price, then I walk away.
That’s how I’ve negotiated my last several gigs, and it nicely sidesteps the business development issue.
Also clients are really not like bosses at all - even for me who is on the "software pro" - to use the Daedtech terminology [0]- end of the self employment spectrum.
- There's no polite fiction that I'm going to stick around indefinitely
- The 'interviews' are way shorter, because it's so much easier to fire me. I'm backing myself to deliver which is a show of confidence
- It's just a much more honest and less un-equal conversation. I can survive without them, they can survive without me, but we have a mutually beneficial relationship. Not one based on power or desperation.
[0]: https://daedtech.com/a-taxonomy-of-software-consultants/
In vanilla software consulting it's not uncommon for the middleman to take 20% or a third off the top. Or even more extraordinary amounts in the more traditional places like Booz.
Upwork's taking less than 10%.
It's extraordinarily good value for money compared to many recruiters and other middlemen.
The downside is of course there's a very good community of talented international developers on there.
There is a far larger community of horribly bad developers on there, many of them working at low rates to get high ratings. I am on both sides; hiring and getting hired and the hiring part is far more beneficial imho. What is a huge PITA as well; once someone who is rather mediocre (junior with some promise for instance), after a few good reviews they hike the price up so far that it makes no sense at all hiring them. I have used upwork (and before than Elance and others) for 20 years with 100s of people and almost always people overplay their hand and come back begging for another chance.
Admittedly, there's a large amount of project postings that have unclear or unrealistic requirements (feature or estimate wise), almost always you can expect either some outdated or obscure stack in pre-existing codebases/platforms, typically some badly developed WordPress site that you're supposed to fix or use for things that WordPress isn't really suited for (advanced CRUD), you'll almost never find projects with documentation, any sort of a quality control/code review, or even separate test environments.
There are good projects there every now and then too, but be prepared to compete in a race to the bottom price wise, knowing that many of those potential clients shall pick the cheaper developers, which sometimes will result in similar neglect of the codebases, because if you accept multiple projects you only have so much time for each (and the clients won't necessarily know any better). Sometimes the developers are simply in a lower CoL area, but depending on where you live, you'll also have to cope with that, some projects will just be below your living expenses.
I'd probably say that in my limited experience, around 90-95% of the project postings on the site as a web dev were like that at any given time, whereas around 70-80% of the projects that i got to work on weren't satisfactory in regards to how easy or even "safe" the development process and communication was, even if i tried avoiding the red flags for the most part. I got to work for some people that were decent, however the code quality wasn't satisfactory, nor was anything surrounding the code itself.
There are circumstances in which freelancing through them can work, you can also be even more selective with the projects that you undertake, but unless you have a wide variety of skills, you might find yourself missing out on anything reminiscent of a stable income. The best idea would be to somehow manage to find a few good clients and build a longer term business relationship with them, which is probably one of the better outcomes for everyone.
I guess I've never hired someone at cheap rates, I only ever hired at 30 USD an hour.
When freelancing neither side has the expectation that this is forever. We both understand we have our own businesses but will benefit from this particular time-limited engagement.
In contrast, in employment there's this whole charade where the company pitches it as a brilliant opportunity and you're supposed to play the game and pretend to care about their values, how exciting the work is or be enthused by their mission to change the world when ultimately the only thing that should matter to you is the paycheck.
I get lots of emails for jobs and generate estimates at least twice a month only to find out that the person is a scammer posing as a customer. I also get tons of spam that I have to sift through to make sure no customers are missed. It's far easier to go door to door at real business establishments than to get cold leads over the net now.
I can't really complain though, it's still much better than working for warehouse development shops... Far better work-life balance, and I'm in better control of project quality, client management, and the types of projects I agree to complete.
More specifically not the sales per se but the extensive amount of in depth relationship work at very sophisticated clients. Or the cheap clients that always want something for nothing. You can have a lot of inbound, but how many of those clients are qualified?
Then there’s the complicated contract negotiation process, which is its own huge headache with months of legal negotiation extending well beyond the desired project start time. Often from big companies that role your eyes at you when you say you want to negotiate.
Then when it’s all said and done, chasing payment. They promise they’ll pay in 30, 45, 60 whatever days, but there’s always an excuse for not getting paid. Often made up ones that actually violate your contract with them. But what are you going to do, sue? You can stop work, and we did, but then you’re maybe burning bridges and disrupting the tech colleagues you work with day in, day out…
Relationship work is important in any work. And you’re _always_ selling and communicating value. But when it becomes all about administriva like contracts or being paid, it’s no fun. I don’t think it’s a valuable use of smart peoples time.
Finally, there’s a certain type of company that hires lots of consultants. And they often aren’t the ones you would choose to work with. They hire consultants because they have bigger organizational dysfunction but lack awareness to tackle that dysfunction.
until you screw up :P
The issue is that I did not find one with experience in my activity as it is very particular when compared to that of their average client. And I was reasonably scared that the ones that I could hire could screw me. So I ended up studying how things should be done for this particular case and I think I'm better doing it myself.
Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/private-browsing-use-fi...
Chrome: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95464
Edge: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/browse-in...
Safari: https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/use-private-browsing-...
It's not a big deal, I just have to clear/remove cookies for just that site. I though it wouldn't work in incognito mode because theoretically it would require access to my client certificate which I believe wouldn't/shouldn't work in a private window. Anyway I tried and it worked because the site is not using it in the end.
Just felt like the perfect use case for it, not sure why it wasn't considered previously. Your update makes sense and clears things up, though. Thanks!
Especially now that I’m not elligible for any startup discounts any more (and sole proprietor, so no employees) the thing has become almost automatic.
Just hire an administrator that's competent - they most likely don't need an MBA to do the tasks you're describing.
So whilst your point is spot on I've learned (the hard way) that not everybody has the ability to delegate. It's a skill just like any other.
The idea that this sort of thing is easy is precisely why most startups fail. Sure the ideas and tech and implementation are hard, but that happens to be what most of us are good at. But guess what? The administration of the business is also hard (harder?).
This is just the inverse thought process of a couple of business students with an app idea for which they plan on outsourcing the programming for $5 an hour. It's a simple app, no problem!
Most small businesses fail, too, but a small business such as a boutique consulting services company does not have the same risk profile as a startup.
I never said it's easy, but it's certainly not as hard as building a unicorn. The difficulty is commensurate to the risk and the scale, I hope you can appreciate that?
If you don't want to delegate, then the other only alternative is to put up with doing these jobs (marketing & sales, finance & accounting, etc.) since they are not going away regardless of your technical expertise.
Your comment is not only facetious, but also quite unintelligent.
I was not replying to the idea that "everyone should work for themselves". You've just taken that idea and replied to yourself, not to anything I was saying.
Also, as astonishing as this may seem to a lot of HNers, most modern economies are built upon SMEs. There are good, normal people working in small businesses all over the world. You could run an operation with half a dozen people and focus on technical delivery and strategic sales (I don't think you can ever delegate high-level sales). This poses its own set of challenges but it really is a middle ground between having to do everything as a sole trader and living stressed out of your tits trying to build a unicorn.
I've never found this to be the case. Interviewing for an employee position was usually < 4 hours. But I have to spend way more time than that meeting with clients and putting together proposals before winning a contract.
Job markets do vary from industry to industry so this might not apply to absolutely everyone, but if you're suffering in your current job then I recommend finding a new one ASAP. Your existing experience gives you a lot of leverage during the job search; it's not "fresh out of college" again.
My thoughts on this are I need to network over learning the next thing or getting skilled up ready to jump the next interview hoops.
The networking might reveal opportunities that are more equal rather than the “we’re hiring” “full stack” fare that is generally out there.
Networking and marketing vs interview skills is a pretty solid point, though. If you prefer one of those over the other, then definitely lean towards the associated career path.
But over the years, I came to realize that the majority of the workforce just wants to live the easy life, where everything is done for them. They want to be taken care of.
That sounds overly simplistic and a bit rude. I want to do the work I like, which happens to be writing code, and I don't really care about the business, management or accounting. And the best way to do only the things I like is working at a big company, where everything else is done by other people. Why exactly is this wrong?
Funnily enough that's why I started working for myself.
I'm a freelancer, and my best friend is an employee (both developers). He knows I earn a lot more money, but he explicitly chooses to stay as employee. Why? Because all of the things that you mention.
Plus, when he goes home, he spends time with his family and hobbies. For me, my company is always there. Still need to do administration, see which things I can write off, etc.
I used to think everyone would be like me, once they know how companies really work. But that is not the case. I'm pretty sure everyone knows what they can expect from the company, after a few years in the workforce.
So I definitely don't consider your choice as wrong. It's really about which things you prefer in life.
Why is this wrong? Maybe I am abnormal but for me a job is just a method to receive money. It is the case that my passions are unpractical and not economically profitable, so I work on the part that I can tolerate and leave the business part to people more inclined to do well in that part. It seems like the struggle of entrepreneurship is interpreted morally, while it really doesn't have a moral dimension at all.
The passively employed, especially outside technology often have worringly insecure career trajectories. We are an insulated caste against the problems of the world, partially because we keep up with tech skills.
The stories are crazy from my former roommate who works in "change management," aka babysitting employees who've done the same task with the same software every day for 15 years through an unheaval.
They become like adult babies when you tell them to do something different than what they've done before.
If you take away the requirement for continuing education of the technology work, some extremely nasty things happen to the more passive members of the workforce.
And so on.
(I'm reacting to your judgemental tone in large part because it's just naive. Nobody is good at everything and it's not a matter of wanting an "easy life". Without specialising, we'd be living off the land or in the wilderness with no more technology than we can assemble from raw materials. Anything more, and you're in "easy life" territory.)
I'm also a specialist (software-architect), so I don't have my own farm animals ;).
But I don't think I explained myself properly, so I will try again. As an employee, a lot of things are decided for you: which company phone you have, company car, your career trajectory, bonuses, holidays, etc. You also know how much money will be on your bank account at the end of the month. And when you're sick, you know you're getting paid (EU here :)). This is what I consider the "easy life", because a lot of stuff is decided for you because of company policies. The good thing is that you don't have to overthink all this stuff.
But I don't want that. I want to have a car that I choose, want to negotiate my rate all the time, want to take holidays on my own terms, etc. The price that I pay? A lot of administration. And when I'm sick, I'm not getting paid.
I used to think that everybody wants this freedom that I desire, but that is not the case. And there is definitely nothing wrong with that.
Just like everything, it has benefits and drawbacks, and everybody makes their own choice. And I think still more people prefer to be an employee than self-employed.
Judge me all you want. HN jet setters and growth hackers don't even cross my mind while I'm living my "easy life".
Apparently, this _used to be_ a reasonable option. But "employer loyalty" is much rarer, so now it's a totally unreasonable option.
Think of yourself as a business of one
Recruiters have started approaching me again, really pushing me to work for banks and insurance companies and the like, trying to make me feel like I should be lucky to be granted these opportunities, really stringing me along without naming any figures. I really should take a firmer stand and take over those conversations - send me an e-mail with the companies, technologies, job openings, and wage ranges, then MAYBE we'll talk. But I'll switch jobs on MY terms, not because some salesman who doesn't even know what the fuck I do (else they would do it themselves) tells me what a great opportunity it is.
Unless you are independently wealthy, you are beholden to your employers. Sure, you can always jump ship and find another job, but whatever you end up in you will ultimately have to do work you don't enjoy from time to time, or play politics to keep everybody happy... or deal with a coworker you don't like.
Certainly you could try to operate that way in a traditional job, but you would quickly be fired.
If you were truly your own boss you would have 100% discretion in everything you do, have 100% autonomy to make design decision, technology decisions etc.
This also applies to you if you're a business owner. Just replace the word "coworker" with "employee" or "customer" (or "partner")
I think the point the person you replied to was trying to make is that you should treat yourself as your own business. Your employer-employee relationship is the same as any other business-business relationship. You're basically selling your time and you should continue to do so for as long as it is beneficial for you.
Of course, there are many (in absolute numbers) exceptions, they are very rare on the "employee" side, and not too common on the "customer" side.
It's better to be loyal to yourself and your future prospects rather than those of your employer, particularly in regards to your career.
But it's dishonest to consider yourself your own boss when you are financially beholden to other people.
The ability to walk away with 0 consequence is what gives you power and independence in life. If you still care about some RSU grant that vests at date Y, then you are not a free person, or fully in control of your destiny. If you choose job X because it pays more than job Y, despite being less fulfilling, same story.
You may be happily captive, but captive all the same.
Otherwise I agree.
Yes, in a good year.
> you owned
Only in the Americas. And we all know how that was made possible.
> Only in the Americas. And we all know how that was made possible.
Yup. The term "landlord" didn't originally mean "a guy owning a bunch of flats for rent in London", but rather a noble who rented out his lands to local peasants.
Mobility is [somewhat surprisingly] all good for economic stability and scaling.
We can greatly improve the economy if everyone continues to learn and moves to a position that makes better use of their new and lost abilities. We will also have to improve the corporate bus factor and improve job quality in all possible ways that do but also those that don't cost money.
One might even end up in a job that thy actually cares about rather than poorly pretend. Wouldn't that be something?
I pointed out I have the same choice by walking off a bad team and finding a good one.
Indeed, the statistics they provide aren't as significant as the headline suggests:
> Hundreds of thousands of Americans are striking out on their own...
For reference, the United States has around 160 million employed people. 0.1% of them moving to freelancing might be significant, but is it really a new era? That was happening on the regular well before COVID.
1 in 1000 people striking out on their own doesn't really explain the "ongoing shake-up in the world of work" like they're trying to suggest.
Web dev is not an easy thing to break into, also having the money to really set up and thrive truly limits market competition.
After the burnout of social media though, the need for custom web dev should begin to rise, provided that operational costs don't skyrocket artificially. Cloud hosting adds a lot of potentially high and unpredictable costs to clients too. I usually try to make sure that my regular and "big-idea" clients need to always have a solid plan for proper revenue/monetization before any project paperwork is signed.
I guess the question is whether or not employers will actually balk and start to offer better conditions, or collectively decide that they can get away with staying put with the status quo since people need to eat and afford shelter and they can get away with hiring more naive recent grads and having high turnover seemingly indefinitely.
I've been planning to go solo for more than a year. I've been saving up, and working on validating my ideas on the side while still working a full day job.
Most startups/entrepreneurs fail, so plan for that eventuality. And delay quitting that day job as long as possible.
I've obviously only gotten this advice from other sources and not from personal experience, so be skeptical...
..and remember the survivorship bias in everything you read about this topic.
I run an eBay store that makes around $20k a month and is still growing, but it started as a side gig while I was still working (making less than 5k a month, but I was only working on it for maybe 8-10 hours a week).
Actually validating your ideas before fully committing is a great way to minimise risk and avoid procrastination.
For us (retro games), it's about 50% overall. Of course, this varies greatly from product to product.
Interestingly, most of our higher value products tend to also be higher margin. We've increased revenues significantly by focussing more energy on getting promotions right for said high value, high margin listings.
>Know it depends on what you sell but always interested in launching one.
Then do it. Buy something undervalued from Facebook Marketplace and flip it, or import a small batch of a product with low local competition from Alibaba.
You can optimise from there, but starting small is absolutely a great way to learn the ropes. Worst case scenario, you've lost a couple of hundred bucks and learned a valuable life lesson.
I look at your margins, high ~50%. I look at what you sell, retro games. Not a necessity and also not something that more can be made of, so fairly safe. Unless there is a downturn, then I hope that you have something tucked away.
I look at the recommendation: "Buy something undervalued from Facebook Marketplace and flip it, or import a small batch of a product with low local competition from Alibaba."
And I look around and see the same pattern being repeated. People becoming middle men, inserting themselves in supply chains and charging margin. Rise and repeat and you get more people just repackaging and charging more for what are simple products or things that people might want but do not need.
I dislike this sort of activity because the more margins that are paid mean the more money is siphoned off, fine for luxury good not so great for necessities.
I worry because as more of our economy is devoted to this activity, when there is a downturn large numbers of people lose their jobs.
I hate it morally because it goes against my views of a "good" society. We have created societal structures where people are close to the decision making process where as before we had Kings and courts. We have the ability to do the same with manufacturing, where the people could order directly and not through the "courts".
It’s literally no different than the market manipulation you’d see on World of Warcraft or some other game where there’s a marketplace. People with a ton of money would buy up items at a lower price and then relist them at a ridiculous price - all the while having bots to watch for any listings that were significantly under theirs to make sure no one would buy except from them.
I hate how this is considered a “business”. What a joke.
Rye bread for an example, I like rye bread but only eat it occasionally. Same with tomatoes and avocados. I and the farmers and manufactures can't deal with trying to juggle and maintain inventory.
But cars on the other hand, if you were to set up your manufacturing side with some inventory(so not JIT), you could make every car to order.
Imagine a world where you could go online, pick exactly every option and feature and then have the car delivered in a couple of weeks.
Instead of the current reality of dealerships who hold a large amount of inventory, have to negotiate for deals and search for the features you want.
I view it the same way that I viewed High Frequency Trading, sure the dealers and traders provide "liquidity" but the value for their margin they take is marginal.
You can do this now: https://shop.ford.com/configure/edge/model/customize/se It just ends up being delivered/sold through a dealer. OK, so these days it will be more than a few weeks...
For what it's worth, most of my stock comes from smaller resellers themselves. I will buy large lots that are inefficiently packaged (say, an entire collection of 500 games) and split it into optimally-packaged smaller lots that collectively have more value to the consumer than the lot I bought. We also repair and refurbish huge amounts of consoles (and onsell what we don't refurbish to others who do) and would probably divert an entire pallet of faulty stock every 6 months from ewaste.
Of course, sometimes we do stumble across undervalued small lots and flip them for immediate profit. In these instances, we're absolutely flexing our capitalistic muscle all over people who can't afford to spend $20 on an undervalued N64 game worth 5x that.
I don't get it how are they manipulating the market? Are they really cornering the market? If they haven't cornered the market, and are matching just below the price of competitors, isn't that the exact competitive behavior we want, driving down price?
Let's say an item's near true market value is something like 10 gold (not going to get into how that is determined but let's just go with it). It's going for 10g normally. You have 10,000g+. You decide to buy out the entire market from 0-25g. You can do this because the market for this item might not be gigantic and/or you have so much gold to afford this.
You relist the item for 30g. You setup a bot to buy anything listed under 30g before anyone has much of a chance to see it. The only listing people will see is yours at 30g and those above you. Since you cornered the market and are basically the only listing - everyone has to buy from you for 3x the usual price.
You do this long enough - you get a ton of gold out of it. Usually - the way the games try to correct this behavior so it doesn't happen all the time is through listing fees and other such things. It's to curb this kind of behavior - some even have listing fees that are directly tied to how much more you are selling this item over what you could get for selling it directly to an NPC. (To the point where it doesn't make sense to even list the item - only makes sense to sell it to an NPC)
It's extremely rampant in video games with any kind of market economy and thus why these mechanisms have to be put in place because otherwise it ruins the marketplace for many players. But - the great thing about our real world is that there are no controls for this! Thus, people can buy items for cheap, corner the market on that item, and make a killing. All the while - they take in real money from real people and give literally no fucking value to the system. They are purely rentiers.
Either they are better at reaching customers who are willing to pay more (which provides value, that's a sale that wouldn't have happened if the customer doesn't know to look where it's cheaper) or the original seller just wants cash now and doesn't care about getting max price (in which case the reseller is being paid to supply liquidity and take on some risk of not being able to offload it or it goes down in price).
I understand where you're coming from, but I think you're misunderstanding why many people buy the things they do.
Most consumer purchases outside of food, rent and utilities aren't sacrifices made to made to optimally meet a physical need but instead a fun activity that the consumer engages in order to make them feel special/important.
You can see this in economic terms if you go to buy a second-hand appliance, for example. A current-model washing machine that costs $800 in store might cost $300 on Gumtree or Facebook.
Even accounting for the depreciation (which might be $50 on a year-old machine), less than half of the perceived value is actually in the washing machine itself. The rest comes from the luxury experience of purchasing a new appliance - looking up reviews online, comparing prices, convincing yourself that this particular model is optimal, going down to the nice store to get it, haggling the guy down and finally unwrapping your shiny new thing.
It may not be an optimal distribution of resources in terms of achieving mankind's greater goals, but most retailers are a luxury service just like wedding photography, fine dining or high-class escort services.
We exist to meet a demand.
I think that this affects the price of new vs used moreso than the experience of purchasing it.
The short-term failure rate of second hand goods is nowhere near the 50% that would be needed to justify the price difference in terms of pure rational economic terms, especially given that most informal sellers are happy to guarantee that a product is working at the moment of sale.
This article and elsewhere I've observed that many employers are running antiquated or misled patterns that cause significant anxiety in their workers (examples are performance reviews[1], stacking unrealistic and unneccessary deadlines in attempt to push additional "performance", and excess hours for the appearances of productivity)
I wonder how many employees would be staying if their employers weren't doing dark patterns?
[1]: https://lattice.com/library/how-your-brain-responds-to-perfo...
For the first time in my life, I didn't feel the desire to find a new employer at the two year mark.
It’s hard to tell in advance but any kind of bad vibe … in my experience my gut has been good but it’s a matter of trusting it and having the courage to turn back an offer that is “logically” good.
I've come to believe this anxiety actually stems from high school, where teachers would constantly demand punctuality, full focus and productivity. It was an environment where glancing out of the window could get you yelled at. Years later, I still seem to carry that sense of being constantly on edge, that someone is watching, judging.
Work is a psychologicall rich topic, related to self-worth and livelihood. The work situation could be problematic and you might sense something happening behind the scenes. Trust your feeling.
I had fight similar issues. My excuse to stand up is to eat something. Guess how thin I am… Luckily I changed a lot, it was an 8 year long journey which still ongoing. For me what helped is experimenting, e.g. do some small „crime“ -> experience the lack of arising problem / or that the issue can solved. If you never try just fear, The fear just grows.
For me it was especially hard to accept that I just need sometimes to stare out of the window or draw some graphs by hand, which then ends in the bin. So seemingly unproductive stuff… But in reality this is productive, my brain is working and try to process the topic. Furthermore even just an ordinary discussion with some friend can fire the aha moment.
Also, in general, you are treated as an equal and not as a subordinate, which is very nice.
I don't know if this helps at all, but feel free to hit me up for more details if you want, my contact info is on my profile :)
Most of all though I miss having teammates/peers. That may be the thing that drives me fastest back to full time employment.
Also as far as the contract work that is enjoyable and pays well -- in my experience this mostly has to do with knowing the right people. People who are high up enough in an org and technical enough to be sympathetic to understand what enjoyable jobs for you would be.
I did try a coworking space but it has not been the best year to get that in-person experience. :) I'm vaguely looking into accelerators now but I'm naive so I'd kind of rather build a slow, sustainable, healthy business than get swept up in the mindset having a VC funded startup requires.
> Also as far as the contract work that is enjoyable and pays well -- in my experience this mostly has to do with knowing the right people. People who are high up enough in an org and technical enough to be sympathetic to understand what enjoyable jobs for you would be.
You're right and I misspoke a bit. There are definitely enough opportunities out there but you have to try things out and move on if you don't enjoy it. The last two contracts I had paid decently but I found the style of work completely demotivating. So I keep looking.
Totally agree on the slow sustainable healthy business -- If you're going to bootstrap then I assume you've heard of the MicroConf community? You might want to get plugged in there. At the very least they've got great resources on things bootstrapped founders care about[0].
I meant to suggest hanging around the accelerator because you'd find like-minded people, not necessarily entering it by the way -- for example working as a technical advisor or contributor to the accelerator (and/or the attached VC/PE firms) itself might be interesting and give you the latitude you're looking for.
> You're right and I misspoke a bit. There are definitely enough opportunities out there but you have to try things out and move on if you don't enjoy it. The last two contracts I had paid decently but I found the style of work completely demotivating. So I keep looking.
No worries, I do pretty much exactly the same thing -- if I'd known a better way I would have shared it. I can agree from experience that finding companies you'd want to work at for long periods is very hard, and even more so when you have seen >3 small-to-mid-size companies and how vast the difference in architecture, experience, coworkers, environment, etc can be (especially compared to larger companies).
It seems like if you have a very specific niche you want to target it's easier (i.e. try to be a patio11 type figure in one area that deeply interests you), but if you just want to find interesting problems that span areas/stacks/architectures, it can be hard to find companies that fit.
Good luck out there!
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHoBKQDRkJcOY2BO47q5Ruw
The compensation was pretty good though. I'd still recommend anyone to work there as much as any other Fortune 500 in tech.
[0] https://prospect.org/labor/great-escape-why-workers-quitting... via https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/29/ordinance-of-labourers/
Local food economy is the real economy.
source?
https://newspunch.com/billionaire-globalist-bill-gates-sudde...
This article says the Gates' or their foundation might have a few hundred thousand acres, but the USA has orders of magnitude more farmland.
https://landreport.com/2021/01/bill-gates-americas-top-farml...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25779681
I think the gotcha here is that they rank as the largest /private/ farmland owners, not the largest singular owner of farmland (including corporate farming conglomerates).
I think this story went "viral" through this BusinesssInsider article from May 2021.
https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-land-portfolio-bi...
And it is trivial to see one’s self deriving great value from things like eating fresh fruit and produce and drinking clean water, but not paying anywhere near its “value” for it.
Edit: replace the word value with utility in my comment to get a clearer idea of what I am trying to convey. Value is too vague of an idea to use for this topic.
Basic economics.
> Even the most basic high school microeconomics course must teach students that prices are the intersection of supply and demand curves.
Demand curve is marginal (internalized) value @ quantity, so saying that prices are the intersection of supply and demand curves is exactly saying that they are a function of value at market-clearing quantity, plus telling you where markey-clearing quantity comes from.
In that sense, prices are not a function of an individual’s perceived value of work.
Correct. This is the law of demand, and why price curves slope down with most goods (luxury goods excluded).
I highly recommend listening to "Bullshit Jobs" by David Graeber on the observed inverse relationship between pay and [actual] value (if we're talking about societal value, for example). There are exceptions to the rule, but the correlation is quite strong.
For example, paying $0.02 per gallon for clean, potable water, which surely one can agree has extremely high utility since it allows us to survive. But also paying $100 for a Christmas tree, which has lower utility. This is because we can get water for cheaper and the lowest price for the Christmas tree we could find was $100, but if water stopped being available for $0.02, then you bet people would pay $100 and even $1,000 for a gallon of water.
Does that mean water started having more utility? Not according to the definition economics used. Whether or not water became more valuable depends on how you are using the word value, so that is why I think it is not really a good word for discussions of how prices are determined.
You can sell a service to a business that is crucial to their continued operations all day long, but if someone else is willing to sell to them for less, then do not expect to get paid based on how “valuable” you are to the buyer.
Your own example should make it obvious that "utility" is not a good way to think about value. Should people pay 100$ per glass of water, even if they live next to a river of fresh water? It wouldn't lead to good economic results to set prices that way.
I think anything else than "what people are willing to pay" will ultimately lead to bad results. For example the misguided "value theory of labor" keeps messing things up and leading people down the destructive path to communism.
If someone is working at a prominent company, and (for example) making $200k while their employer is making $500k in revenue per employee, that's the personal output($) : input($) value ratio in the context of that job environment.
Shifting to working for yourself doesn't mean immediately realizing that $500k monetary value equivalent for yourself instead. It depends on the business, business model, clients, capital, sales, operations, growth, etc, etc.
In what I've observed from some colleagues that have done both, using this information as leverage for a raise or jumping ship to "climb the ladder" elsewhere can yield equally good if not better compensation results than just being your own business.
Obviously there's nothing wrong with doing that and it's personal preference, it's just more of a naive assumption that own-boss money is always going to be >= job money.
I've been able to take any day off I want, but I have NEVER been able to switch off. It took me about 4-5 years to finally be relatively OK with it. Annual leave is far better.
I've taken a bit of a "holiday" this year by taking a full time role for ~8 months and it's been a great opportunity to recharge and work with amazing people that are much smarter than me, but I'm already feeling the pinch to go back and do my own thing.
Having said all of the above, I'm very lucky that I'm 10+ years in the software industry and I've always got the option of a great full time role to fall back on.
All in all, so far I'm not sure it was worth it. I wouldn't have been as successful and fulfilled if I kept my full time role, but I'd be a hell of a lot happier.
Having said that I've never had the same level of autonomy in previous jobs. This has outweighed all the downsides.
A majority of them are more spontaneous and less well conceived by people with much less experience with all aspects of running your own business.
I read that there have been several 100.000 of new business registered.
All of those will have to try and climb on top of each other to be heard.
Let us say that 1000 new mobile dog grooming business have been started in Denver. They all need a van and equipment. There are already 100 mobile dog grooming businesses, some do very well with an established clientele, a known name, and organic growth from happy businesses. Others do not.
How will all the new dog groomers be heard?
Who will be inventive enough or rich enough to hire someone, to create a solid and successful marketing campaign?
Traditionally on average 20% of new business fail within the first year. (Depending on type of business, some fail more often than others).
I predict we will see solid increase how many businesses fail. A lot of people will lose their savings. Unless something drastic changes a lot more will be without health insurance.
Within 6 months to 2 years there will be a horde of people who wish to return to being an employee of an established business, while being worse off financially.
I hope I am wrong.
(All numbers used about dog groomers are made up. Pure fiction)
Either way, I worry that in a few years time we'll see a market correction of all these self employed workers and I wonder what its impact will be. Will they just go back to corporate life? Will it even be that easy to do so?
I come from a -deeply- conservative family, a large one at that, and I still don't know a single person who supports our healthcare system. The memes you read about evil republicans against it just aren't true. So what's the real reason?
If you want actual representation, you first need to change the system.
I wonder if that's a natural consequence of the giant part of the voter base that feels obligated to vote for one of the two parties for social/tribal reasons alone. Without these voters pressuring their parties to align more with them in economic terms too, the effect of corporate pressure may be felt more strongly by politicians, leading to a drift to corporatism.
Although the bigger issues is probably distribution of resources within American society. Lots of people were pissed that even the compromise that was ACA caused their healthcare costs to rise, even though it objectively lead to many more Americans getting access to healthcare. The country might say they want everyone to have everything, but no one will sign up to pay.
Whereas before, say the top 50% of the population got access to healthcare because they worked for government or large enough private companies to afford it, now that the bottom 50% had access to healthcare via subsidies and laws ensuring no one could be excluded from health insurance, the costs rose for the top 50%, and I hear endless whining about it, ignoring the fact that the bottom 50% can actually get an annual physical now.
I suspect big companies also lobby against allowing individuals to purchase health insurance with pre tax dollars if you are employed by a small company that does not offer health insurance.
Similar to why an employee can save $20.5k of pre tax earnings per year if they work for an employer that offers 401k benefits, and an employee that works for an employer that does not offer 401k benefits can save $6k of pre tax earnings, IF they earn less than $68k per year.
And I have never heard either a Democrat or "small government" Republican address this glaring piece of corruption.
The cherry on top is that the legislation Democrats' are trying to push through right now gets rid of the backdoor Roth which allows people to save $6k in a tax advantaged Roth IRA if they are not eligible for IRAs, claiming that this is a benefit for the rich. But even the Democrats do not seem to want to touch the $20.5k (employee) or $61k (employer + employee) 401k limit, which benefits even richer people working for richer companies.
This is what happens when we have out-of-touch elite class running Congress.
It appears that humans want to not subject themselves to endless politics and meaningless bureaucracy in corporations. Given a choice, people want to live and die with dignity.
More and more people are not interested in spending 50+ hours a week in bullshit jobs to just be able to buy a Mercedes and join a golf club. A lot of us are perfectly happy driving Toyotas.
Also... I hate the power your username has over my mind. It's never going to give me up
Of course it's easy to see how they arrived in this situation. There is a constant stream of propaganda telling us we need to spend in order to become successful. Without that SUV you aren't a good parent, without the big house you can't be a good partner, without the expensive holidays you must be a loser. Thank Bernays[1] for all of this.
Not many people can resist that and take a different path which is why we don't need to worry about "what if everybody does it".
Short of a multi year recession, most FIREed folks will survive. You don't need to get another job when you can just downsize your expenses in bad years.
Productivity per employer has gone up a lot, ideally everyone would be earning more, but at least some are. FIRE doesn't require a booming stock market to work... It simply requires places to put capital that return annually (ideally perpetually). For example buying solar panels is a form of capital sink that has a practical return annually, or sinking money into a home or insulation. At some point someone's savings + annual "income" will be enough to survive on.
FIRE is possible for everyone only when full automation is developed.
But I’ve never heard anyone proposing that nobody should ever work again — you still need to work for long enough to build up a big portfolio. Maybe you can choose to just work 20 hr weeks for your entire 40-yr career… or 60 hour weeks for 15 years, then retire early. But the idea is that if people could consume much less, then we could build a better economy that supports everyone needing to work less in a lifetime.
Society needs to produce X amount of goods and services to sustain itself. If insufficient goods and services are produced, you get stagflation that kills your retirement nest egg. It's reasonable to say that a society where everyone stops doing work they don't like around age 35 cannot possibly produce enough goods and services, unless these people also die by 40.
I also don't buy the idea that it's possible to utilize only ~10-20 years of high productivity from an average person to sustain that person perpetually. This would only be possible with much more advanced automation than what we currently have, in everything from food production to medicine.
FIRE works for now because productivity continues to grow, at least in the US, and in part due to population growth. It also does only work for a small subset of the population (be it high earners or high savers), because the larger this subset, the higher the systemic risk. And it's a bad idea to advocate FIRE as a culturally sustainable approach to life. That idea is absurd.
Check out earlyretirementextreme.com
The author shows how it can be done in 5 years on a sub-$100k salary. The catch though is that he doesn't have children. With dependents, it would probably be more like 10 years.
the people who have not yet FIRE'ed would have to do it, and they do it because they are getting paid by people who are FIRE'ed - presumably, with the intention of FIRE'ing themselves after reaching some target net worth. Unless you're claiming that somehow the population would stagnate and no new people would be born, this will continue to work.
Why does it have to be possible for _everybody_ to be in the same position, at the same time, for FIRE to work?
It's become perverted in recent years by high salaried hyper consumers who have started idealizing "fatFIRE", which is really only achievable by a small group of people.
Yeah that is what I mean, what happens when the stock market drops 75% over 25 years? Not much compounding happening. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EN225?p=%5EN225
A quick check here, https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio, with JPXN between 2002-2021 investing a static amount monthly and reinvesting dividends suggests you would have doubled your money over the period.
Bad compared to US growth to be sure. You're right that Japan is a great example of how this strategy doesn't work as well for people locked in to stagnating economies.
Retirement always was and will continue to be a risk that depends both on how much you've saved and how well the economy will continue to function and grow once you're no longer working. Like all things in life, nothing is certain.
that's why you don't invest in a single region. A globally diversified portfolio (which, to be fair, is more difficult to achieve for people in some nations that's not the west) is what's required to get the market returns.
You, on the other hand, are not including inflation...
I've worked with some very intelligent, brilliant people, who simply cannot comprehend how their own financial spending is foolish, or more likely, know this and choose to play ignorance. I've always found it fairly bizarre, almost like an addiction. It's fascinating how some people can be so skilled in one domain, but so lacking in self-control, especially when obtaining said skill requires enormous self-control in the first place.
And beyond that, so many of my peers hit the ground running on the hedonic treadmill right out of college, quickly filling up their consumption habits to meet their newly high income, while I continued to live low and plow huge amounts of my paycheck into my investments. Well, they're all still slaving away with no end in sight and I'm financially independent after many lucky breaks in my early investments that wouldn't have happened if I didn't have such a frugal mindset early on.
It seemed so obvious to me that this would be the outcome. I still don't understand how so many people can't seem to grok how much early sacrifice can yield outsized reward down the line.
- Separate investing and frugality/budgeting. I guess a lot of those people do actually one of those, but not the other.
- You talk about high earners/engineers. In most of they earning life they never knew the need to ration, or lacking funds - so with the trajectory they see in early adulthood, especially if they like what they do, and they're successful, there simply isn't any recognizeable need to save for later (or even retire early)
- Maybe you like dealing with money, watching stock news early in the morning - I hate it. I hate the thought of dealing with this. It's an active aversion. Of course, the majority of investments should be "set and forget", but it's not always apparent how (especially outside US) and you need quite some research beforehand.
- Coupled with this, you put your life savings in a thing that you don't understand, won't follow. There may be a not entirely unfounded fear of South Park's "aaaand it's gone"
- There is something absolutely tempting about money sitting directly available on an account. Especially when you're young and single, you have no idea what happens with you next year, or what you will probably spend on. Walling away your funds is a critical and worrysome thought.
Sure, you can sum this all up as "financial illiteracy", but they are still cemented in valid concerns or life experiences, instead of mere negligence.
I really wish things like annuities or pensions were available for the 21st century economy. So many people don't want to deal with investing and understanding markets (which change!) and avoid making smart decisions.
There should be a way to just put money in a magic box that pays a little bit back each year, and every time you put money in it grows a bit more.
I get that and all the crypto morons pushing NFTs to the point that the platform is almost unusable. I'm mostly on there for food ideas.
The premise is a future where humanity has solved death via transferring consciousness between bodies. As you approach old age, you'd have a new body grown for you, but the process is quite expensive.
The relevant bit is this society has organized itself by having people alternate between a life of corporate drudgery, as a cog in the soulless machine, and a life of being a real human. You'd sell your soul for a lifetime of corporate bureaucracy until your body expires in exchange for joy filled freedom in the next lifetime. This is the deal you make to earn your keep and pay for the rebirth process.
Used be that people worked until they died. We chose to believe in silly fantasies like heaven as motivation to keep working, because eternal paradise would come after death.
Then we started creating schemes like social security, but those were planned such that the age you could start collecting was within a few years of the average age of death. You'd still work most of your life and then maybe have a few years of feeble freedom.
Now life expectancies have increased and people are even retiring earlier because we have secure ways to save and invest that plebs in our past never had. But most people still have to backload their freedom after they've lost most of the vitality of their youth.
One interesting question in my mind, is whether there is a causation between the belief in the afterlife and the amount of retirement people take in this life. Is the freedom to experience more years free from drudgery causing a decline in the need to believe in heaven, or is the decline in the belief in heaven causing people to check out of drudgery while they can and enjoy at least part of the only life we know we get to experience?
The youth of a lot of people is also a grind of schooling to prepare for a career working. Youth are better off than in the past, but if you're stressing full time studying, that's basically the same thing as working.
The problem with growing, is that the more you grow, the more attention you'll attract from established big players, who will eventually jump into your game and likely destroy you.
It seems to me that running a small business can never really be a sustainable, long term venture, unless you get very lucky with a niche that no one else notices. You either have to plan to eventually be destroyed, or grow into a giant.
>You either have to plan to eventually be destroyed
I suspect letting go is difficult for a lot of people.
My reasons for going for it are 1) parents are aging and I want to help them with retirement 2) ride the wave b/c you never know when it will stop and 3) yolo.
My reasons for not doing it are 1) it's a bunch of extra stress and work I don't want to do. Lol.
Finally, post a job opening (or 2) of the don’ts and delegate:)
Edit to add: It can be such an isolating experience. We had no clue what we were doing half the time. Hard to find anyone willing to talk that had been through it.
I had pretty close to zero expertise. I was an enterprise software PM, so things like setting up Shopify and finding a contract designer were in my wheelhouse, but everything involved with actual, physical goods has been new to me. Manufacturing, shipping, inventory management, fulfillment - been figuring it out from scratch. Largely going well, but definitely some hiccups along the way!
On the frozen treat front, the biggest one is a Purina product called Frosty Paws, and I think my stuff is an easy sell against that for a few reasons. First, it's made with all sorts of unpronounceable ingredients, where my stuff is made with whole, high-quality ingredients (freeze dried meat, egg powder, whole wheat flour, etc.). Their form factor is also bigger - it basically comes in a cardboard cup that you'd get a scoop of ice cream in, which is big for a dog, compared to my bite-sized treats. Theirs is more of a birthday treat, where mine can be given regularly.
Doing this will give you not only a good sense of the business side, but also whether it’s something you really want to do on your own.
Also, find a niche and specialize. Part of the reason there is so much noise is your skill set is presumably generic. Saying “I’m a senior web developer” puts you in competition with millions of others.
The competition is global as well, when it comes to the freelance market (e.g., India, Pakistan, etc.). Whereas, I’m a “Senior developer in X technology” when there are only 5-10 others who can do the same thing puts you in a league of your own.
Find a small business or smaller shop to work for (even accept less pay and use a little savings so you know how that feels), raise your hand to do stuff you normally wouldn't do (if you're an engineer, volunteer to help with sales, marketing, customer service, etc.), make nice with the owners, and constantly learn what they do.
Once you get their playbook, jump out on your own or side hustle practicing it until you're ready.
That is what I did. It took a few years, but I'm happy I did.
I sent a message to a slack channel on the 20th of October, talked to a bunch of people, and started another contract on the 1st of November.
And - I must stress this - I have no big names on my resume, I'm not the author of a famous open source lib. I'm just some dude who specialized and took a real interest in the business vertical I was in.
People need software professionals. Be easy to find. Talk it up where people in your industry hang out. Have conversations without any thought of whether they'll go anywhere. No hard selling required.
the fact that you have a bunch of people you can message (in slack, or email or otherwise) is already a leg up, and that would've taken work to setup previously - may be even years for such a network.
When people ask about networking, or how to line up clients for contracts, they are actually asking the methods to which you (or anyone) setup such a list of contacts.
I would say "just give your resume to some agencies", but it's like leaking your email address on the internet, you will get spam forever. Or use LinkedIn.
- The value of workers willing to be employed will increase, even more so in specific fields. Whatever the current compensation (dollars, flexibility,...), it's going to get better. - As this happens, some organizations won't accept to pay a premium for their existing pool of candidates and will expand their horizon to (finally) hire previously ignored populations. - Freelancing platforms will get even busier, and finding work will get harder and harder—especially now that these new self-employed workers compete with the entire world and not with other business units and colleagues. Many will come back from it. - When they do, their old job won't be available anymore. Getting a new one will be stressful due to the increased competition from all the disgruntled self-employed coming back and the increased pool of cheaper candidates now preferred by employers.
I've personally made the employed → self-employed move about 3-4 years ago, and back. Although there are clear benefits to being self-employed, there are also clear ones to being a full-time employee (maybe this is more the case in Europe where I'm based, though). So, I can see why people make the move given the current context, but I can also see why a huge chunk will realize being your own boss is not necessarily as good as it sounds.
On the whole, I prefer the freedom of being self-employed, especially in regard to time off; I take take as much or as little time off as a want, whereas in employment, I'm limited to what my contract allows. Of course I can buy extra or have them paid out, but it's really the extra bureaucracy of working for a company that I dislike. Working for myself is easier.
But another big difference I noticed is compensation: employment was a massive pay cut. And this seems consistent with previous experiences; Dutch employers just don't want to pay that much for software engineers. As a freelancer, it's easy to make 50% more. It's not an easy comparison because I also have to pay more taxes, save up for my own retirement, pay my own disability and other insurance that's normally taken care of by the employer, but even then, the difference is stark.
If more people becoming self-employed means more employers will raise developer and other salaries, that would be awesome.
until then, it's more like a gamble if you want to fly alone.
What I’m most interested in is what proportion are working to create a business that scales up. IP creators, manufacturers, service businesses, products. Those are the job creation machines that our entire economy will benefit from.
I've noted that there has been an increasing requirement for systemic risk to be absorbed by individuals in order to keep up in capitalism. For example once upon a time one could reasonably try and retire with Bonds as a major asset grouping. Later stocks were the minimum viable investment vehicle (more risk, for basic return), some might even say now inorder to get an ok return one needs to chase risk further with things like ARKK tech stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Similarly has been observed in employment. At one time, during strong unions, a lot of the risk was forced upon the employer -- for example defined benefit pensions, or disability benefits that might have seemed extreme by today's standards. Nowadays having a single employer is basically only slightly better than being a contractor, but pays much much less -- the livable compensation now requires much greater risk of being a contractor (from self insurance, contract stability, risk of not being paid etc).
Anyone else observed similar patterns?
Corporations are basically form of social welfare for most people. In past there were less unproductive people attached.
I don't buy risk being shifted. Housing or gold is very conservative investment, and it had good returns.
Very true! Unfortunately, those people were almost literally left in the dirt, so of course we wanted society to provide them welfare... and we have all the issues of socialism and free riders. We need to separate welfare of people (which is natural to have free riders, but also necessary cost of a society to maintain itself) and employment/corps who shouldn't be filling the job of welfare providers.
[1] Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber
Returns of broad market index funds like SPY are not considered OK now? Am I living in an alternate reality?
I believe that in short and due time we'll find that much of those returns were 1) non-real due to inflation, 2) will crash back to historical means when we return to less strange monetary policies (such as non-zero interest, and selling at the end of QE), and possibly an effect from retirement/inheritances of baby boomers
Only time can know if I'll be right or not. I actually have a bit of a hypothesis that cryptocurrencies like BTC isn't actually productive right now, it's just wealth preserving and looks like it's "exploding" only because it's relative to a inflationary fiat currency.
BUT bond yields and the like are result of gov policy and QE that aren't made to provide employers with risk aversion (directly, cheap credit is good for avoiding risk). They were made to address economic issues unrelated to employment. This required riskier investments to get 7+% yield, but its not companies doing the shift like other examples. I think a better way to prove your point was the transition from Pensions to 401k's since this dramatically changes the "save enough to retire" risk, while providing less risk to companies on funding employee retirements.
now things in america will slowly correct, if employees / fmr employees can hold on to their new found power. but don't worry, a war is being fought in the background to strip workers of this new power. don't be surprised around mid-elections if new irs reporting laws are introduced, so the common man can be hemmed up for unpaid taxes on his new side hustles.
At least while the market is good.
As I write that it's kinda weird in that socially I feel very much like an introvert (social interaction is very valuable to me but it does "use up" energy), but I guess I'm a "work extrovert"?
Her reason for quitting wasn't just that her manager was bad, its that despite all the hard work the team put in, management just didn't care. They wouldn't even give ger a raise matching inflation, and they gave her a one time bonus of $640. Considering that she has to work close to 55 - 60 hrs per week, and sometimes even weekends.
So I'm not surprised that people are quitting terrible jobs where employees are used up, and spit out.
Ideally, it would be useful to setup a corporation to limit personal liability and keep your finances/accounting organized (I.e. use 1 account for everything, keep track of key dates to file things, keep a log of all finances, schedule time for admin)
> The Nordic model comprises the economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common to the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden).[1] This includes a comprehensive welfare state and multi-level collective bargaining[2] based on the economic foundations of social corporatism,[3][4] with a high percentage of the workforce unionized and a sizable percentage of the population employed by the public sector (roughly 30% of the work force in areas such as healthcare, education, and government).[5] Although it was developed in the 1930s under the leadership of social democrats,[6] the Nordic model began to gain attention after World War II.
> As of 2020, all of the Nordic countries rank highly on the inequality-adjusted HDI and the Global Peace Index as well as being ranked in the top 10 on the World Happiness Report.[12]
If you mean something closer to communism, then I agree with you, but I think socialism is wider than that.
But I don't think there's ever been a country where everybody was either self-employed or co-owner of their workplace. And maybe it's not even feasible to get there, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea to try to move at least somewhat in that direction. Everybody being completely dependent on massive corporations certainly isn't great either.
It was a brutal dictatorship, and while indeed better than Soviet Russia (which was not that hard given that Soviet leadership mostly was a bunch of incompetent drunkards), it didn't even come close in success to Germany, much less the Nordic states.
> And maybe it's not even feasible to get there
There is a feasible way - cooperatives ("Genossenschaft" in German). Almost everything can be organized that way, with the notable exception of public infrastructure like trains, roads and electricity/phone/gas/water grids. These best belong in government hands.
Coops of some form in a democratic system would of course be vastly preferable.
I guess the best strategy is to marry someone with good health insurance. ;)
If you don’t value the money higher than the benefits, then you shouldn’t take the contract.
I've heard it said that when you're employed by a company you have (usually) one boss, but when you have your own business, you have many bosses (demanding customers who threaten to leave and not pay if you don't do things the way/speed they want them... sounds similar to a boss).
Perhaps part of the solution is getting staff to be more confidently able to say "No", or at least have a conversation/disagreement around a given issue.
Not everyone wants to start a business or be a contractor.
I think it's the human condition that power will be misused.. We live in a broken world unfortunately.
This narrative of people quitting jobs en-masse is great fodder but just doesn't seem to come out in the numbers[0]. Is it that office work is just such a small percentage that it wouldn't show up? Are people who are quitting their jobs to drive for Uber or other such gig-economy jobs being counted (in my opinion they shouldn't be)?
One thing that i don’t see mentioned is that this route can help people that have a criminal record get back in the game. I took over running a small consulting firm for a bit over ten years and aside from the DoD and one bank, nobody ever asked for background checks of our employees.
"Freedom Care" sounds like an oxymoron. If you need "care" you are not "free".
It's not about "care", it's about risk mitigation. You are not sick now, but you have no idea when you or one of your dependents might become sick and need $$$.
Maybe it really is socialism kills entrepreneurial spirit. If you can be an artist or a 35hr/wk public servant and live well, why bother being an entrepreneur?
In Quebec, Canada you still see a lot of that mindset where a successful entrepreneur is more associated with a slimy businessman than a smart person. It's slowly changing however.
Historically, didn't the employees speak French and the bosses English?
From what I understood, there was very much a glass ceiling and discrimination, similar to what was going on here in the south. Capital wouldn't be loaned across ethnic lines for instance.
That might contribute to the perception of entrepreneurs being shady: they historically were there to fleece the locals, not build and prosper.
Maybe because I don't want to be a public servant? I mean, it's important work that needs to be done, but the impression I get from my wife is that it involves a lot of bureaucracy.
If we had a basic income or something like that, it would be much easier to take the risk to become an entrepreneur.
No saying that healthcare is not a factor, I just doubt that the parent's explanation that free healthcare is holding back would-be entrepreneurs is well-founded.
For example, I would expect more small local businesses in red states than blue states. The tech sector will favor large corporations because of the magnitude of investment involved, at least traditionally (if we are to believe the "economies of scale" explanation; some challenge it, but at the very least, it is causally relevant). So you might see more startup entrepreneurship in blue states because that's where the tech expertise is already concentrated. And because those in tech tend to have college degrees at higher rates, and colleges tend to encourage neoliberal and left-leaning views, you should expect to see more tech in blue states because of that, so you have a self-reinforcing process (there are of course other considerations).
But I wouldn't attribute entrepreneurship to the presence of social programs. On the one hand, those who need social programs are not going to be very educated and are most likely going to be much more interested in making basic ends meet over some business venture. On the other hand, once they receive social benefits, they are often not very motivated to try to start a small local business like a food cart either since they have food on the table. So you need to appeal to cultural factors to account for motivation as well.
I'm not sure how you reach this conclusion.
"Screw this I'm starting my own business" is far, far more common in the blue collar world than the white collar world and they tend to vote way redder.
There could be other correlations as well, including having the technical ability to create something of marketable value, management experience from a previous job, a certain level of financial / career security, family members willing to invest, etc.
Blue areas may also be slightly more prosperous, creating a local market of customers (people and businesses) with money.
Yes, if one uses self-employment as a proxy for entrepreneurship. The US trails Canada and Western European countries in self employment as a percentage of the labour force.
https://data.oecd.org/chart/6xG6
Edit: the US has the lowest rate in this OECD dataset.
I strongly disagree, it might be all relative of course, but dismal is not a word that would even come close.
If you need someone to come in on your greenfield project and hit the ground running, thats what contractors are usually used for; the beginning and the end of the lifecycle.
I'm self-employed and tend to work for a single client at a time, usually on projects of between half a year and two years. I work on a team with employees, doing similar work, except I'm more empowered, more in control of my own way of working (also because the tax service demands that, which is good in this case). I'm not being exploited the way employees or gig workers are. And if the government thinks this is some kind of tax loophole, I'd happily pay more tax, as long as I can continue working this way.
For engineers for example, you will earn higher income and pay less tax, different rates. And larger companies usually have a set asside budget for contractors.
Its easier as an engineer as its never hard to find another job. If this wasn't the case, you would see a higher percentage of employees who require job securoty.
Nothing to do with regulation from my experience, just better pay and more flexibility.
I distinctly remember being told by an Austrian I met once that they need a sizable amount of liquid assets up front before they can even qualify for operating a business.
To put it in a different context; the self-delusional con job that was the lie about how wonderful and amazing the Afghan national army was for the last about 10 years minimum, is a perfect example of just how broad, deep, and long a blatant fraud can be perpetuated in such an open and overt manner, all underpinned by all kinds of shiny presentations and back rubbing soliloquies.
It's all fake. I know that makes people's cognitive dissonance flare up, but that's the uncomfortable truth. The emperor in fact has no clothes on, nor do any of his courtiers. We will see how long the charade can last.
If your point is something more specific about OECD self-employment data, or the processes and practices for a specific or category of "OECD types of datasets" or general practices of society-level datasets...I encourage you to make that point, and give others something to work with.
Being self-employed in Europe is a product of the reality that companies are willing to pay contractors much more than the equivalent employees. If you are highly skilled, being self-employed is the only way to earn what you are worth.
Much of it depends on how they define self employed. "Contract Work" doesn't count as self employed for the government.
>Those figures appear to go against other surveys showing huge growth in contract work, which is transforming the U.S. labor market. A survey conducted in December by NPR/Marist found that contract work makes up 20 percent or more of the U.S. workforce.
>Why the seemingly large discrepancy?
>Many point to the government's methodology. The Labor Department, for example, did not include people who augment their income through contract work
The story is going to be more complicated. Ethos is an important factor. Some countries have cultures that are prohibitive or discouraging for entrepreneurs or encourage safety and comfort over risky pursuits, and working for a large corp is going to be more compatible with that than risking your neck to run your own business. I suspect countries that have national health care are going to correlate strongly with those which are risk averse and therefore less entrepreneurial.
Don't know about Canada, but in my neck of Europe (Slovenia) it seems everyone who is ambitious defaults to entrepreneurship. Because it's the only way to advance or get anywhere interesting at all. And almost everyone has a sidehustle or two.
To the point that a while back the government had to crack down on sidehustling and associated grey economy. Laws like not being allowed to "help your neighbors" build a house.
Now I live in San Francisco and the entrepreneurship spirit is much less. Tech just pays far too well for most people to faff around starting their own thing. To quote a friend of mine "Dude, I'd be stupid to start a company right now! Have you seen how much companies will pay for my skills? wow"
It would be interesting to see a comparison of entrepreneurship between US and Canada in the early 1900s before health care and especially job sponsored health care were so common.
No, the puritans (and Europeans in general) considered bankruptcy a moral failing and it was punished with societal banishment and prison.
The United States invented modern bankruptcy law. States have taken it a step further and protected most major assets from being seized in a bankruptcy (house, car, certain amounts of cash), so the absolute worst case from failing is that you dust yourself off, wait a few years and try again. It's just part of the culture now.
In Canada, you look at the country's history and even its current head of state and... it's a foreign non-elected monarch. The other head of state is non-elected as well and is supposed to be a representative of the crown. Same thing for their senate, all nominated. Even until recently, the highest court of the country was... in London! That would simply be unthinkable in America.
This kind of things permeate aspects of life; there is this notion that there is a natural order of things and that people are born into certain roles. And it also seems true in the business world; Banking and Telecom, for instance, are fiercely protected and have an almost impossible moat to surmount for a competitor to come and disrupt the market.
I can’t even get people up here to try new startups that Americans will download and try at the first suggestion.
Canadians have a pastime of whining about our Big 5 banks. Nobody ever switches to another bank.
Same with telecom. We complain about the prices. Nobody tries their competitors like Freedom.
I hear stories of students joining startups in the USA over FAANG. Here many people do startups to boost their resumes for big company jobs (I was part of a startup accelerator where a lot of people were resume building). I know people doing this now. Building startups to be more employable by Amazon.
Well, yes. Because Americans aren't very risk averse, and are pretty strongly novelty-seeking.
That also seems to be the case for investments.
Everything seems to be centered around "safe" businesses with proven track record or just real estate. There's no VC putting money on a crazy idea (and they getting a home run one time out of 10).
Different cultures. Different mindsets towards entrepreneurship and individuality.
It shouldn't pass the smell test as you're smelling three different things :)
Running a small business like a store, farm, etc without a spouse that carries the insurance is insane. Even businesses like bars and restaurants over time have tipped to larger or even public companies.
When I was a 1099 consultant, I had a heath issue that would have bankrupted us if my wife wasn’t working for a municipal government with good insurance.
You see more of these types of businesses in Europe.
Second, with a $10K deductible, it sounds like you have a HDHP (high deductible health plan), of which the main feature is lower premiums, and also the ability to fund an HSA (health savings account) for additional tax savings.
Even with your deductible, a wide variety of basic and preventive health services are available for free to you under ACA's minimum essential coverage provision. For example, see this list [0] for all adults, along with a similar ones specifically for women and children.
What's more striking is the 50% jump in business applications around the time of covid. Maybe that's in part due to stimulus?
Well yeah… if we’re going to repeat the same thing and expect to see a certain outcome, we had better see that outcome where this has already been implemented. It’s the closest thing to a crystal ball that we’re going to get.
I and I'm sure many others are opposed to subsidizing people who decided to play video games and smoke weed all day with our tax dollars. If you're an entrepreneur, you're not harmed by this, you can afford to pay for it. If you're a small business owner, this should save you money. If you're disabled or old, you already get subsidized and would continue to get subsidized. Everyone else - pay for the services you receive.
The first 2 categories need better help than healthcare insurance. I think it's plainly obvious after SF spending $50k/homeless person that more money isn't going to help them.
Who's saying that? The U.S. pays about twice as much per capita as most other developed countries for healthcare which implies that a 2x savings should be at least theoretically possible, but I don't think there are serious claims of 10x savings unless you're talking about premiums for low-income people that are heavily subsidized.
> I think it's plainly obvious after SF spending $50k/homeless person that more money isn't going to help them.
The only conclusion I draw from that is that the money San Francisco is spending isn't being used efficiently.
edit: s/medicare/medicaid/
IIUC, one of the best predictors of a person's earning potential (which we can of course use as a proxy metric for their worth to the economy) is the wealth of their parents. So, why not quit funding public schools? It's two birds with one stone: only those who choose to have children will be responsible for paying for the services they receive (viz. tuition for an education), and we eliminate a subsidy for undesirables who (statistically speaking) are much more likely to become welfare leeches.
That's what I call a win-win.
edit: rather horrifyingly, this sarcasm is going over people's heads (my fault, of course). See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29388282
I almost added an /s, and perhaps I should have. haha
Far and above is the lack of paycheck which encompasses healthcare.
"If money was no object, what would you be doing?" The question isn't, "if you had your healthcare covered, what would you doing?"
The answer to the first question effectively never, "working for my current employer". For the 2nd question, it's still plausible.
Nobody wants to "pay rent twice", and it can certainly be a lot harder to stop working when you have a big recurring expense like that, but it's possible to plan for it. Depending on the business you're getting into, it won't be your top expense.
Agreed. But this is exactly why it's been slow (read: impossible?) to happen. Big Inc has no interest in seeing the status quo change. High healthcare premiums keeps all but the bravest chained to the system.
Even the ACA never lived up to its own name. Never. We all know this, yet no effort to fix it, adjust it, etc. That says a lot. Actions speaker louder than words.
Let them eat ACA.
The problem with the plan came when the GOP and Trump went and gutted the penalties for non compliance of the individual mandate. At this point I doubt Biden re-instates it especially with all the hubbub over the vaccine mandate. The optics would be bad bad, especially with the vaccine mandate and the ACA individual mandate disproportionately hurting younger working families.
"Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a new report that shows 31 million Americans have health coverage through the Affordable Care Act – a record. The report also shows that there have been reductions in uninsurance rates in every state in the country since the law’s coverage expansions took effect. People served by the health Marketplaces and Medicaid expansion have reached record highs."
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2021/06/05/new-hhs-data-show-...
Note: I'm not against a national plan. But the current implementation is a mess.
Entrepreneurship and self-employment are scary.
The latest official data says "In 2017, the UK spent £2,989 per person on healthcare, which was around the median for members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development."
This is about US$330 per person per month.
(I don't have any point to make. Just thought I'd share the data I found.)
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...
Source: me working for myself and paying healthcare premiums for self and family 2003-2018
It's a commonly held myth that bigger companies offer lower premiums to employees, that is most certainly not always the case.