Comment by jmstfv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmstfv | Hacker News Reader

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For me, it's mostly about independence. Living my life on my terms, on my own time, and on my own agenda is priceless. I don't have to ask anyone for permission to go for a walk or have a 3-hour long lunch if I want to. I can slack as much as I want as long as I keep the lights on.

Oh, and I passionately hate alarms. Don't want to wake up every morning just because someone decided for me that I have to be somewhere.

Sidenote: Good decision-making matters a lot. You can work for thousands of hours without having anything to show for it, or you can work for an hour and make more money than you've ever made in your entire life. Scary but exciting. See Taleb's Mediocristan vs Extremistan: https://people.wou.edu/~shawd/mediocristan--extremistan.html

> I don't have to ask anyone for permission to go for a walk or have a 3-hour long lunch if I want to.

Me neither and I work at a FAANG.

I think a lot of those serial entrepreneurs that have never worked in companies have a very skewed idea of what it actually looks like once you're in a decent company.

Most companies aren't decent, far from it. And I doubt most people have a fair chance of landing one of those decent jobs.

Even putting all that aside, working for someone entails doing what you're told even if you don't want or agree with it. That's not how I want to spend my waking hours.

So you're telling me that if your customer wants the button in blue and you want it in yellow, you won't put it in blue?

Being your own boss is a construction of the mind. If someone else is giving you money, they are your boss.

> So you're telling me that if your customer wants the button in blue and you want it in yellow, you won't put it in blue?

If I don't feel like making the button blue, I won't. If they don't agree with my decision, they are free to take their business elsewhere.

> If someone else is giving you money, they are your boss.

It is true in some respect, but when you're employed, you only have a single or handful of bosses. When you run a business, you have tens, hundreds, or even thousands of customers. You can say NO to any one of them when the push comes to shove.

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