It certainly can be like that especially early on. Hopefully you would grow enough to hire good people to manage the business. If you work for somebody though, that will never happen.
All the slavery with none of the wage.
>If you work for somebody though, that will never happen.
The alternative to starting a business that you'll hope will be self-sustaining and still earn you a respectable living is to work for the highest bidder, invest, and become financially independent. Odds of the latter are much higher for the average software engineer than the former.