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Comment by zavulon | Hacker News Reader

"Stability is a huge benefit of a regular full time job"

That's a myth. While being an employee, there's no stability whatsoever. You can get fired any time - get laid off, become a victim of corporate politics, or get fired for whatever other reason. Just last month, someone I know got fired on the spot after 15 years at a company for not reporting some personal stuff between other employees.. something he wasn't involved with, at all. I'm sure everyone else heard stories of people being thrown out after 10-20-30 years of loyal service to the company for bullshit reasons.

At the same time, when you run a business, you can't ever get fired, and everything depends on you. Whether you make money, or lose money - it's for the most part, your doing (market circumstances nonwithstanding).

That's why running a business is a lot more of a stable job than working for the man.

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"When you run a business, you can never get fired"

This is objectively untrue for anyone who takes money from others.

A significant portion of my income as a business owner can get pink slipped at the decision of any one of seven people, and they wouldn't even endure the minimal social awkwardness of pink-slipping me! All they have to do is not respond "Yes" to an email asking for something that I have no socially durable expectation of "yes" from.

If you also run an online startup, chances are you rely on SEO or search engine marketing. If Google bans your Adwords account, or penalizes you to oblivion, I'll say that's pretty much the equivalent of getting fired.

True story, although once you're spending enough on AdWords you'd have to do some pretty egregious stuff to get your AdWords account banned (and to some extent you're much less likely to get a major, lasting ban in organic search).

I would argue that 1/7 of your business != getting fired. While it's going to be tough, it's possible to recover from. You still have a significant portion of your business, and are extra motivated to do more (again, that depends on you). And when you get fired, you end up with nothing and have to start from scratch.

"A significant portion of my income as a business owner can get pink slipped at the decision of any one of seven people"

Can you explain this further?

Patrick does work as a consultant. I think he's saying that he has 7 big-time clients and if any of them fired him, his income would take a big hit.

Thanks for clarifying.

One of the issues in any business is how big any customer is as a percentage of sales and that is normally one of the first questions a buyer of any business wants to know. While it's hard to turn down work and generally more efficient to deal with a few big accounts vs. many small accounts that is definitely a risk.

That said I wonder how many people getting hired by a company are fully aware of how large a companies clients are and what would happen to their job if any client left. At least in Patricks case he directly can keep his clients satisfied.

Plus losing a seventh or even half your income and then having a gap to look for new clients (you can ask existing clients for referrals) isn't anywhere near as risky as suddenly losing 100% of your income for reasons that can be fully beyond your control

But at least the risk is spread around. Having a fraction of your original income still coming in is far better than having absolutely no income coming in.

I can't understand what you are trying to say in the last two sentences. Maybe I am just tired but can you elaborate a bit more?

I think he means he has 7 clients who could choose to severe their business with him at any time.

> Just last month, someone I know got fired on the spot after 15 years at a company for not reporting some personal stuff between other employees.. something he wasn't involved with, at all.

15 years seems pretty damn stable

If you can be fired on the spot, for any damned reason, you will never feel that stability.

Try joining the job market after fifteen years away from it. He might be lucky enough to land some immediate work, but the transition to a new role will still be extremely difficult.

I think the two situations offer a different kind of stability. Working for yourself, obviously you can't be fired. So you have the stability of knowing your job is not going to be taken away. But you may not get paid one month, or even pay money out of your own pocket some months. So rough times can feel very unstable and stressful, depending on how much money you have in the bank, payroll costs, etc.

Being an employee your job is dependent on somebody else and so they have the power to fire you. But at least while you are there you know that you'll receive a paycheck for the hours you work. (Obviously assuming a reputable company that is not severely struggling or going out of business). So you have the stability of knowing you will get that paycheck.

I think most people feel like they can deal with getting fired and finding a new job. But they don't deal well with the constant, ongoing stress of not knowing if they will get paid from one week to the next.

I understand your argument, but I believe it's still statistically incorrect. I don't have research to back it up, but I'm faily confident that full-time employees are more likely to have a job a year from now with same or higher income, than startup entrepreneurs.

Yes, accidents can happen to everyone. You can get fired. Your startup can fail. Somehow, startups seem to fail more often than large companies. They fail in slow motion, us at startups fail fast.

I'm faily confident that full-time employees are more likely to have a job a year from now with same or higher income, than startup entrepreneurs.

I'm pretty sure that on "same or higher income", entrepreneurs have better 1-year odds-- because their incomes are a lot lower.

He means Expected Value I think. Average out all the entrepreneurs and their income today, compare that to their expected value in a year, and then compare that to the expected value of all full-time employees. Of course this is a really vague metric created by the parent post, but his/her point stands.

It's not a myth -- it just isn't an absolute statement.

I'm an employee in a large enterprise. With a multi-year contract. So getting rid of me without cause is challenging because it is expensive and onerous to do so. Corporate politics is a double-edged sword; it can kill you, but it can also protect you.

In 2008 and 2009, many small business owners and independent consultants got screwed in a major way. I think that I let go of about 30 people in that situation. I also know of companies who lagged payments... that invoice billed on March 1 may not have been paid until the following February. Those folks may not have been "fired", but they were hurt badly. When the client doesn't pay, salaries still need to be paid, taxes collected, etc.

So if you're an at-will employee who is an average performer who doesn't politic well in a company that purges X% of people every year then yeah, you're screwed. But I betcha that mediocre performer probably isn't a good entrepreneur either.

Another reason why I think being an engineer in a startup is a lot more stable for your career is because you get to do a lot more work. Less HR bs, less time sending emails, fewer career progress reports and mid-year discussions. You end up spending a lot more time on doing real work, you learn a lot more (because there's no local guru that will do it for you, you got to figure everything our yourself).

You end up with more experience and with a much larger network, at least if you participate to your local startup scene. At BigCorp, you probably know at most your immediate division. Your world-view is fairly limited, and most of those people are likely not in the position to offer you an opportunity to work with them in the future.

Being forced to build a personal brand is true stability, at least compared to cruising along and hoping you don't get laid off.

agreed + with a regular job you are giving up long term stability for short term success.

don't think of now...think of when you are 55...and noone will want to hire you because you are too old.

Don't think 55 is going to be a problem? How about 65? Or even 75. People are living longer and longer, the guys who are living up to 100 now, have had to deal with malnutrition and the stress of a world war. So its perfectly normal, to expect that in 50 years, the retirement age will get kicked up to 75.

Do you really want to program at 75? Do you think a 40 year old manager will want to hire a 75 year old programmer? Do you think you'll be able to comfortably retire off your savings?

The idea of retiring off just being a worker bee is gone. There are no more pensions, the social security income is going to get cut eventually...so all you'll have to live off is your personal savings. And whatever savings you make, when you retire, you'll have to severely reduce your lifestyle...just to make sure you don't run out of cash before you kick the bucket

noone will want to hire you because you are too old.

In some regions this is about as legal as "noone will want to hire you because you aren't white enough".

e.g. in the European Union: http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/employment_and_social...

White people aren't going to become black. Vast majority of men aren't going to become women. However we're all going to get old, so it's in lots of people's interest to campaign for ageism laws like that.

Your rant just scared the hell out of me.

So what do you suggest we do mitigate the risks you mentioned?

I think he is trying to say that of you don't start playing the startup lottery now and win it them you will end up in the gutter. Looks like you will have plenty of company there so cheer up!

Large corporations : Earn monthly salary, invest in gold, endowment insurances, a little real estate, pension plans, a little in kids, a little for continuous returns during rainy days in old age.

Start up lottery : Win big, or win very little/nothing. And end up either too well placed for retirement or none at all.

"someone I know got fired on the spot after 15 years at a company for not reporting some personal stuff between other employees"

You make it sound as if whatever they didn't report was no big deal "not reporting some personal stuff". Do you really believe that a company would lay off a 15 year employee over something that didn't matter if they were otherwise doing their job?

I would imagine that whatever the "personal stuff" was it was clearly laid out as far as their responsibility to report it and they didn't so they got fired.

Of course I don't know the true facts but it seems that if companies simply laid off employees for arbitrary reasons that wouldn't be to their benefit, right?

Edit: Anticipating the reaction to "arbitrary" I would clarify that I know companies do arbitrary sucky things. I'm just questioning the probability of that happening to someone working for 15 years. Seems that layoffs for business reasons would be much more of an issue.

Do you really believe that a company would lay off a 15 year employee over something that didn't matter if they were otherwise doing their job?

Oh, yes. "The company" is going to be a different set of people every year. Loyalty means jack shit. Unless your having been there for 15 years is an asset that makes them want to keep you there, you got nothing.

Of course I don't know the true facts but it seems that if companies simply laid off employees for arbitrary reasons that wouldn't be to their benefit, right?

"Companies" don't fire people. People make that decision, and often for really terrible reasons that have nothing to do with job performance.

15 years? Most people change jobs every 2-5 years. If you're not horrible, you should be able to hack it out for that long at a stable company. That’s comparable to the average startup lifespan. And you don’t have to worry about being able to pay the rent. It all depends on your appetite for risk.

You can get fired any time - get laid off, become a victim of corporate politics, or get fired for whatever other reason. Just last month, someone I know got fired on the spot after 15 years at a company for not reporting some personal stuff between other employees.. something he wasn't involved with, at all

This 'at wil'/'can get fired for any reason' stuff is unique to the USA, and is illegal in the EU.

The lesson is that employment rights laws are not some "socialist" horrible laws that will make the public sector fat, but are instead laws that benefit white collar, highly paid professionals like us computer programmers.

It depends on where you are. Where I work, were I to get fired, I would get a minimum of 3 month's pay, and they would have to show very clear cause. Realistically, if the company wanted to get rid of me, they'd have to negotiate, and there's a good chance I would walk out with somewhere between 6 months and a year's salary.

If you run your own business, it can be hard to work up to that level of reserve.

There is no stability anywhere. Big business fear startups. Startups may be worried of big businesses or competitors, Employees may be fired...it is just the way the world works.....

Not here in the UK. Fired on the spot? That'd be a dream scenario to take to an industrial tribunal.

At the same time, when you run a business, you can't ever get fired

That's not true. Business failure is harder, for most people, than getting fired.

What is true is that you're better off as a consultant if (a) you're not dependent on a single client, and (b) your clients don't talk to each other. If (a), you can effectively be fired (see: late Season 4, Mad Men). If (b), then you're screwed in the same way and just working a lot harder.

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