Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 102 posts

Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?

#41

Post by mikrl »

willio58 wrote: post #17
candiddevmike wrote: post #13

Option 3: form a worker owned co-op and distribute profits between members instead of shareholders and management.

This would take a lot of management though.. What happens if someone is contributing a lot less than the others? Or a lot more?

I don’t know but I’d probably reach out to other co-ops to see how they solve the freeloader problem.

Co-ops exist in industries that require more management than SWE, no reason it couldn’t work for devs too.

Plus, if your first and primary concern is the hard problem of who does more than whom, maybe you just aren’t temperamentally suited for a coop.

Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?

#42

Post by rmah »

This is like asking, "should I cook for myself or go out to eat?" I don't mean to be that guy, but your initial opening "I know it will depend on the person" says it all. I don't really understand why one take a poll about this except, possibly for academic reasons.

Understand that, even if the poll results are heavily skewed towards one side, it says very little about reality. Both the audience and respondents are self-selecting. And the answers more reflective of what the respondents want to believe (or want others to believe) than what actually is.

Instead, perhaps you should think about why you feel the need to ask in the first place? Is it self-doubt? Perhaps a desire to fit in? Do you feel as if you don't control your own life? Are you seeking affirmation for a choice you already made? Are you seeking "evidence" to support an argument? Once you know yourself, you will be able to answer this question and many others much more easily.

IMO, a good understanding of one's self cannot happen without brutal honesty. Which requires stepping back and making hard observations without the interference of one's ego. This is quite difficult, but is certainly do-able. Best of luck.

Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?

#43

Post by silent_cal »

rmah wrote: post #42

This is like asking, "should I cook for myself or go out to eat?" I don't mean to be that guy, but your initial opening "I know it will depend on the person" says it all. I don't really understand why one take a poll about this except, possibly for academic reasons. Understand that, even if the poll results are heavily skewed towards one side, it says very little about reality. Both the audience and respondents are s…

It's just to see what people's opinions are. Every opinion poll has the same limitations - doesn't mean it's futile, IMO.

Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?

#44

Post by jtrtoo »

silent_cal wrote: post #20
jaqalopes wrote: post #16

I work for myself and love it but it isn't for the faint of heart. If you want to work for yourself I recommend first working for other people for 5-10 years—basically, get paid to learn your industry. Then when you can't rise any farther, that's the time to go work for yourself. Note I'm a person who's relatively less motivated by money, and my idea of successful self-employment is to be a consultant with a very goo…

Sounds awesome, thanks. It just seems so hard to make this work when you factor in the huge costs of insurance, etc.

The costs of insurance should be built into your service pricing, just as a traditional employer builds their own employee costs into their pricing.

Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?

#45

Post by avg_dev »

I didn't vote and I'm surprised that I don't see a comment about this topic: it's heavily context-dependent, and at different stages in someone's career the pendulum may swing from one side to the other. I believe that I would enjoy working for myself, and I kind of did so for a few years as a contractor, but what I really would enjoy is providing a software product or service that people paid for and where I had full creative control. I believe that working at a job provides many benefits: If the company is big, you may work on problems at a scale or magnitude that is difficult to stumble into on your own. You may find mentorship, teaching, or growth opportunities when working at a company that will be harder to find when working for yourself. You'll find it easier to get your code reviewed when working on a team than on your own. You'll probably enjoy a much wider variety of social interactions in your day job if you're working at a big company than on your own. You will get a lot more independence and the chance to really own your success and your failure if you work on your own. You'll get a much bigger piece of the pie if you find huge success on your own. And finally (yeah right, this list could go on ad nauseam) you'll be much more likely to enjoy a steady paycheck, paid right when you expect it, if you work for a company.

Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?

#46

Post by candiddevmike »

netman21 wrote: post #18

I wish I could get a job that pays well, offers camaraderie, fulfillment, and opportunities to grow. I have tried many times to fit in. In a 35 year career the longest I ever held a job was 4 years. I finally figured out that I was not employable. Happy to be working for myself.

Ha, very similar situation. For me, it's always management that makes me quit a job (sometimes relatively quickly). I do find contracting, where I can convince myself that I'm divorced from the management chain. Would love to hear more about your stint and what drives you to quit, email in my profile.

Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?

#48

Post by zackmorris »

candiddevmike wrote: post #13

Option 3: form a worker owned co-op and distribute profits between members instead of shareholders and management.

This is my dream, something like https://www.humblebundle.com but an ongoing effort. Instead of one winner/influencer with a long tail of paupers, the money would be split evenly or through a formal process involving tenure/credentials/experience and/or a minimum payout on individual successes of maybe 10-20% like a royalty.

The main goal of this would be to provide runway outside of the venture capital status quo. Basically a scalable UBI model that doesn't require a huge buy-in by the general public.

As far as who's pulling their weight or not, I believe that framing is a fallacy. Success is stochastic now, meaning that it gets increasingly difficult to predict who will win. That's why VCs invest in 10s or 100s or startups to find a winner that supports the rest, and why all that matters is capital, at least to a first order approximation. This would give us some leverage to start removing the artificial barriers to entry (like how banks generally only loan on assets, not potential) and transition to something more like the Star Trek economy where everything is automated and only machine labor and unearned income is taxed, and the economy is large enough to provide an ever-growing stipend for everyone.

Re: Poll: Should you work for yourself or take a full-time job?

#50

Post by controversial97 »

I'v done both.

I'v nominally worked for myself, as half-owner and company director.

I'm a huge geek, with mental health symptoms that could be mistaken for autism and ADHD but are actually due to trauma from having terrible parents who I removed from my life decades ago.

The customers were clueless disorganised nitwits. Their upper management was out playing golf, so we had to try to get their disgruntled office staff to stop looking at facebook for five minutes and cooperate with us to get things done.

I handled complicated technical stuff but had to leaving talking to the customers to someone else.

It depends on your personality.

I'm too honest and bad at manipulating people to be a good salesman or executive.

Sales is a totally different skill set and psychopathic personality disorder to making the technology work.

Post reply on HN