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Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

tik.dev

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Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#211

Post by Robin_Message »

yellow_lead wrote: post #129
bogdanoff_2 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that back when I had lots of free time, my style when doing projects was: I start where I left off, I get engrossed and code late into the night, repeat that one or two more days, get bored and "burned out" from the project, don't touch it for a week or so (sometimes I work on some other projects), repeat. Of course, that's not really sustainable. But 30 minutes does not seem feasible for me. It's not like yo…

Agreed, 30 mins is not enough time to get into "deep work" for programming. At best you could do some business-y tasks.

I reckon TDD would get you at least part of the way there, because it enforces a discipline of making smaller, meaningful changes. Hard to learn though, and some things genuinely do need longer.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#212

Post by archagon »

lowercased wrote: post #59
toasterlovin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medicare and Medicaid provide free healthcare to many Americans. Obamacare subsidizes health insurance for many additional Americans. For the most part, you only pay full cost for insurance if you can afford it.

You don't qualify for medicaid if you have any assets. You'll have to spend down to you last $2k in assets before you qualify for medicaid. So... someone in the middle, who perhaps has some savings, can still be ruined if they have one moderate incident which would force them to spend down all their assets to poverty level before receiving any assistance.

For the record, if you live in CA, I don’t believe this applies to Medi-Cal. Unless you’re a “Medi-Cal individual who receives long-term supportive services or who enrolls in Medi-Cal through certain disabilities”, I believe only income is tested.

(Not that this is enough! I am absolutely on the side of everyone having access to good public health care.)

https://ca.db101.org/ca/programs/health_coverage/medi_cal/pr...

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#213

Post by archagon »

dvt wrote: post #3

Not to be dismissive, but this post feels a bit like rambling without a clear thesis or main argument. It's also rife with dubious claims: > I’ve been working remotely for four years now, and I know that working alone can make you lonely.. I also work full-time remotely. I built a community around myself, made new friends and regularly hang out with people I met at coffee shops, at startup meetups, old classmates, ex…

> I also work full-time remotely. I built a community around myself, made new friends and regularly hang out with people I met at coffee shops, at startup meetups, old classmates, ex-coworkers (that may also be fully remote), etc.

This reads like “I have a social life.” I’m sure the author has a social life as well, but it’s way harder to casually chat to people throughout the day when you’re working on your own. (Source: also self-employed/solo for four years.)

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#214

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

zerr wrote: post #210
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in what universe would one find such a thing?

Working remotely from a cheap place for clients from expensive places, charging expensive place market rate.

Contract work is not the same as part time work.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#215

Post by zerr »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #214
zerr wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working remotely from a cheap place for clients from expensive places, charging expensive place market rate.

Contract work is not the same as part time work.

It's up to you to skip over clients who demand full-time commitment.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#216

Post by LeoTinnitus »

tempsy wrote: post #28
overcast wrote: post #5

Probably the biggest hurdle is dealing with healthcare on your own, it's just prohibitively expensive to deal with alone in the US. Multiple incomes is where it's at, at least until one of the projects takes off to cover cost of living and healthcare nonsense.

What is your definition of prohibitively expensive? I've bought a gold plan off the exchange in California for Kaiser and it's $530/mo with no deductible. That's lower than I expected.

$530 a month is like 85% of rent where I live in the midwest. I mean if I could only get healthcare through the marketplace, I would be better off working part time or not at all collecting unemployment and food from pantries than I would be essentially putting all my extra income toward health insurance.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#217

Post by daxfohl »

greggyb wrote: post #137
daxfohl wrote: post #4

There's a pretty high correlation between parental wealth and success as a startup founder. I assume it's because of the safety net. My friends who have been successful (and who had blue-collar upbringings like me, and all in mid-40's now) all worked full time jobs until their side projects were self-sustaining. None of them hit unicorn status, but I think all of them have lived healthy, fruitful lives. Also note by…

> high correlation between parental wealth and success as a startup founder. I assume it's because of the safety net. Supporting a few sibling commenters here. I believe it is more nuanced than a safety net provided by parental wealth. I definitely come from a background of privilege. My grandfathers were both high status professionals. My parents were a combination of high-performing professional and Ph.D. I have pu…

I think this is a valid counterpoint. I didn't mean for it to sound like "silver spoon" kids get their success given to them, and debated deleting the assumption sentence after posting. The intent was just a note for OP to factor into account. But it sounds like a lot of others read it the first way.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#218

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

photonios wrote: post #204
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, according to his numbers he makes about about €70k/year. That's more than me and my friends make in Germany and Austria. Either Eastern European salaries took off like a rocket or Germany heavily underpais. Really curious what his job and location is, maybe I move there :)

That's before taxes I believe. So after income tax and social contributions, you'll have paid 40-50% of that. Doesn't sound off to me. At least, that's the case here in Romania. Another interesting fact is that in Romania the tax system is simple enough to always negotiate in net salary. Your employer takes care of paying taxes and social contributions etc.

So €70k/year before taxes is a normal dev salary in Romania? Are you sure, since that's basically German level of salaries but with much lower COL. Do you have any sources for this?

Because if that's the case I'm coming over to join you. :)

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#219

Post by simpss »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #218
photonios wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's before taxes I believe. So after income tax and social contributions, you'll have paid 40-50% of that. Doesn't sound off to me. At least, that's the case here in Romania. Another interesting fact is that in Romania the tax system is simple enough to always negotiate in net salary. Your employer takes care of paying taxes and social contributions etc.

So €70k/year before taxes is a normal dev salary in Romania? Are you sure, since that's basically German level of salaries but with much lower COL. Do you have any sources for this? Because if that's the case I'm coming over to join you. :)

we compete on the same market, so we have the same salaries.

But the rest of the country doesn't, so we have the lower COL.

Give me a private contact and I can give you some concrete answers and tips regarding the area.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#220

Post by SamReidHughes »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #153
SamReidHughes wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume not; most people have this safety net. Having one or two parents with a couch you could sleep on is standard.

Sleeping on a parent's couch isn't an option for many people for a wide variety of reasons, and it's certainly the very minimum bar for a safety net. For example many people I know live thousands of miles from their parents. Sure it's an option, but it would be truly a last resort before homelessness.

Yeah well a lot of people envious of success act like having parents with a spare bedroom is some sort of elite privilege, and not the norm.
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