
Why Full-Time 9 to 5 Jobs are Risky - badernator
https://adambader.com/posts/why-full-time-9-to-5-jobs-are-risky/
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PragmaticPulp
The obvious fallacy is that this is comparing a stable, successful,
established business to a risky job. He’s also assuming it’s difficult to get
a new job, but ignoring the difficulty of establishing a stable single-person
business.

Successful, stable businesses with multiple diversified clients don’t come
easy. It’s rare to have a single-person business with a product that scales to
many customers. Once you scale it, you likely need to bring on employees,
which means you now have significant financial obligations to make payroll
every month. That’s hardly low-risk.

If you’re the type of person who can build a successful single-person business
with multiple customers, it’s not exactly difficult to find a high paying job
doing the same work for someone else.

You don’t start a business because it’s easier or less risky than a day job.

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firecall
>The obvious fallacy is that this is comparing a stable, successful business
to a risky job.

Hmm... the point being made is that all jobs are inherently risky. There are
factors beyond your control.

You can't work harder or smarter to keep a job when the world turns against
you.

The economy, a new manager, changes in structures, business direction and so
on can leave you high and dry. Your previously secure middle managers job can
vanish over night.

It's happened to me and many people I know.

Further to this, there is no such thing as a career at a company. You don't
have anything. A job title is temporary and once you are out, you are out and
that's that.

You might never get a decent position in a company again. You just don't
know... full-time work is risky!

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PragmaticPulp
> Hmm... the point being made is that all jobs are inherently risky. There are
> factors beyond your control.

You don’t control all of the factors in your own business, either. You listed
the economy as a risk for full-time employment, but it’s an even bigger risk
for small businesses. Big companies tend to have large war chests to ride out
recessions, or even take advantage of recessions.

With a small business, the company’s bank account isn’t that far removed from
your personal bank account.

Being in control of everything also means that everything is your problem.
That’s a two-edged sword.

> You might never get a decent position in a company again.

That would be extremely uncommon. Moreover, if you’re not qualified to get a
job in the industry, I don’t see how you’re going to be successful running
your own business in the industry.

Running your own business is more difficult and more work than getting a job
in an industry.

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fanciestManimal
"Since most full-time jobs involve a single employer — it’s a one single point
of failure — meaning, you just need your employer to fire you to lose your
income.

With a business, you usually have more than one customer and in the majority
of cases: tens, hundreds, thousands, and even millions of customers who are
your revenue source"

This claim is so overly superficial that it's not helpful. The percentage of
businesses that fail is way higher than the percentage of people that get laid
off in any given year, typically. And it's not like businesses haven't
struggled to survive during COVID-- just as much as any employee has lost
their job. Losing 20% of your customers can be the difference between the
company surviving or not, it's not like that just means you lose 20% of your
profit.

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corty
It is also misleading because a lot of businesses, especially small ones, do
have a single point of failure: Get banned by your payment provider or
payments frozen for some reason and you are done. Get dragged into a lawsuit
by a customer, done. Have your restaurant fail a health inspection, done
(well, far too rarely, but happens).

And COVID-19 also shows that larger businesses can be more resilient to
unforeseen catastrophes, although I would hope something COVID-19-like to be
rare enough not to matter too much.

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bsder
Maybe this is why people park themselves in Silicon Valley in spite of soaring
rents and other issues?

When your employer lays you off there, you simply go get another one.

When this happens in, say, Pittsburgh, PA, your options aren't quite so
numerous.

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ramkarthikk
I agree with this mostly but to play devil's advocate: If you are good enough
to build a product that people are willing to pay for, would it be really that
hard to get a new job if you lose your current job?

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badernator
Many people view businesses as risky when in fact it is not entirely true. I
wrote this quick piece to explain my thoughts on why 9-5 jobs aren’t
diversified and are in fact riskier

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fanciestManimal
Do you think you might be understating the probability of failing in business,
and overstating the odds of getting laid off? It's not like many businesses
haven't closed their doors during the COVID pandemic.

I also doubt the percentage of startups that fail in a given year would
compare well against the number of people that get laid off in a given year.

And having 100 customers doesn't help if losing 10 means the business is no
longer profitable.

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jrumbut
I've taken a couple not-entirely-unsuccessful cracks at running a small
business and worked for others in the same vein and can tell you that, at
least for a software business, the dirty secret is that a lot of businesses
out there are totally dependent on 1-3 large clients.

Established businesses, on the other, hand often do have a diverse customer
base and other means to overcome economic headwinds, and they can be seen as a
mechanism that bundles those things for you and gives you a portion of that
security.

~~~
perl4ever
There are even publicly traded companies that, for instance, build their
business entirely on say, customized solutions for Microsoft software. They
might have diverse customers, but they are very dependent on the ecosystem
that is controlled by another company.

~~~
jrumbut
Or the App Store of course!

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lazylizard
I don't have this problem where i get laid off, run out of savings, and cannot
find a new job ever again. Some businesses close down for good. You can
accumulate enough liabilities to prevent yourself from doing business again.
You can still get a job afterwards though..

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wolco
"With a full-time job, you might be fired due to external circumstances (such
as COVID-19)"

Many businesses went under. External forces affect you perhaps more as a
business owner but have some control over the response.

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nkozyra
This seems to ignore the costs of acquisition

Getting one source to supply 100% of your income is easier than getting 100
sources to supply 1% each. Eventually the cost of management outweighs the
benefits of distributed risk.

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ldayley
Taleb wrote an analogy to this in “Antifragile” when he introduced a banker
and a London cab driver to illustrate a similar conclusion. It was (for me)
one of the key insights I took from that book.

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adambader
Yes! This is where revelation came from for me.

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gshdg
The difference is that to succeed at getting a new job you need to be skilled
at one thing. To succeed at starting a new business you need to be skilled at
a dozen unrelated things.

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mindfulplay
Obviously the people who work in your company should then quit and create
their own stable businesses.

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sdan
One pays you $5, the other pays you $100k

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adambader
Not always true. Depends on the product.

There is a lot of Indie Hackers who make more than a 100k a year on their
products (check out indiehackers.com for case studies)

