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1041 points mertbio | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.975s | source
1. jstummbillig ◴[] No.42842984[source]
As an employer, I remain confused about the common notion that being an employee is somehow safer than owning a business.

The opposite is true.

First, I don't have need unemployment insurance. You are my unemployment insurance. I am hedging against your mistakes, as well as mine.

Second, I assess the situation to the best of my abilities, but also: How I see fit. As an employee, on the other hand, not being able to decide might as well feel like getting struck by lightning. (Here I would only add that as an employer it also feels like that if people fire you — as in: they quit — for any reason. It's just that you get more chances to practice it.)

Reconsidering the supposed safety aspect of an employment (since it's such a sticky idea) is certainly one thing I hope we would do. Unfortunately, when trying to discuss the issue with employees (not necessarily those who work for me), they mostly seem to rather not want to think about it.

Other thoughts. Why I run a company: It's certainly not money. I would even argue I (and most people I know running SMBs) relatively care a lot less about job money than the average employee does. I do it because would hate to work on something I think is bad and where attention is not spent, where it should be (so exactly what a lot of employees complain about in their company).

Best I can tell, a good reason to work for a company is getting to work on stuff that excited you and that you could not do better on your own. But I think more people should consider doing their own things more often! I would welcome more meta-competition in organizing work in a better way.

Points of disagreement with the post:

- People will miss things and systems fail, but I can't think of any reason why a CEO would not want to be able to spot the people who a) are not assholes and b) gel really well with the company. I don't want anyone to work overtime for me, but the above will still hold true. A company is complicated, and you being a considerate human being makes everything so much better.

- Yes, Excel is how you work with numbers, also those pertaining to human beings. That's just the responsible way to organize information about things. But if you think that robs me of my ability to think about or care for human beings, I am mostly confused. Can you not think of humans when you write code, because it's digital characters on a screen? Still, it's of note that even highly analytical people find something dehumanizing in that, when it pertains to themselves.

replies(1): >>42850652 #
2. CRConrad ◴[] No.42850652[source]
> I can't think of any reason why a CEO would not want to be able to spot the people who a) are not assholes and b) gel really well with the company.

The CEO might want to be able to spot that, but in any company of some size they won't be able to spot it. Simply because they're the CEO, and there's far too many people working under them for them to keep that close track of every one. A team lead (of a not-too-big team) may be able to do that, but then they'd have to simultaneously be the CEO. i.e: It only works for companies the size of not-too-big teams.