...or move into architecture or management. That seems like the more reasonable thing compared to playing the start-up lottery.

Yeah, but parent mentioned "autonomy" as the driving force for people who'd want this track, and I'm very much in the same situation. Management or architecture won't give you the same level as autonomy as working in one of these small "Tiger teams" (thanks to sibling for pointing out that term)

You really think that you can spend most of your time designing and coding as a contractor or start-up founder?

You are literally a one man marketing and finance department.

> You really think that you can spend most of your time designing and coding as a contractor or start-up founder?

Sure, if you don't mind failing. :)

I agree with blub. Coding and designing is part of a startup but if you spend a second more doing that than you have to, you are setting your company up to fail. Instead you should be talking to customers and churning out whatever the absolute minimum code is that will validate your market.

I spend a huge amount of time coding as a startup founder, but also a huge amount of time doing 10 other things too. Owning your own business tends to mean doing a lot of everything, with coding just being one of those things.

Nah. You can advocate for change! Someone has to be the catalyst, why not you?