Yeah, it's not really that simple.

A business owner is the last one on the payroll, so they get the extra, if things go well, but they also assume pretty substantial risk. If things go badly, the buck stops at their front door; possibly on an eviction notice.

I have also watched many of these same SMB owners, hit the skids, and they fall hard. Many wreck their credit for decades, destroy any retirement savings, and, worst of all, suffer terrible self-respect damage.

I'm not being snarky, there. That demolished self-confidence can be bad. I have known folks that have become suicidal, after losing a business.

Makes being smug, kinda hard. They may have been jerks, when they were doing well, but it's quite sobering, to see what happens, when things go pear-shaped. Doubly so, if they have a family.

Nice framing.

Or it’s to get paid for bearing all of the risk of starting and running the business, and being financially on the hook for when it fails and gets to deal with years of being sued.

You did indeed find the point. Think about the "framing" the next time you hear people talk about "entitled free-loaders" refusing to work because they get the government cheese.

Exactly. Just like the financial crisis.

All those big CEOs getting caught on the hook.

Definitely a fair comparison between a S&P100 bank CEO dining with the president regularly and a corner taqueria owner struggling to meet the payroll.

CEOs and business owners are often not the same thing.

The CEO is someone that is hired by the owners, to run the company.

They may make good money, but they are paid peanuts, compared to the real owners (stockholders).

Those CEOs weren't business owners, and especially not SMB owners.

The problem is that they do not want to be financially on the hook. They keep the good years and spread the costs of the bad years onto their employees.

This is true. I consider that bad practice, but many others see it differently.

I am a big believer in having a "rainy day fund," but that doesn't happen, when Louis Vuitton comes out with a new $20K handbag...

Yes, that's basically true.

I don't see small business owners as morally superior to workers. We're all just humans.

(And yes, starting a small business where you are able to leverage a bunch of other people's labor is still the most reliable way to become a millionaire in the US.... well, besides buying a decent house a few decades ago in California and becoming a NIMBY.)