This is objectively untrue for anyone who takes money from others.

A significant portion of my income as a business owner can get pink slipped at the decision of any one of seven people, and they wouldn't even endure the minimal social awkwardness of pink-slipping me! All they have to do is not respond "Yes" to an email asking for something that I have no socially durable expectation of "yes" from.

Can you explain this further?

One of the issues in any business is how big any customer is as a percentage of sales and that is normally one of the first questions a buyer of any business wants to know. While it's hard to turn down work and generally more efficient to deal with a few big accounts vs. many small accounts that is definitely a risk.

That said I wonder how many people getting hired by a company are fully aware of how large a companies clients are and what would happen to their job if any client left. At least in Patricks case he directly can keep his clients satisfied.

15 years seems pretty damn stable

Being an employee your job is dependent on somebody else and so they have the power to fire you. But at least while you are there you know that you'll receive a paycheck for the hours you work. (Obviously assuming a reputable company that is not severely struggling or going out of business). So you have the stability of knowing you will get that paycheck.

I think most people feel like they can deal with getting fired and finding a new job. But they don't deal well with the constant, ongoing stress of not knowing if they will get paid from one week to the next.

Yes, accidents can happen to everyone. You can get fired. Your startup can fail. Somehow, startups seem to fail more often than large companies. They fail in slow motion, us at startups fail fast.

I'm pretty sure that on "same or higher income", entrepreneurs have better 1-year odds-- because their incomes are a lot lower.

I'm an employee in a large enterprise. With a multi-year contract. So getting rid of me without cause is challenging because it is expensive and onerous to do so. Corporate politics is a double-edged sword; it can kill you, but it can also protect you.

In 2008 and 2009, many small business owners and independent consultants got screwed in a major way. I think that I let go of about 30 people in that situation. I also know of companies who lagged payments... that invoice billed on March 1 may not have been paid until the following February. Those folks may not have been "fired", but they were hurt badly. When the client doesn't pay, salaries still need to be paid, taxes collected, etc.

So if you're an at-will employee who is an average performer who doesn't politic well in a company that purges X% of people every year then yeah, you're screwed. But I betcha that mediocre performer probably isn't a good entrepreneur either.

You end up with more experience and with a much larger network, at least if you participate to your local startup scene. At BigCorp, you probably know at most your immediate division. Your world-view is fairly limited, and most of those people are likely not in the position to offer you an opportunity to work with them in the future.

Being forced to build a personal brand is true stability, at least compared to cruising along and hoping you don't get laid off.

don't think of now...think of when you are 55...and noone will want to hire you because you are too old.

Don't think 55 is going to be a problem? How about 65? Or even 75. People are living longer and longer, the guys who are living up to 100 now, have had to deal with malnutrition and the stress of a world war. So its perfectly normal, to expect that in 50 years, the retirement age will get kicked up to 75.

Do you really want to program at 75? Do you think a 40 year old manager will want to hire a 75 year old programmer? Do you think you'll be able to comfortably retire off your savings?

The idea of retiring off just being a worker bee is gone. There are no more pensions, the social security income is going to get cut eventually...so all you'll have to live off is your personal savings. And whatever savings you make, when you retire, you'll have to severely reduce your lifestyle...just to make sure you don't run out of cash before you kick the bucket

In some regions this is about as legal as "noone will want to hire you because you aren't white enough".

e.g. in the European Union: http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/employment_and_social...

White people aren't going to become black. Vast majority of men aren't going to become women. However we're all going to get old, so it's in lots of people's interest to campaign for ageism laws like that.

So what do you suggest we do mitigate the risks you mentioned?

Start up lottery : Win big, or win very little/nothing. And end up either too well placed for retirement or none at all.

You make it sound as if whatever they didn't report was no big deal "not reporting some personal stuff". Do you really believe that a company would lay off a 15 year employee over something that didn't matter if they were otherwise doing their job?

I would imagine that whatever the "personal stuff" was it was clearly laid out as far as their responsibility to report it and they didn't so they got fired.

Of course I don't know the true facts but it seems that if companies simply laid off employees for arbitrary reasons that wouldn't be to their benefit, right?

Edit: Anticipating the reaction to "arbitrary" I would clarify that I know companies do arbitrary sucky things. I'm just questioning the probability of that happening to someone working for 15 years. Seems that layoffs for business reasons would be much more of an issue.

Oh, yes. "The company" is going to be a different set of people every year. Loyalty means jack shit. Unless your having been there for 15 years is an asset that makes them want to keep you there, you got nothing.

Of course I don't know the true facts but it seems that if companies simply laid off employees for arbitrary reasons that wouldn't be to their benefit, right?

"Companies" don't fire people. People make that decision, and often for really terrible reasons that have nothing to do with job performance.

This 'at wil'/'can get fired for any reason' stuff is unique to the USA, and is illegal in the EU.

The lesson is that employment rights laws are not some "socialist" horrible laws that will make the public sector fat, but are instead laws that benefit white collar, highly paid professionals like us computer programmers.

If you run your own business, it can be hard to work up to that level of reserve.

That's not true. Business failure is harder, for most people, than getting fired.

What is true is that you're better off as a consultant if (a) you're not dependent on a single client, and (b) your clients don't talk to each other. If (a), you can effectively be fired (see: late Season 4, Mad Men). If (b), then you're screwed in the same way and just working a lot harder.