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Notes -
Reading a recent shagbark post about how women are attracted to men who don't have bosses over 'wagies', I found myself thinking about owning a business. As as American it's obviously glorified, but I'm wondering if it's easier to own a business now than it was in the past?
Seems to my relatively uneducated mind that over time in America owning a business has in some ways gotten harder, some ways easier. Nowadays you can do the online business, make money not doing anything physical, just using your wits and social network, basically. Forms can be filled out electronically, etc etc.
On the other hand, back in the day it seems most Americans used to be business owners, especially when more rural lifestyles were more common. Folks owned farms, or a general store, and didn't really have many forms to fill out, though of course they paid (much lower) taxes.
Anyway as a somewhat half-assed tie in to the culture war - which tribe is better for business? Red tribe nominally wants to be but... they also seem to not follow through with that a lot. Blue tribe has become more kleptocratic lately. Maybe it's a tossup?
I've had a business for 20 or 30 years now (and worked in the same industry before that) and I would definitely say that it's easier now than in the past. The reason being that computers, the web, scanners, email, etc. have all made it much easier to handle administrative work yourself. So for example, if I need a particular document from a particular file, I can pull it up in seconds on my computer. Instead of having to go to a file room and dig around. So it saves on the real estate I need and also means I don't need to hire an assistant.
As far as whether it makes it easier to attract women, I would say that (of course) it depends a lot on specifics. If I were sitting in a bar and an attractive woman sat down next to me and introduced herself, I would prefer to be able to say that I am a tech lead at Google than tell her I am the CEO of OMW, Inc. And status matters a lot. There are a lot of women out there who would much rather date an attorney who makes $300k a year than the owner of an exterminating business who earns double that.
I would say that on balance, I probably wouldn't start my own business with a view to attracting women. Because you really are better off attracting someone while you are young and getting married. And it can take years and years for a business to really take off.
Naa, tech leads (who can be almost any level) are a dime a dozen; if the woman's actually approaching she's thinking you're Senior Staff or better, and will be moving on otherwise.
Well, I'm not familiar with the tech industry, I'm just going by my general experience with bars and women. Based on that, I'm pretty sure that being a tech lead at Google (which may not be senior staff, but it's not like you are a janitor) would be better than being the CEO of OMW, Inc. The second option might mean that you are basically unemployed.
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