codingdave
9 hours ago
I'm not sure that theme of founders being ignored by industry is true. At least, not as long as they have some modesty and say, "Hey, I tried something. It did not work. Lessons learned, so I am wanting new work."
What I have seen is problems from founders who maintain the idea that "founders" are somehow different. The ones who expect to be held up on a pedestal, even if only slightly. That attitude is what turns people off, not that fact that they tried something on their own.
BenSprott
8 hours ago
From here:
https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/why-founders-end-up-unemp...
"It probably won’t surprise you that instead of being praised for creating something that could be rightfully considered a piece of written art, I got reprimanded for not following the structural expectations of the task. The story that was a deep and honest expression of myself received a failing grade. Over-delivering was punished, and severely so."
The enterprise, like the school, don't want to see creativity. Unfortunately, just by revealing you started a company, you are telling the employer what they don't want to hear. This author is mostly putting the blame on the founder, but clearly that isn't the whole story.
He goes on:
"And generalists are not sought after by employers, particularly not in the lower rungs of the corporate ladder. Solopreneurs end up being overqualified in the most confusing sense: they have too much interdisciplinary knowledge to fit into well-defined roles."
So, unemployability isn't just about the attitudes of the founder.
codingdave
8 hours ago
He also writes a few paragraphs that show exactly the attitude I'm talking about:
"We have learned that we are so much more than just a cog in the machine. We have become linchpins in our own businesses: without us, things fall apart. We’re indispensable. This severely limits the lure of a stable job in a position where we can be easily replaced.
This also affects the way we negotiate for ourselves. When we do consider taking up a job —no matter if it’s post-exit or because our project failed— we remember the freedom that our autonomy gave us. We know that we’re more than our job title. The life we had a glimpse into was one of balancing many things: the business, the family, and our life as a whole.
When we negotiate about vacation time, we don’t do this out of disrespect for our potential employer; we do it out of respect for ourselves. This respect is an often painful consequence of going at it alone. It’s a consequence of the unlearning we had to do to become proficient at more than self-imposed compliance."
It is meant to sound like holding tightly to your own self-respect, but it comes off as "I'm better than you corporate automatons." If anyone thinks that non-founders never negotiate for vacation time or that they don't push for autonomy and self-direction in our work, and don't become critical parts of the organization, then I'd hazard a guess that they never truly worked in the corporate world to begin with.
I'd also advise you to be wary of taking anecdotes from a podcaster as being the same as actual research. People like that make their living by telling good stories. And hey, good for them for finding a niche. But they wouldn't be as popular if they told you that many employees working salaries jobs in industry have also done their own ventures, in particular many people hired into senior leadership roles.