[nostrademons]

I'd encourage you to set up shop as an entrepreneur, consultant, or ISV. Then you will a.) get to keep all of the wealth you create (well, minus taxes - damn you Uncle Sam) and b.) get a true idea of how much wealth you actually create.

Personally, I've done both the entrepreneur and employee route, and I created and kept a whole lot more money as an employee. I may go back to being an entrepreneur in the future - I'm certainly a lot more skilled than the last time I tried it - but the experience of founding my own startup and working 5 years in a big company has taught me a whole lot about the value that other job functions create, like sales, design, management, finance, capital, etc. It's really easy to look at your output as a software developer and say "I built the thing that makes my company hundreds of millions of dollars, and I only get to see hundreds of thousands of it", without realizing that none of that hundreds of millions in value would've been created without marketing to understand what people want, product design to understand how to supply it, UX to make it usable, sales to let people know about it, management to make all these functions work together, or finance to pay for it.

[coldtea]

>I'd encourage you to set up shop as an entrepreneur, consultant, or ISV. Then you will a.) get to keep all of the wealth you create (well, minus taxes - damn you Uncle Sam) and b.) get a true idea of how much wealth you actually create.

Or you know, you'll get an inflated idea of how much you "actually" created, just because you get to tell people what to do, and belittle their contributions because, after all you are in charge.

[dasil003]

When I start my own company I will definitely take credit for the business I build. For the past 15 years I have been paid to build things for other people, I have been praised and I have been well paid, but I certainly don't claim credit for the creation of the companies that employed me. Even as a co-founder in my current position, there is a huge difference between coming on in a paid position and taking the risk to build something from nothing.

Developers sometimes get big heads because there is so much dead weight in the corporate world pulling paychecks for bullshit. I get that we build stuff that creates real tangible value. But just as people sometimes misunderstand the challenge of our work and the value that we bring to the table, it's easy to dismiss business-oriented entrepreneurs as just being privileged or having inside connections—all of which may be true, but until you have the stones to go put everything on the line and found your own company you don't have a leg to stand in terms of proclaiming who is bringing what value. Without the founder, nothing happens, period.

[nostrademons]

Usually if you do that too much, they'll leave, your startup will tank, and (in a possibly painful dose of cold reality), you will find out exactly how much you actually created.