Is being an employee better or worse than being a business owner?

Someone asked that question, so let me share my answer with you.

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The main mistake people make in life, which accounts for so many people being poor (cash poor or time poor) is that they don't view their career as a business.

Under capitalism, we all work to build, develop and refine our capital (human capital, business capital or financial capital).

By "capital," I mean "concentrated productive capacity." With the Internet, people can also create "cyber capital" (such as my blogs below, to which many people subscribe).

www.iwrotethebookonblogging.blogspot.com
www.linkedinusermanual.blogspot.com

So to answer your question, I would say that one is not better than the other, since both are the same.

Being an "employee" is the same as "owning a business." In both cases, one has to clearly, explicitly and proactively manage the growth of one's capital, develop new solutions all the time, stay close to the customer (your boss is only ONE customer), engage in R&D, promote oneself, be good at selling, etc.

I highly recommend the book The Mystery of Capital, by Hernando de Soto, to people who really, really want to understand what capitalism is all about. It's really a system designed to make people richer and richer, by working less and less. Yet, to achieve that, one must understand that whether one is an employee or a business owner or a free agent, etc. we are all in business and we must therefore proactively manage that business for profitable growth.

Another great book is Ram Charan's Profitable Growth is Everybody's Business.