I have a friend who was a senior employee in a couple of start up companies. One even yields him a nice capital following its purchase by a USA company. For some reason, however – he decide to start his own start up company. Something to do with bio medical devices (he meet a doctor who thought about the idea that the device is based upon). The company was started with a small capital in a VC green house. My friend is CEO and the inventor and initial investors form the board.

Not lately, he was able to secure a 2nd investment round (a million dollars, give or take) and the board got some new faces to represent the new investors.
My friend is now busy all day (and night) in tours around the world (when they needed the money and looked for investors), preparing the board meeting, going into medical shows, etc.
He hardly sees his kids and family (which lead to a family crisis IMHO), hardly has fun and work himself to death. He claims he enjoys it compared to his past payroll employee (however high ranked).
I think he enslaved himself to the hi tech beast.

It is now almost over 4:00 am. I’ve been working for over 20 hours without a break. No, it’s not the 19th century, and I’m not mining coal. I’m managing software development in an hi tech company.

It is a free will slavery. Thousand of people in the western world are subject to this slavery every day. Have we changed forced slavery with our hi tech stock holders oppressors? Do you have the feeling that we labor much more than our parents did? And do we get more?