this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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Yes, a bunch goes to owners who fronted the startup costs and are on the hook if things go sideways, but also there's a lot of other expenses like the sales channels, marketing, legal, insurance, maintenance, rent, bribes, etc. Speaking as someone who co-owned and ran a company that size, there is a shit ton of work and stress, and a very possiblility of it all falling apart and losing one's investment. The employees working 9-5 for steady wage do the hand-on labor, but there's a lot more to running a company. Otherwise why doesn't this guy and his coworkers just do it on their own and pocket all that extra money?
The workers do bear risk. Things don't go right, you'll fire them. In another company, you might even get a bonus if you fire a bunch of them.
Insurance and legal is so fucking expensive. As a business owner, I do not want to be a business owner anymore because the costs of all the insurance, paperwork, and just costs keep climbing up and up and up.
Accountants/Tax Attorneys as well are hella expensive.
this is why you gave lots of kids and steer some towards being lawyers/accountants, smh
Do you get paid to lick capitalism's boot on Lemmy or do you just waste your time and effort for fun?
They're making a great point and you come here with this stuff.
Actually I find discussing things to be relaxing.
I don't love capitalism; when unregulated it is very bad. If properly regulated, it can work, and it seems to work better than other systems. Capitalism in the U.S. has gone way off the rails (due to corporate and billionaire financing of politics).
But in our current system, the small business owners are just doing their best to work within the system. Many small businesses owners work much harder than their employees.
Workers take a risk too when they work for a small company, and are often worse off than the owner when the business fails.
The question that should be asked is, why doesn't the owner transform the business into a worker cooperative?
Sadly, this whole conversation has been derailed by the deflection of the focus to small businesses probably with <10 people. Lots of these arguments made by the person you responded to become more and more threadbare as a company grows.
That’s not derailed, if realized employee compensation is only 500k then it’s a small company exactly like the ones being used as an example. You can take a good chunk of that 1.2M he references away in associated companies payroll taxes and benefits that deep brain in the meme doesn’t include in his breakdown. A company paying out $500k in payroll is a small business.
Easy! Because then the owner would have less money 😃
But also the owner wants to own things and be their own boss instead of having people tell them what to do. One thing I agree with the right on. Fuck working for somebody. Start your own business.
How do you figure? Starting a business (generally) requires a lot of money to lease space, make it usable for your needs, and all those employees you're paying. Some of that can be liquidated (often at a lower amount than you got it for) other expenses you're on the hook for. That can add up to be a lot.
Employees can be out pay, and while there's no doubt that totally sucks, the potential losses are basically limited to how long you kept showing up to work despite no paycheck.
"Risk" in this context too often refers to the risk of a number in a portfolio going down, not somebody's actual personal life getting messed up.
Depends on the business. I get the "line must go up" mentality in corporate environments, but I'm thinking of simple manufacturing or retail businesses where it could be as simple as "we need to sell enough coffee to pay for the tables, chairs, flooring, machines to make the coffee, etc etc etc"
Think about your job. It's your livelihood, it (hopefully) covers all your expenses within the month, right? You're therefore dependent on the stability of the company. A small company is not stable, meaning that workers are placed in a precarious position because their livelihood would disappear with the failure of that business. This is the math:
It's not lost on me. But don't forget that there's a similar risk of negative money for the owner, and it's not like large companies aren't subject to layoffs with the same potential loss of paychecks.
Precarity is a defining feature of the worker's condition under capitalism, yes. That doesn't mean that there isn't stratification on how precarious the situation is for individual workers. It goes homeless < gig work < temp work < small company < big company
I'm not discounting the risks taken by small business owners. However the risks to them is a damaged investment portfolio. The risk to workers is a loss of livelihood.
Many small companies are run by the owners directly. It is not just an investment. They might put their life savings into it, and work countless unpaid stressful hours. As owners there is a chance that all this effort will pay off and they'll make good money; but there is also a good chance to lose everything, and then not have a job also. The 9-5 worker maybe loses 2-weeks salary if the bank foreclosed on the operation. The owner loses all the extra time and financial investment. They lose more if they used personal property as collateral (very common). Even after the company stops operation, the owners, as directors have to still run the financial and legal aspects for a long time, often dealing with law suits, tax issues, etc. The point is that the 9-5 worker can easily walk away and get another job. The owner often loses a lot more.
A. Owners aren’t on the hook for shit. This is what limited liability means and what layoffs and bankruptcies are for.
B. Lots of employees do exactly that. See Bob’s Red Mill for instance.
Owners of small businesses usually put in a lot of unpaid time and effort. They often put in their own savings. So they have a lot more to lose than 2 weeks pay. They are also still liable for the legal, financial, and tax handling of the defunct company. There are often lawsuits around companies that fail. Directors can be named personally on the suit and while that can usually be fixed, it takes corporate lawyers to handle and they cost.
I suppose when you own the boot having it licked doesn't seem so distasteful.
Actually when I owned a company and an employee I didn't know well gave me a significant Christmas gift I was very uncomfortable. I tactfully refused it and explained that it was policy (although I had just created the policy). I also hated when people treated me carefully - I made sure to have some friends on staff who would call me a dickhead if I was a dickhead. But I was forever squeezed between our cheap customers, wanting to pay employees more, wanting to reinvest in R&D, and keeping enough cash available for emergencies.
I know a 9-5 labor job isn't great, I've done that. But running/owning a small business is way more work and stress.