And I agree with the above poster who said that it’s irresponsible not to have health insurance. That’s just common sense – and cheating the system is NOT the answer. Shame on you – not cool.

By abusing the ER, people drive up health care costs for everyone and can lead people to ruined credit if they can’t afford to pay their health care bills. Not going to be able to get much funding for your awesome new start up when your credit is terrible. Just my $.02 worth.

This is not about factory jobs. We’re an overeducated lot. We’ll start companies to accommodate that wealth of knowledge workers, but over tim, they too will become large companies. We’ll also be creating new revenue models so that everyone’s working on the side, even if it doesn’t feel like work (but that’s not a career, that’s just money).

Going without healthcare is not for everyone, even in their twenties. It doesn’t take much bad luck to get really sick. Getting really sick is the kind of thing that loses you work, whether you’re your own boss or not. When you’ve run a fever and spent three weeks puking and working, healthcare can suddenly seem much more important.

There is no rule that says that corporate jobs are more secure and make you lazy and stupid and risk averse. A person who is motivated can do well either freelancing or in a corporate job. The only difference is office politics. I would say that if you’re good at office politics, then go for corporate, and if you’re not, then focus on doing what you love.

And finally, it is dead wrong to say that a corporate job means they don’t care about whether you’re learning. In fact, most of my job is learning, because I’ve shown the company that I’m most valuable to them that way. I’m finishing up a master’s degree in English and getting ready to apply for a doctorate in anthropology – while working full time – and its because my company has realized that not only does the fact that I’m still in school mean they’ll shortly have my graduate degrees as a selling point, but also because it means I’m on the cutting edge of everything we do.

Not to mention which I spend six hours a day reading and writing analysis, which I can’t imagine could be classified as anything other than learning.

And I know people are sitting around going “how did you ever get this job? / these jobs don’t exist” but the truth is that I made my job. I started at the bottom and realized that I could do all of my tasks plus have time to learn, and by dedicating time to it and showing the company that what I was doing was useful, it became most of my job. I am not out of the ordinary. This is how Gen Y will take over the workforce. Not by necessarily creating our own companies, but by making money doing whatever we want, the way we want to. And I suspect that in about five years, when there’s a larger sample out of college who have gotten through the first horrendous years of working that occur no matter what you’re doing or who you work for, you’ll be hearing many more stories like mine.

I am with you on this. The learning curve from working on your own company and that of a big shot are not even in the same league. Corporate training is not real world training, it is training to get something done right now. As a Gen-Y entrepreneur and consultant for bigger companies, getting them to see the workplace from our point of view has been a challenge but something that the leading companies will know and understand.

It is another thing altogether to generalize Gen-Y into everyone being able to be an entrepreneur. That is just not the case. But those that want to advance their careers, have creative vision and freedom to choose projects, regardless of the headaches will choose their own business over working at a desk where they can finish their day’s work before the coffee gets cold.