Please explain how he is wrong?

An article does not have to be "wrong" to be terrible.

This attitude is "wrong" for succeeding.

Ok, bad choice of words. I was simply asking for less of a statement and more of an explanation.

Here is why he is wrong

1. You won't be your own boss. Yes, your customers will tell you what they want, but ultimately YOU decide the direction of your product/company. In this sense, you most certainly are your own boss.

2. You won't like your personal life. Unless you are passionate about what your business, and you love what you are building. Also, this is empirically and anecdotally wrong.

3. You won't succeed. Every startup fails for one reason: the founders quit before they build something people like. There is no other reason for failure (esp. in the case of software). I will defend this point separately, if need be.

4. You'll hate the problems. By definition, problems are problematic. But the problems you are trying to solve in YOUR business will be a lot more engaging than the trivial problems you are working on in a large company.

5. You'll be a jerk.

I don't even know how to respond to this one. Have you ever worked in a big office? Go to passiveaggressivenotes.com -- I bet that 99% of the content on that site comes from cubicle-style offices.

6. You'll hate your lifestyle.

Empirically wrong. It's a challenging lifestyle, but whether you hate it or not depends more on your personality type than on the lifestyle itself.

7. Again, you'll fail. c.f. 3

1. He probably meant complete freedom of what to do. You know as well as every other founder out there that 95% of what you do in business or consumer facing software ain't sexy.

2. Some people choose to sacrifice everything. Most startups I have dealt with do this, and many dislike their decisions, but feel it's the only way forward.

3. That's like saying every person could beat usain bolt, they just give up too easily. Not everyone has an unlimited supply of patience or funding to try unlimited ideas, just like athlete's don't have an infinite amount of time. If it were so easy there would be a lot more self made billionaires.

4. Smart people can easily get jobs doing exactly what they want. I'd rather do what I used to (data mining, visualisation, stats) than writing tests, user interface bug fixes, build automation, etc any day.

6. You can't just claim he is wrong and then cite personal preference. A large proportion of people aren't suited to this lifestyle. I happen to love it, but many hate it.

Well, unless you're in a one-solution-per-customer type of business like consulting, the first one seems way off track. Who's your boss when you're making a video game? Your millions of potenial users are not going to call you in for a weekly progress meeting every Monday and a conference call every Thursday.

I don't know if managing an 85-person student group orchestra is any indication of running a business, but I personally like solving the problems that come up, especially ones that aren't directly related to the field. So scratch #4 too.

Finally, I know that you have to manage your time well to run a business. You can't be working 24/7, or you'll just burn out. Therefore, you will still have time for a personal life if you're doing it right. (#2)