If you're on your own, if you see yourself as a freelancer, an expert, somebody who's

looking for another gig, here's a prediction.

You have a really lousy boss.

Hey, it's Maria, and this is a special archived episode of a Kimbo.

Yeah, a lousy boss, you, we're not that good at managing our careers, and we're even worse

at managing our day when we're a freelancer.

I've been a freelancer for more than 40 years off and on, I know the feeling.

This episode is about eight or nine ways to think about how you can manage your freelance

career, how you can enter the gig economy in a way that lets you be valued, be respected,

and do the work that you're proud of.

First, how did it even start?

Why don't we all just have jobs?

Well, in the 1930s, Ronald Kose wrote an important paper about the theory of the firm.

And he asked that very same question, why do firms exist at all?

Why don't we just buy every single service and good we need from the market?

Because after all, it's cheaper.

If you can buy stenography from an open market for stenographers, if you can buy a lift

when you need a lift, if you can buy a builder when you need a builder, well, you don't

have to pay those people when they're not working, and you can always get the best price

from the best person.

And yet, and yet we built these companies, 30,000, 50,000.

There are companies in the United States with 200,000 full-time employees.

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