Chapter 17: Retreat of the Firm and the Rise of Guilds - The Employment Relationship in an Age of Virtual Business

Robert Laubacher Thomas W. Malone

Overview

Roy Lagemann is a technical writer who lives in California's Silicon Valley. Since the mid1980s, he has worked primarily as a free lancer. He started his free lance career working nights and weekends while still holding an engineering job at a large Silicon Valley firm. Roy took courses at local universities, and through referrals and new assignments from past clients, quickly had enough work to quit his day job. A typical assignment took one to three months, and Roy usually juggled two or three at a time. His clients included big Silicon Valley companies like Hewlett Packard and Cisco, as well as startups. He built a tight network of other free lancers and relied on them when he needed someone to do extra writing or graphic design. Roy and his wife, who works with a small training business co-owned with her sister, cobbled together a semblance of the benefits package a large firm might offer. They obtained group rates on health insurance through Roy's wife's company, and every year, Roy took on a few assignments through a larger techical publications firm to take advantage of its subsidized 401K plan. Despite frequent offers from clients to work for them, he resisted, until the dot.com boom, when he was lured by stock options and signed on with a startup. But now, he says, the company's stock is "deep underwater… and I'm considering becoming an indie again to recover my lost freedom".

Upon returning from his honeymoon, Alan Singer was slated to start a new job on Wall Street. On the trip home, though, he felt unsettled. The new position in many ways represented Alan's ideal Wall Street job, but he wasn't excited about starting it. The frustrations of life inside big organizations had been building for a while; he wanted to go into business on his own. Encouraged by his self-employed wife, Alan turned down the position and set up shop as an advisor to small companies. Through a relative who worked in Silicon Alley, he got his first introductions to prospective clients. To make other contacts, he spoke at meetings of the New York Society of Security Analysts and Coop America, a group that promotes green businesses. Today, Alan works intensively with a small number of startups, some in high tech, some in traditional sectors, helping them to hone their business concepts and raise seed financing. "I've grown more in my time on my own", he says, "than in all the years I spent on Wall Street".

Jordan Dossett is a graphic designer based in the Washington, D.C. area. In early 2000, she posted a profile and samples of her work on elance.com, a Web site that matches "e-lancers" seeking work with buyers who need things done. In the three months after posting the profile, Jordan won 21 assignments to design logos, brochures and Web pages. She decided to quit her full-time job at a design firm and go out on her own, using elance and other Web sites to find work. One of the assignments Jordan completed through elance was for Jim Dale, the head of 100SF.com, an Internet portal for San Francisco-based non-profit organizations. Jim, on the West Coast, and Jordan, in DC, talked by phone and sent materials back and forth via the elance.com site. The assignment went smoothly, and both client and designer came away pleased. "I am really happy this all came together", says Jordan. "I got to know Jim a little and that's what I want. All of my services are based upon… personal attention". In this case, the personal attention was delivered electronically, via phone lines and Internet connections.