I would gladly (and have) trade half of my income for the freedom to work on what I want, where I want, when I want. You simply cannot compare working on your own stuff from a home office with working a salary job for someone else in an office.
That said, it rarely works out that way for the best developers, who end up making more than they could if salaried. Particularly in the long run and when value of your time is considered. Did you catch that he worked about 15 hours on BCC, made $55k in "a few weeks of consulting" and put AR in a place to explode in 2012 and 2013? He doesn't say how much time he spent on AR, but I doubt the total of all of those was equivalent to the stress of working 60+ hour weeks as a "senior programmer" at some valley startup.
Not to mention that Patrick is WAY past the senior programmer level :)
That said, it rarely works out that way for the best developers, who end up making more than they could if salaried. Particularly in the long run and when value of your time is considered. Did you catch that he worked about 15 hours on BCC, made $55k in "a few weeks of consulting" and put AR in a place to explode in 2012 and 2013? He doesn't say how much time he spent on AR, but I doubt the total of all of those was equivalent to the stress of working 60+ hour weeks as a "senior programmer" at some valley startup.
Not to mention that Patrick is WAY past the senior programmer level :)