I went to a talk by a self-styled "lifestyle entrepreneur" today. These people describe themselves as people who work in fields that fit with their lifestyle and preferences, be it to travel around the world, achieve moral or ethical goals, or find self actualisation.

One story he told really struck me the wrong way. He was describing how he was being introduced to the marvels of Chinese factory production in the mid-2000s, and how, having just read "The Four Hour Workweek" by Timothy Ferriss, decided to try and combine the two concepts into a business idea.

To me, that just sounded like he was trying to drastically reducing his own working hours by outsourcing (and multiplying!) them to other people who would work for less and produce more.

I'm not saying I have anything in particular against lifestyle entrepreneurs in general. And I recognise that there are economic arguments and the like involved too. But something about the story just seemed... wrong. It may have been the slightly cavalier way that he told it, or how it seemed to just trivialise people's lives, just because of the differing work expectations.