A one-person company looks like being your own boss. On the books it looks more like a subcontractor
The one-person company is having a moment: one person plus a fleet of AI agents, costs cut to one-twentieth of hiring someone. But after running my own one-person-plus-AI system for two years, I worked out what this business actually lives on: the work that leaks down from upstream. Big companies slice whole functions into outsourced projects, and the one-person company catches the water that trickles to the very bottom layer. Some people take home a million a year doing this; others watch their income shrink by 90%. Plus three signals for reading whether the window is opening or closing.