Don't Start a Company, Kid � Big Nerd Ranch Blog:

When you work for a company, like our client Procter & Gamble, they will present you with a problem. “Here,” they will say, “is our problem and a big bucket of money. Please create a solution.” There is no need for guessing.

Ha.  Hahahaha.  HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Mr. Hillegass either worked at some of the greatest companies on earth or his corporate experience is exceptionally limited.

As a contractor, can you expect the sort of situation he describes?  Yes, but then he's admitted that he is a contractor in the situation he describes.  Let's not confuse "contracting" with "working at a company".  When companies look for a contractor, they temporarily have too much work to finish themselves, so they chunk it out (aka, "define a problem" or set of problems) and spit some out for bid.

If you want to say that "our problem" at a company is "to be comfortably-to-insanely profitable", fine.  In those terms, there's no guessing.  Your goal at a corporate job is to bring in at least twice the cash that you cost.  If the problem is, "identify how best to take imperfect specs and customer research and turn it into software customers will gladly pay to use, all within the constraints you're given by those above filtered through the skills you can coax out of yourself and your team," well, it's nothing but guesswork.

The actionable difference is really limited to fact that the delivery of the check you get twice a month is a bit more reliable at a company, mainly because the pot and/or stream of money your company's pulling in is larger and more resistant to feast or famine than your own.  That's right, the company generally has, in Hillegass' system, almost by definition, "Enough".

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