However, I think that the business owners that put 60+ hours a week into their business have done it wrong. If you are the single point of failure in your business then you haven't built yourself a business you have bought yourself a job. I should also clarify, when I say “wrong” I should really say “wrong for me”.

There are different approaches to owning and doing business. If you have set your business up from the beginning with the end goal to step away it from then it is possible. A business owner may have to put 60+ hours into it to get the business started but if you have a competent team working for you then it should make money if you are there or not.

Obviously in Mr. Jobs' case he likes to keep control over everything. Micromanaging works for him but it isn't something that I would want to have to deal with. It might mean that I won't make billions but I am sure the millions will be enough.

As someone mentioned in the article I thought I'd weigh in with some thoughts on the topic.
I agree with most of what you said, and would add that a major difference between the two investing styles is the time invested in either. Every small business owner I know puts in 60+ working hours a week. I don't know anyone in this category who has been able to get to the point where they aren't still very involved in the day-to-day operations of their business.

While investing in stocks also requires some time do do the relevant research, it is much less than the time a small business owner spends, and also much more flexible. For someone like myself whose time is very limited at the moment, investing in stocks is the only reasonable choice. Plus I like the idea of Steve Jobs working for me

As for likening stock investing to blackjack, for me stock investing is definitely less risky. Consider that over the last 100 years the US stock market has grown by 10% each year on average. Also, the market undergoes a major correction about every 7 years on average. This means that if an investor is patient enough to wait until the market makes another major dip, they can make quite a nice return just investing in an S&P 500 index fund.

As for personal investment style, I am a long-term value investor. This means that I try to buy into solid companies when their stock price is temporarily undervalued. This can happen to any great company due to general market swings, bad publicity (see BP at the moment), short-term negative company news (such as lower than expected earnings, etc…), or even longer periods with no news at all (see BSRC).

For me, one of the most important criteria in spotting a good value buy is finding companies that exploit or define strong current cultural trends.

A quick example is Netflix (NFLX). During the recent tough economic times in the US, people are choosing not to spend money on going to the movies or driving to a DVD rental store. Instead they have their favorite DVDs delivered in the mail. Netflix has begun offering instant movie streaming on many titles, which directly plays into the American cultural value of convenience, and instant gratification. Further, they are beginning to partner with console makers, who ship their devices (i.e. the Xbox and Wii) with Netflix access.

When I see how this company is cleverly exploiting cultural trends, all it takes it patience to wait until its stock price dips to buy in (in my case at $27, later again at $19).

That's my 2 cents on the subject. Happy investing everyone!
- E