The Weekly Independent: September 8, 2015

Get back to the week armed with fresh insight, thanks to our new(ish) weekly #IndependentLife roundup.

If you haven’t already, take some time to visit the all-new MBOPartners.com. We’re updated our site to make it faster and easier to navigate, so that you can get what you need and get back to business. One of our favorite features? Our newly streamlined bill rate calculator.

• 24 million Americans, about 14 percent of the U.S. population, had started or were running their own businesses in 2014, says a new report from Babson University.
• Famed actor Bruce Lee once said “I don’t fear the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks. I fear the man who practiced one kick 10,000 times.” Learn how to apply ‘The Bruce Lee Way’ into mastering a skill and improving on-the-job performance.
• Misclassification is turning into a serious issue for Uber. Drivers were granted class action status in a lawsuit over employment last week, Reuters reported. This gives California drives the rights to sue as a group on the question of whether they are employees or contractors.
• The Verge takes a fascinating look at how the availability of high-speed data connections is changing the way we work, play and live.
• Is the $800 billion home services marketplace on the verge of a bubble, and is it about to burst? TechCrunch examines the issues, while Vanity Fair’s in-depth piece puts the larger startup market in context.

Have news? Share your thoughts with us at MBO Partners on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and we’ll see you next week!