No, but in some circles there's an assumption that self employment is just a stopgap, and you're only working for yourself until you can find another position where you can pad someone else's bottom line instead of your own.
As far as I can tell, the people he spoke to assumed he was going freelance because he couldn't get a "normal" job.
I've certainly had people criticise my choice to be self-employed (mainly my family), but I've never actually encountered the assumption that it was my only choice. Regional attitudes vary, I guess.
When people ask what I do, I often break the ice by saying "I'm self-unemployed" with a smile. I can then explain the somewhat complicated web of open-source, startup building and consulting projects that fill my day, without some of the awkwardness that being hard to categorize sometimes invokes.
Or I just tell them I'm doing so well that Facebook got scared and tried to sue me out of business!
