IQ is only a minor factor in success

1) You very much do in some jobs. You can't work 70 or 80 hours every week for long stretches and maintain your physical and mental well being. People really do that, and the ones that can maintain the pace for a few years make boatloads of money. A guy I knew like that was able to afford the best medical care when he had his first heart attack at 43. He may in fact live longer than the bottom 75% of income earners. I doubt it.

2) The article makes the assumption that because wealth doesn't correlate to IQ very strongly it must mean IQ doesn't help you become rich. My point is that doesn't necessarily follow and it may be that smart does enter into it - maybe nearly every smart person could get rich and decides there are better ways to live.

3) There's trading your youth and then there's trading your youth. I would say a guy who works 40 hours a week and has other interests does a lot less of it than a guy who works 60-70 hours a week and does nothing else.

Having a rich daddy is probably the largest influence in someone's chances of being rich themselves, at least in the US.

I see money as freedom. My ultimate goal is to save enough so that I don't have to work. Eventually, that will be the case, hopefully not on my deathbed.

If the majority of the population thought that way, we'd have an economic collapse though, so forget what I said.

Can you give a breakdown of what you've found to be the percentages "the formula?" I'm honestly curious.

I'm probably decently smart, but I'm not rich at all. In fact I'm quite poor by most people's standards.

I'm also really happy and work fewer hours per week than anyone I know.

If there's one thing I worry about it's that I should be trying to be rich because I probably have the means to make that happen. I might be making 200k/yr if I worked full time. I might be able to start a successful company if I put my mind to it. I've never been able to convince myself that it's worth it.

Money just doesn't seem that useful to me. I don't need a car, I'd actually prefer a smaller studio for less money if I could find one. My bills add up to maybe $1400/month. It's trivial to make that much money. I have a fulfilling part time job which I could sleep through and still cover my expenses. Every dollar I earn writing software is a bonus. It constantly surprises me how much money my peers are capable of spending.

Fixing things is also really fun. I have $300 dollar headphones, they cost me $0 because I pulled them out of the trash and spent a couple hours overhauling them. The biggest material source of joy in my life is a $280 bicycle, my laptop cost the same, both off craigslist. Going out for a night on the town can cost hundreds of dollars, if I want to indulge in a vice I can buy enough weed to last me 3 months for the same amount of money. I'm always free to spend time with friends doing cool things.

The skills I have that I use to earn money are all learned from spending free time messing around doing small projects just for the hell of it. I wouldn't have these skills if I didn't have so much free time to explore whatever strikes my fancy.

It really seems like the point at which working harder to earn money hits diminishing returns comes much much earlier that most people think.