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The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

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Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#211

Post by derekp7 »

Konnstann wrote: post #138
maerF0x0 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social security for instances ... And parents likely have lower lifetime earnings than non-parents. So its possible they're not only funding the future of social security, but also getting less for themselves... It would be great if someone had a source if parents are net recipients of benefits beyond the societal benefit of having children.

There's a plethora of tax breaks and deductions related to children that you can claim. Besides that, the people who don't have kids are subsidizing the education of yours through their taxes. Regarding social security, I'm fairly confident the system will collapse before I see a penny of what I'm paying in.

Those kids will be paying taxes the rest of their lives which go to fund education. Either directly (through property taxes on their home), or indirectly (the landlord has to pay property taxes, which comes from rent money).

So in a way everybody pays for their own education after the fact.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#212

Post by gdubs »

diminoten wrote: post #188
gdubs wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In life, you really don’t get to choose not to roll the dice, because there’s risk in everything including doing nothing.

You absolutely get to choose not to roll the dice, by staying at home, by not starting that company, by not pursuing that guy/girl, by not interviewing with that company, by generally refusing to put yourself out there and see what happens.

You missed my point: in life, even doing “nothing” is a choice, with it’s own element of risk.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#213

Post by thrownaway954 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #194
thrownaway954 wrote: post #189

I chased the dollar and lost my wife and Pomeranian in a divorce :( I was rich, but never realized that love and companionship is worth more in the long term than money. I would give a billion dollars to wake up with my wife in my arms and that little dude licking my face.

^^ Techlead spotted. You can have both good things in your life again. Dust yourself off, learn what you need to learn and find someone who will uphold her commitments (I'm making some assumptions about your vows)...

while I appreciate it... i realized that it would never be the same. too much time has pasted, we're both different people now. i'm just happy that they are both happy and healthy. divorce doesn't mean you have to hate each other forever.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#214

Post by omarhaneef »

hnhg wrote: post #168
omarhaneef wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know I can say it more clearly. I can sort of repeat what I said. Instead of two factors (intelligence, and effort), let's just take one factor (effort). One person works 12 hours a day. We know people can only work 2x as hard as this person. Yet, there are many people who are more than 2x as rich. Hence, effort alone doesn't fully explain the difference. That is it. You can get that argument right there. Do…

My point is that the mathematical simulation is more precise because you've exactly stated the model and ran it. While doing it verbally allows for all kinds of interpretation and is therefore much harder to interpret. I apologise but I also really sincerely don't understand your verbal reasoning in the context of this particular paper. They took two underlying distributions and managed to produce something that look…

I reread our back and forth, and I think my clearest explanation is in the original post where I quote from the author. So I think we might be at the limits of my ability to communicate in this medium.

But even in the instance you are talking about -- let's just abstract away everything else -- we know that the output of a gaussian process over time will be a very wide dispersion.

If you assume stock prices follow some kind of gaussian distribution (yes, I know they don't), and just follow them in time you get this crazy wide distribution.

Its a "stylized fact". And running it as a metaphor for some other process doesn't give me more insight. But I fear this explanation is even more confusing, and not less.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#215

Post by akhilcacharya »

throwaway_bad wrote: post #185
akhilcacharya wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a heck of a bubble then! Usually the choice isn't the bottleneck for mere mortals like the people I went to undergrad with.

I think it's pretty typical for schools like CMU. Look at their post graduation survey: https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2018_one_pagers/scs/1-P... Out of 170 graduates, 27 went to facebook, 21 went to google, 13 went to microsoft, 6 went to amazon, 2 went to apple, etc. That's basically half the class including a lot of people from the bottom half of the class (the best people I knew usually didn't choose FAAMG…

Really cool report. Looking through the list the Google and FB numbers go up including Waymo, DeepMind, and WhatsApp.

Out of about ~150 graduates at my undergrad, I think 3 went to Amazon (including myself), 1 went to Facebook, 1 went to Microsoft in a support role and the rest went to Cisco, IBM, and consulting companies.

I wonder why CMU only had 6 to Amazon. That seems low! I think trading firms like JS, Two Sigma, Jump and Ansatz had more combined...

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#216

Post by imgabe »

shadowtree wrote: post #35
martinni wrote: post #7

Rich people got "lucky" but they don't define what luck is to begin with. To quote Naval, there are 4 kinds of luck. 1. Blind luck - Where I just got lucky because something completely out of my control happened 2. Luck from hustling - luck that comes through persistence, hard work, hustle, motion. Which is when you’re running around creating lots of opportunities, you’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lo…

2-4 are great examples of survivorship bias. For every success story with those traits are thousands of failures. If Bill Gates had been born and raised in Ruanda, you wouldn't know his name today. Same IQ, same hustler. But no parents with connections, no upbringing devoid of war and violence. It's just like in sports. Usain Bolt is not the fastest man alive. He is the fastest professional runner. Within a sample se…

> If Bill Gates had been born and raised in Ruanda, you wouldn't know his name today. Same IQ, same hustler. But no parents with connections, no upbringing devoid of war and violence.

Flip that around. There are thousands, if not millions of other kids who grew up with wealthy, connected parents. Why aren't they all billionaires if that's all it takes?

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#217

Post by mijamo »

tathougies wrote: post #201
shadowtree wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2-4 are great examples of survivorship bias. For every success story with those traits are thousands of failures. If Bill Gates had been born and raised in Ruanda, you wouldn't know his name today. Same IQ, same hustler. But no parents with connections, no upbringing devoid of war and violence. It's just like in sports. Usain Bolt is not the fastest man alive. He is the fastest professional runner. Within a sample se…

> This is why the slogan "Billionaires should not exist" is not without merit. A net worth of 100mil still means generational wealth. But once you're in the billions, the gap to all the other employees in your company becomes just crazy - but none of the billions would have been possible without their labor. On the other hand, suppose you employ 30,000 people each with 10,000 in savings from working at your company.…

You don't know that though. They could have just worked somewhere else and earned as much. It's not like you're creating money out of thin air.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#218

Post by klyrs »

pmoriarty wrote: post #162
klyrs wrote: post #113

I'm a mathematician because that's what interests me. My richness is not measured in dollars. As I age, I grow more concerned for my future, but I still have no regrets.

Lots of financial firms love to hire mathematicians (see Renaissance Technologies for a famous example). So you could probably secure your financial future relatively easily if you wanted to.

> ...if you wanted to.

I'm well aware of the option. Sacrifice my happiness for how many years in the process?

Making money has never been a primary goal of mine. I'm lucky that my interests are moderately lucrative. I know that "very lucrative" is just around the corner. But so is the liquor store, and I don't drink.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#219

Post by maerF0x0 »

thrownaway954 wrote: post #213
maerF0x0 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^^ Techlead spotted. You can have both good things in your life again. Dust yourself off, learn what you need to learn and find someone who will uphold her commitments (I'm making some assumptions about your vows)...

while I appreciate it... i realized that it would never be the same. too much time has pasted, we're both different people now. i'm just happy that they are both happy and healthy. divorce doesn't mean you have to hate each other forever.

I didnt mean have your ex back. I meant have someone you appreciate approximately as much, though maybe for different reasons.

Re: The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms

#220

Post by throwaway_bad »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #215
throwaway_bad wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's pretty typical for schools like CMU. Look at their post graduation survey: https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2018_one_pagers/scs/1-P... Out of 170 graduates, 27 went to facebook, 21 went to google, 13 went to microsoft, 6 went to amazon, 2 went to apple, etc. That's basically half the class including a lot of people from the bottom half of the class (the best people I knew usually didn't choose FAAMG…

Really cool report. Looking through the list the Google and FB numbers go up including Waymo, DeepMind, and WhatsApp. Out of about ~150 graduates at my undergrad, I think 3 went to Amazon (including myself), 1 went to Facebook, 1 went to Microsoft in a support role and the rest went to Cisco, IBM, and consulting companies. I wonder why CMU only had 6 to Amazon. That seems low! I think trading firms like JS, Two Sigma…

It seems kind of asshole to say this but Amazon is considered low-tier at CMU so people don't choose it unless they got rejected from everyone else. =/

I am looking at MIT's salary survey and they have similar ratios: https://capd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/about/files/GSS2017...

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