The most successful people are just the luckiest, a new computer model confirms • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by gl00pp » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:09 PM UTC

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.…

>...assets would have been possible without your labor, so actually your net worth seems ever more justified.

What? No, how is it justified?

Try again.

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

#222

Post by jiveturkey » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:10 PM UTC

program_whiz wrote: post #118

Watch a survival documentary. 10 contestants, many battle-hardened. The conclusion after watching 5 seasons of "Alone" is -- its all luck. The fittest didn't win, it was the person who happened to be dropped off in a relatively safe area, with access to resources, and had some good luck day to day. The people who randomly dropped into areas filled with predators or hazards, they were forced out (despite many being ha…

> Watch a survival documentary. 10 contestants, many battle-hardened. The conclusion after watching 5 seasons of "Alone"

That's a reality TV show, not a documentary.

That aside, the conditions for basic survival in harsh, solitary, conditions are vastly different that those for economic success in first-world society.

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

#223

Post by overthemoon » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #216

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…

> 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?

They're still wealthy, though, that's the main point. It's not that wealthy parents = billions of dollars, it's that the path to billionaire status overwhelmingly starts with abnormally good starting conditions.

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

#224

Post by akhilcacharya » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

throwaway_bad wrote: post #220

akhilcacharya wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> 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. =

Why is that?

Also, MIT's distribution seems very different. Amazon and Facebook are near equal and GM takes a big chunk, which is not what I would have expected. Oracle is also around the same as my undergrad.

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

#225

Post by ativzzz » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #39

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they are not. Yes, there is more opportunity in some settings than others but the people with the skills are much less likely to be passed by by that opportunity than everyone else. There's a lot more opportunity that usable to the people who are in a position to take advantage of it (preparation) and have the drive to do so (hustle).

Again, imagine 1 does not occur. You hustle and there is never a lucky opportunity. Do you still achieve success? You prepare for a job interview and you never get the opportunity to interview. Do you still achieve success? No one is saying that there aren’t factors to increase luck insofar as people are saying that success doesn’t necessarily have a linear relationship with preparation or hustle. IE. Person A who ea…

> You hustle and there is never a lucky opportunity. Do you still achieve success? You prepare for a job interview and you never get the opportunity to interview. Do you still achieve success?

You don't achieve success, nor do you experience luck. In this case you describe, are you unlucky, or are you simply bad at "hustling" or whatever work you are putting in?

Hustling on its own doesn't guarantee good luck. Nothing does; it just (if done right, sometimes) increases your odds.

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

#226

Post by hinkley » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

meiraleal wrote: post #129

DoreenMichele wrote: post #21

Years ago, a friend of the family said "You're so smart. Everyone thought you would be a millionaire by age thirty. What happened?" I pointed at my kids and said "They happened. And they take all my time." I was a full-time wife and mom. This is not a career known to lead to great wealth. So, for starters, not all interests or career paths have equal potential to lead to wealth. Intelligence in no way guarantees that…

> Divorce, scandal, drug addiction and various other personal issues can all be financially ruinous. Smart people get past their personal issues and back on track stronger. If not, they aren't smart. A little bit above average is not smart, nor be really great at one thing (like computing) but not be able to fix your own lifestyle, money expending, health and eating habits.

The drug addiction may not be yours. I've heard some stories.

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

#227

Post by ChrisLomont » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

mijamo wrote: post #217

tathougies wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>It's not like you're creating money out of thin air.

No, but money (and value) is created out of ideas, of labor, and adding value to products.

When an IPO happens, for example, and a company owner holding 50% of the company is suddenly valued at $20B, that value did not come from taking $20B from other people. It's the value of the company. It is value simply created out of thin air, that didn't exist before.

If the next day, someone prices the stock 30% higher through market forces, the owners value shoots up 30% also. That 30% increase in a single day was not taken from anyone - it is made up out of thin air.

When a craftsman buys a piece of wood for $10, crafts it such that others value it at $1000, that craftsman just added $900 of value. It might have taken a week, or might have taken 15 minutes. It's not simply some labor value per hour times hours. The amount of value is created out of thin air, but it took some labor to allow that increase to happen. The labor amount and value added is somewhat related, but varies greatly across all endeavors.

And saying the employees could have just worked somewhere else is shuffling the truth - to have somewhere to work, someone has to start a company, which often takes significant money and risk to begin with, before thousands of workers can have a stable job. That money too was created previously through invention, innovation, labor, and previous investment.

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

#228

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

anon9001 wrote: post #106

citronlakris wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you from america? As a european, this assumption that everyone would value getting as rich as possible as their top priority seems really weird.

For Americans, getting rich should be the top priority. There's not much of a safety net if you fall ill and can't work. You have to use your healthy/productive years to build up wealth so you won't be homeless later.

Well, that's one way of looking at it. Another way would be think that it's smarter to have a social safety net and cooperate with other people to that end.

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

#229

Post by ChrisLomont » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

ta1234567890 wrote: post #13

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…

However, 2, 3 and 4 can be reduced to 1. You don't choose your genes or where you are born. Those factors, which are blind luck, determine all of the other lucks for your whole life. In the end, everything is just blind luck, but our egos want to feel like they are in control somehow.

>In the end, everything is just blind luck

So you claim there is no correlation between, say, hours worked and money earned? That pay is some random variable not causally connected to any decision a person makes?

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

#230

Post by imgabe » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

overthemoon wrote: post #223

imgabe wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

They're still wealthy, though, that's the main point. It's not that wealthy parents = billions of dollars, it's that the path to billionaire status overwhelmingly starts with abnormally good starting conditions.

Billionaire is a bad metric. These are outliers of outliers. Obviously everyone can't be a billionaire. That's like asking why everyone isn't an Olympic gold medalist. Of course the path to a billionaire is going to start with abnormal conditions. It's also going to be completely abnormal along the way, too. It's an abnormal outcome. Why would you expect anything different?