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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

#241

Post by gowld »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #82
umvi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next time just say: "I am a millionaire, and more. My kids are worth more than I could have imagined"

That's more literally true than you think. My children nursed me back to health after doctor's wrote me off for dead. It's supposed to cost about $100k-$250k annually to treat my condition conventionally. My oldest has the same condition. Between the two of us, that's up to a half million dollars per year. We were diagnosed over 18 years ago. You can conservatively guess that my kids have been worth at least $1.5 mil…

Related: https://faithit.com/i-cant-afford-my-wife-steven-nelms/ a stay-at-home mom is worth $75K+/yr

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

#242

Post by throwaway_bad »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #224
throwaway_bad wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You work there so you probably have a better idea than I do but they have a terrible reputation externally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17062782

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

#243

Post by gowld »

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.

Why? How old are you? Current forecast is that 80% of benefits are funded, as of 2035. Even if the funding ration continues to decline, as long seniors don't vote themselves out of Social Security, there will still be a pot of revenue from younger working people.

https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/estimator.html

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

#244

Post by ska »

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…

> but they don't define what luck is to begin with.

They do though, the paper is focused on what you call "blind luck" in (1). I suppose it can be summarized as a evidence based counter argument to the cultural narrative weight given to 2,3,4, especially in the US.

I don't think it is complete of course, but it is interesting.

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

#245

Post by mkr-hn »

anigbrowl wrote: post #228
anon9001 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't confuse smart for the individual with smart for the society. Of course a good social safety net would be great. We don't have it. Nothing in my short life tells me this political system or culture can produce it.

I am not putting my bets on a change in culture or government. I see what's happening to people who counted on Social Security/Medicare and discovered too late that it wasn't enough.

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

#246

Post by hinkley »

davinic wrote: post #43
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hustle and preparation are not luck, they're skills you have to hone for them to be useful. You have to actually do something. They aren't something you can be born into (much to the dismay of rich parents with deadbeat kids). By reducing 2 and 3 to luck you're implying that people have no agency. Sure, the person who develops those skills in rural Africa isn't going to go as far as someone who develops those skills…

Of course not, but you still have to either be born as the type of person who would seek out and hone this skill, or have been born into a situation where someone showed you this and you were naturally receptive to it.

I had a coworker who went to Stanford on scholarships. The thing that surprised him about all the rich kids there was how prepared they were for life already. It was no wonder to him how they get ahead and stay ahead, and it wasn't just money.

But one of my theories in life is that power is money, not the other way around. We know that's something that the newly rich run into over and over. We even have movies with that story arc.

'They' are all too happy to see us get hung up on how much money we're going to allow them to have. They'll still be just as powerful and influential. Probably the easiest thing they spend that 'currency' on is to have enough money to cover the exchange rate with people outside their circles.

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

#247

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway_bad wrote: post #242
akhilcacharya wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You work there so you probably have a better idea than I do but they have a terrible reputation externally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17062782

[deleted]

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

#248

Post by 1000units »

pmoriarty wrote: post #200
jerf wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. I mean that having a certain level of wealth throws you into a world where everyone wants a piece of you, friendships become very difficult because are they friends or are they just after some money? Probably the latter. It basically takes you out of the normal run of human affairs into a very isolated environment. It solves a lot of problems that, frankly, I can solve well enough now, in return for…

Your view is one that I'm partial to myself, but there are some other factors which you don't mention in your analysis. One is that if you widen your view to not just being about you and how you cope with or are affected by that wealth, and consider how it might be used to help or influence those around you, the conclusion of whether to accept or seek such wealth might be different. There was an article on HN recentl…

These guys are shallow sleezebags. Bill Gates blew up the population of Africa as a PR stunt for his wife, which we see here has been successful. Nothing Bezos has done is morally praiseworthy, and many things questionable. Musk is a cool guy but clearly just a flashy narcissist.

It's much easier to make the world a better place by securing the proliferation of good ideas than to become fantastically rich. Ideas are after all what turn paper into money. I hope to raise a very large family of like-minded sons.

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

#249

Post by tutfbhuf »

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…

> Years ago, a friend of the family said "You're so smart. Everyone thought you would be a millionaire by age thirty. What happened?"

You could have reacted (slightly confused) like so: I pointed at my kids and said "I am."

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

#250

Post by thedragonline »

gitpusher wrote: post #190

They seem to have a flawed core assumption – that everyone is hell-bent on maximizing their personal wealth. In other words, every person will dedicate their entire intellect toward the goal of making money. This doesn't really match up with reality (thank goodness).

It’s a model. All models are wrong, some are useful. That the models’ wealth distribution correlates well with the real world is an interesting fact and strongly suggests further investigation. Edit:grammar
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