How rich kids already won the career game • Hacker News Board

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#171

Post by warrenwilkinson » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 7:16 PM UTC

calibraxis wrote: post #51

ramanujan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree with you that he should address his argument. That said, this is almost too obvious to point out, but it happens to be true that the Soviet Union and Communist China (and Vietnam, Cambodia, etcetera) murdered 100 million+[1] in the name of "building socialism", and it is quite possible that the original poster knows people from those countries who lost loved ones to socialism/communism. Seen in this…

Perhaps you are not familiar with the terminology... In most of the world, "libertarian" means libertarian socialism. The historically correct meaning. Some right-wingers in 1950's US appropriated the term to mean extreme capitalism. Discussed earlier: ( http://raganwald.posterous.com/hello-my-name-is-reginald-and... ) The usual claims against communism don't apply, as libertarian socialists historically opposed both…

The link you provided does not talk about the word 'libertarian' at all, other than its author calling himself a Libertarian Socialist.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#172

Post by tomkarlo » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 7:25 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #164

nostrademons wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a statistician, but I don't believe this is true. You need ~1000 individuals to find statistically significant phenomena in a population the size of the U.S. . Since the population of rich people is so much smaller, you'd need a smaller number of individuals to draw statistical inferences from it. Anyone know the actual formula for statistical significance, and able to work out how big a sample needs to be for, s…

Not trying to be harsh, but you apparently haven't been taught this key idea about statistical significance: degree of confidence depends only on the size of the sample and the sample selection mechanism, not the size of the total population. This is a really unintuitive idea. The dependence is something like confidence = (signal/noise)*sqrt(sample size) (One caveat: if your population is very small, you may be able…

You're right (and my follow up comment is wrong) but the core of my comment holds - you still probably need 1,000+ samples to get a statistically significant result for a phenomena like this and I really doubt the OP has any knowledge on that order of things.

There's huge noise in terms of the lifetime income / career success earned by any sample population regardless of background and the phenomena we'd be looking for is probably on the order of a single-digit difference.

You'd need something like a twins study to ever really know if this was true.

Do rich kids really outperform at work because of how they behave / think? Or do their parents have better connections? Or do they just have more money to afford better colleges? The OP has no evidence that the perceived better results are actually because of the reasons he cites, or other phenomena.

If point of the post is just "rich kids have more resources so they do better at life than poor kids", well, that's kind of uninteresting and obvious. If it's "rich kids are treated different" or "rich kids act different at work" then that needs to be substantiated.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#173

Post by tomkarlo » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 7:28 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #165

tomkarlo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing about sample sizes is that they don't scale with population size. [Edited the part where I said they don't scale "much"... they don't scale.] If you're studying a phenomena with less than 5% impact, you need 1000+ data points to reach 95% significance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_hypothesis_testing [Fixed link, deleted my incorrect comment.]

Looks like we just replied to nostrademons at the same time, but we slightly disagree. You say that the dependence on population size is slow (sqrt) but I say there is no dependence for most cases. Are you sure you aren't confusing the dependence of confidence on sample size as opposed to population size? See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance#Signal... I could be making a mistake somewhere.

No, you're right. I edited my comment.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#174

Post by tomkarlo » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 7:30 PM UTC

Maro wrote: post #94

zeemonkee wrote: post #64

"I believe my generation will overthrow the arbitrary and brutal authority of corporate capitalism and bigoted conservatism in favor of rationalistic, libertarian socialism driven by a scientific approach and a concern for universal social justice." That's what my generation believed. And my parents' generation. And their parents....read some literature from 100 years ago, for example by the Fabians or other socialis…

The point of the OP was IF the rich kid works just like the regular kid, then he'll still be ahead.

This only works if you can compare a rich kid and a regular kid who had the same opportunities, particularly educational but also in terms of their friends, etc. Otherwise there's no control. Presumably, we spend all this money on education so that it results in more success for the same amount of work later in life.

One thing I've noticed, anecdotally: kids who grew up in Manhattan have parents or know parents who were investment bankers, corporate lawyers, etc. This gives them a leg up in getting into those professions over kids whose parents were in more common occupations, if only because they know more about those industries. It has nothing to do with their attitude. I'm guessing that it's no coincidence that lots of successful actors and musicians have successful actor parents, too: Charlie Sheen, anyone?

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#175

Post by david927 » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 7:36 PM UTC

byrneseyeview wrote: post #135

Maro wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the OP was IF the rich kid works just like the regular kid, then he'll still be ahead.

One of the reasons people get rich is to provide for their kids. That's a more realistic motive than providing for society as a whole, and a more noble motive than funding hedonism. I wouldn't want to live in a society where rich kids don't have an advantage, because that's a society with either debased rich people or no rich people.

"A society where rich kids don't have any advantage" is reductio ad absurdum.

No one is talking about that. We're simply talking about meritocracy, which has been the path of progress since the Enlightenment.

It in no way debases the rich if Johnny can't get into a top university because his Daddy can't buy his way in.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#176

Post by juiceandjuice » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 7:39 PM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #25

scrrr wrote: post #20

Exactly same dynamics as in dating: If you appear like you've been single for a year, you'll have a difficult time. If you look like you just came back from the bedroom of a runway model you'll be surrounded by women. The key here is attitude. While your upbringing influences that, you can always make a choice to be the relaxed rich kid. Even if your parents' income says differently.

Yep. This is the same reason that would-be underage drinkers are always asked for ID every time they try and go to the bar, right up until the day they reach the drinking age. From that point on you're never asked for ID. The bartender can tell from your walk, your gaze and your speech that you have it, just like before they could tell that you didn't.

I once gave somebody my ID when I was 20 in order to get into a 21+ show. I really wanted to see this band, and I figured the worse thing that would happen is I'd get turned down and have to sell my ticket. So I went in, threw down my ID, and the girl looked a bit confused, but let me in anyways. To be fair, it was only 3 months before my birthday, but I did it in total confidence.

She probably thought I must be 21 because who would throw down proof they weren't 21 in order to get into a 21+ show.

Before that, I worked customer service at a grocery store for a while too, and it got to the point that I could tell who stole something in order to return it by just how they were standing in line waiting, and even if that didn't help, their first few words would give it away. Of course, that didn't mean I couldn't help them. My boss actually was really upset when I told one person to never come back... go figure.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#177

Post by nopassrecover » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 7:47 PM UTC

run4yourlives wrote: post #70

Duff wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bartender does that only until he gets busted by a police sting operation. A good friend of mine had his nascent teaching career destroyed when he some confident-looking 20 year old chick dropped a 6 pack of Bud Light on the counter of the store he managed part-time. He didn't bother asking for ID (which he was typically pretty strict about) and was led out in cuffs. He received a conditional dismissal after 3 ye…

Where the hell do you live, Singapore? That law is draconian.

It's a fine and the venue faces temporary suspension of their liquor licence here in Australia. But gaol terms!? (or at least career ruining probation terms, presumably judgement is meant to factor in the impact of the decision?).

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#178

Post by sgman » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 7:58 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #170

The career game is not nearly as important now as it was a couple decades ago, though. Now you can easily opt to be judged directly by market, by starting your own company. Customers don't know or care what your social origins are.

By definition, there will always be an order of magnitude more people working as employees of successful companies playing the career game than there are founders of successful companies.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#179

Post by forensic » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 8:00 PM UTC

rdouble wrote: post #6

This seems totally fictional. If the deck was really so stacked, why would a super rich kid be working as an entry level analyst with the plebes in the first place?

I know so many rich kids who say, "I didn't tell anyone at that job I was rich, and I worked my way up from the bottom. I wanted to prove that I'm badass and don't need my money to give me advantages!"

It's pretty much a cliche among rich people these days. By starting at the bottom they gain pride, confidence, and bragging rights. I remember this one rich girl whose dad was close friends with the CEO and who got a very highly coveted and prestigious position in the company.

She would repeat over and over again (I probably heard it 20 times) how when she applied for the job she hid her identity, because she wanted to earn the job on merit.

Naturally, her extraordinary sense of entitlement and being protected gave her tremendous psychological advantage over competitors and she beat them out.

It's just not cool anymore to be given something, it's much cooler to prove you're better than the poor kids by playing their own game far better than they can do.

Of course what these people choose to ignore is that the poor kids are living paycheck to paycheck, can barely afford to buy new shoes, have to clip coupons, are constantly looking at homeless people and realizing that could be them tomorrow, etc.

The rich kids are just oblivious to the fact that rent, food, clothing cost anything at all. They are oblivious to the fact that getting fired in a bad economy can lead to homelessness.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#180

Post by jbooth » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 8:01 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #170

The career game is not nearly as important now as it was a couple decades ago, though. Now you can easily opt to be judged directly by market, by starting your own company. Customers don't know or care what your social origins are.

That's definitely true (to an extent) in tech, but other fields aren't so lucky.

A few months ago, a friend of mine who's a lawyer with 5 years experience told me that where he went to school for undergrad is still one of the most important things on his resume. Blew my mind.

Other tech industries that are more capital intensive (bio, mechanical) are a lot harder to just start a business in, and for softer skills there's no way to quantify you to begin with so connections matter a lot for the first few jobs. Anyone could learn to program and start a web business, of course, but the barriers aren't quite so low in other industries yet.