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Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

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Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#51

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Udo wrote: post #14
roenxi wrote: post #7

The more-correct observation is that any well-understood or easy path to becoming high status will be shut down. Most people are not high status, and want to be. It follows that the path has to be either risky, or difficult to comprehend. If hard work were enough, we'd all be in charge. Lots of hard workers out there.

I agree with this. Since any path to becoming high status attracts heavy gate keeping quickly (essentially clearing that path for people who have high status to begin with) it seems reasonable that people try to "hide" in low status niches where there are way fewer predators. I think success here is somewhat incidental. No doubt the vast majority of niche workers are pursuing non-viable careers, a minority can just a…

It's striking just how few billionaires come from genuinely low-status backgrounds. Gates, Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, Buffet, and so on were not born dirt poor.

And those that do invariably either had a scene they could grow into - like Steve Jobs orbiting around HP and landing at Atari in his earliest days, which wouldn't have happened if he'd been living in (say) Idaho.

Or they have some questionable connections and history - Russian oligarchs being the ideal examples, although there are others.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#52

Post by giantg2 »

I'm low-status. I work on stuff that may never payoff. I will never be successful, and that's ok. I was even told by a manager in my 1-on-1 that not everyone has the potential to be more than a midlevel dev.

Also, this low-staus thing is not a great predictor. The hard work that is mentioned is prevalent in many of the studies looking at success. Of course this is part of a matrix of qualities.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#53

Post by mettamage »

bluedays wrote: post #8

Yeah, 33 years old, haven't accomplished much, went into school to start a degree in programming, still low status and can't find a job anywhere. I'm not sure willingness is the word for this. All I feel is bitterness. I'm not sure if this is me being reflective because it's my birthday today or what, but I'm so fucking sick of working so hard to get nowhere.

I feel the bitterness as well (31 here). A few observations/tips (that I gave myself):

* I've noticed many don't appreciate the bitterness as the bitterness needs to align with their beliefs and people their beliefs are different. If it doesn't align, then all they feel are unpleasant emotions.

* Being/feeling bitter is destroying my soul. Don't give into it, I know you have your justifications. I have mine, but ultimately it's a one way ticket to depression land and it's not a fun place.

* Get rich on aspects that people don't pay attention to (aka how I also happen to win resource-based boardgames). Some examples are here [1].

* Keep networking

* Keep improving

* While showing bitterness is a risky thing, showing that you're looking for work is a good thing. Showing side projects is a good thing. Anything that looks constructive and positive in the area of where your needs aren't being met is a good thing. So focus on applying, focus on building stuff.

* I know it's tiring, but what I'm experiencing is that now that I'm working at a company that the job is easy, because web dev is relatively easy compared to what I did at uni.

Good luck, I hope that one day you'll be happy again.

[1] Examples of getting rich on aspects that people don't pay attention to (e.g. when going for a job that has bad pay):

- Flexible working hours

- Ability to work 4 days per week

- Amazing opportunity to learn

- Flexibility to work from wherever

- The flexibility to not always work at 100%

Examples for if you aren't working (and can't find a job):

- Freedom to work on whatever

- Freedom to network with whomever

- The freedom to work at a nice pace

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#55

Post by OJFord »

javiramos wrote: post #16
afandian wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy birthday! There's plenty of time. And whatever setbacks you have in 2020 aren't your fault.

Yeah, 2020 has been a tough year for everyone

I think if you started speculative stock-picking in March (as it seems many did) then it's quite likely you did pretty well. If you (that person) got out ~now, it's probably been a.. well, at least a year with a nice silver lining.

(If you that person carried on it's not necessarily bad of course, but then you're just any old investor, it was a good year and maybe you'll have more good and more bad.)

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#56

Post by candu »

onion2k wrote: post #2

Many, many more people work at things other people think are silly and insignificant only to discover that thing is silly and insignificant and then they give up. Occasionally the opposite happens and the person succeeds. If you only look at the successes it probably looks like a willingness to be low-status is a marker for success, but it really isn't. It tells you nothing of the future outcome. The only thing it pr…

Yes - there is likely a "high-risk, high-reward" dynamic here, which is entirely consistent with both your and OP's descriptions: the long tail will toil uselessly, while the lucky few will a) discover that they were right about its significance, b) be in a position to explore and articulate that significance, and c) find themselves suddenly at the top of a new field with few competitors.

On the other hand: there's a second interpretation of all this, which is that doing just about anything big - a major product launch, a body of research, etc. - involves a lot of drudgery. In other words, even big significant things involve a lot of work that looks silly / insignificant. I would agree that learning to commit to that drudgery, and to see it as necessary and even occasionally enjoyable (or at least meditative), is essential to reach a positive outcome. (Which is not to say that all drudgery has value, or that we shouldn't still seek to reduce / manage toil over time: it's also possible to fall into the trap of assuming all drudgery is of equal value, which it definitely is not.)

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#57

Post by srtjstjsj »

dahfizz wrote: post #39
alextheparrot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The necessary condition seems to be invalidated by the “family-tradition” narrative where someone goes directly from son of a 4* general to becoming a 2* general as long as they don’t mess up too badly. For them, their default amount of status can lead to success as long as they don’t put too many chips on the wrong games. I’m not actually sure how true that is in practice, but the stickiness of income bracket and le…

Income brackets are not as sticky as you might think[1]. If you are in the second or third quintile, you are more likely to move income quintiles than stay where you are over ten years. If you are in the bottom quintile, you only have a 64% chance of staying there. That's not incredible, but it does make you question the "inescapable poverty" narrative when a full 1/3 of impoverished people escape it every decade. Ac…

The "success" OP seems to be referring to is all top quintile, not a kid who stays off drugs and stays in school and goes to college and gets a good trade or a white collar job.

Anyway, "dying richer than your father" is extremely different for the bottom quintile than the top, which shouldn't be equivocated. When half of people stay near where they are born in wealth, it's pretty clear that there is a massively unlevel playing field.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#58

Post by FiberBundle »

Has anybody else noticed that negative posts are almost always the most upvoted posts on any kind of success related topic on hn? These posts always mention survivorship bias, which admittedly is in most cases a valid point, but I find it kind of disturbing how in a startup community risk taking is almost completely frowned upon. The Twitter post captures the Startup sentiment fairly well, if you want to do something exceptional you have to be willing to accept that the probability of you never succeeding is quite large and therefore accepting a low status, possibly for your entire life, is something you have to be OK with.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#59

Post by dathinab »

onion2k wrote: post #2

Many, many more people work at things other people think are silly and insignificant only to discover that thing is silly and insignificant and then they give up. Occasionally the opposite happens and the person succeeds. If you only look at the successes it probably looks like a willingness to be low-status is a marker for success, but it really isn't. It tells you nothing of the future outcome. The only thing it pr…

But without willingness you also wouldn't have succeed as you would have stopped long before succeeding.

So while it does not make you successful it removes one potential reason of failing to become successful.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#60

Post by alextheparrot »

indigochill wrote: post #43
alextheparrot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The necessary condition seems to be invalidated by the “family-tradition” narrative where someone goes directly from son of a 4* general to becoming a 2* general as long as they don’t mess up too badly. For them, their default amount of status can lead to success as long as they don’t put too many chips on the wrong games. I’m not actually sure how true that is in practice, but the stickiness of income bracket and le…

I think underlying that there is actually a similar root in both cases: the old adage "It's not what you know, but who you know" (or perhaps more precisely, who knows you). In the son-of-a-general instance, the son is born into those connections. But if you are able to associate yourself with high-level decision makers in a relevant low-status role, that can pay off. I've done this twice, once as a marketing intern a…

I’m actually a bit unsure how to think of status in a generic sense. The reason that is important is because I feel like we’re talking about the same thing, just at different resolutions. That idea is based on thinking of status as a combination of or something of that nature, either accrued or inherited.

One could think of the “don’t mess up too badly” as “dad’s friends will still interact with me in public”, which is just a proxy for connections as you mentioned.

Going from low to high status is definitely made easier by leveraging high status individuals. Lower, but not necessarily low, status is still expected, I think, as the son of the general still goes to West Point and proves themselves in lower-status roles like being a lieutenant - the gears are just greased to keep going.

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