Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by jancsika » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

paulsutter wrote: post #84

Folks in the status professions (banking, law,..) often tell me they want to become an entrepreneur. I always tell them, you wont do it. They attended the right school, joined the right firm, attained that corner office. As a founder they would give up all that, and their family and friends will tell them that they've made a massive mistake, for years, while it appears that nothing is happening. Then they sheepishly…

> As a bootstrapped founder when I was younger, even dating was awkward. People considered me to be quasi-unemployed, despite working 80 hours a week.

It is awkward-- and frankly, unhealthy-- to be working 80 hours a week. That's what people in cults do.

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

#192

Post by SilasX » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

K0balt wrote: post #128

nlh wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People considered me to be quasi-unemployed On a related note, this is a mindset that I think is probably the biggest blocker to entrepreneurial success (and perhaps happiness?) I have a friend (you know who you are since you’ll probably read this ;) who is by ALL measures a massively successful and brilliant person. Ran his own startup for 10+ years, just had a great exit. And during his post-sale victory lap in w…

I prefer "gainfully unemployed" or "willfully unemployable". Those are the labels I have become comfortable with.

I've started using the term "Mitt Romney unemployed" for "not working but no pressing need to", as a reference to his famous gaffe about "I know all about unemployment! Heck, I'm unemployed, myself!"

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2011/06/17/romney-ribbe...

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

#193

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

george43m wrote: post #180

User23 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A successful entrepreneur is probably the highest status role possible in modern society (think Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates) maybe even rivaling POTUS. Not even close. Regardless of the high esteem we may hold them in, the average person just sees them that you list as rich dorks. Compare and contrast with say Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio who, to use a stock phrase, men want to be and women want to be with.

Status is relative. Going with the dating analogy: Girls who are into IT will view Zuckerberg as higher status vs. Brad Pitt. A girl who's into acting acting will view Brad Pitt as more 'high status' than Zuckerberg. I think you may have confused "modern society" with TechCrunch/other mainstream tech publications. If this was a politics community, someone would probably say that "modern society considers Biden" as so…

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by pb7 » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

nlh wrote: post #158

K0balt wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer "gainfully unemployed" or "willfully unemployable". Those are the labels I have become comfortable with.

That's a good alternative! Personally, I don't even go there. By all measures, I haven't been "employed" since the late 90s (when I was briefly an employee of an investment bank for a summer internship). I've run my own businesses, helped others build theirs, worked as a consultant, and done nothing at various times for the past 20 years. Rather than describe my state of being as "employed" vs "unemployed", I always…

What are your thoughts on simply “self-employed”?

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

#195

Post by clairity » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #189

clairity wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “...the point that much of elite schools is about chasing status.” it’s important to note that everyone is chasing status, and that status is (highly) multidimensional, so we can all have it along different dimensions. i’d go so far as to posit that status has more degrees of freedom than the number of people. it isn’t zero-sum by any means. “high-status schools” is just one of those dimensions, perhaps one that’s…

> it’s important to note that everyone is chasing status While I do think that is the general rule since humans are social animals, I'm curious as to why you don't think there are exceptions. By definition, to chase status means to pursue things that society values. It seems to me there are certain people who do not chase such things because they have value systems that don't align with the society they are a part of…

but that’s just the point, when you break down social structures into finer and finer units (the individual, at the limit), you realize that status has all sorts, and is relative to many social groups. hence, the position that statuses outnumber people through both the multidimensionality of social groups as well as the multidimensionality of status itself.

a singular global social order is a fiction we don’t have to choose to believe.

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

#196

Post by teachrdan » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

rgbrenner wrote: post #190

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.

It follows that the path has to be either risky, or difficult to comprehend. Risky and difficult to comprehend are two forms of "barriers to entry". Another is who you know. One of the most obvious that you left out is: cost. People buying their way into Harvard et al will obtain high status. People becoming a doctor will obtain high status. It's just that those things cost a 200k+. The price alone closes off that ro…

People within these verticals create their own micro-hierarchies. Surgeons see themselves as above pediatricians; heart and brain surgeons see themselves as above other surgeons. Among Ivy Leaguers, those who come from old families (with old money) join clubs that are closed to students who are poor, non-white, immigrant, etc.

To me, it's a huge positive signal when a group has a culture that actively embraces new people and finds way to identify and celebrate what's cool about them, rather than just the opposite. I personally found student coops at my college to be one such culture.

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

#197

Post by nlh » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

pb7 wrote: post #194

nlh wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good alternative! Personally, I don't even go there. By all measures, I haven't been "employed" since the late 90s (when I was briefly an employee of an investment bank for a summer internship). I've run my own businesses, helped others build theirs, worked as a consultant, and done nothing at various times for the past 20 years. Rather than describe my state of being as "employed" vs "unemployed", I always…

What are your thoughts on simply “self-employed”?

I think that's probably the best to explain to others. Easy answer, truthful, and fits into the mold that many people think about.

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

#198

Post by fierarul » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #139

laurent92 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The social elevator can take 2 generations. And that is ok. There is a lot of things to learn. It gives hope to one’s dad. Sadly inheritance is looked down upon, and people would like every citizen to be born with the same information, and this information being delivered by public education. Sadly, parents teach much better than teachers when it is about the little things that make a life successful. There will neve…

There are three ideas core to your comment that are, at best, controversial: marriage as a predictor of success, French-born developers are lazy, and wealth/social exclusion having no role in whether "having the right parents" applies. Also I'd love to see a deeper analysis of your "86% of billionaires" comment. Usually what happens is we discover that "self-made" millionaires grew up in quite affluent circumstances,…

Now instead of atomic individuals try to think in terms of bloodlines.

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

#199

Post by bumby » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #195

bumby wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s important to note that everyone is chasing status While I do think that is the general rule since humans are social animals, I'm curious as to why you don't think there are exceptions. By definition, to chase status means to pursue things that society values. It seems to me there are certain people who do not chase such things because they have value systems that don't align with the society they are a part of…

but that’s just the point, when you break down social structures into finer and finer units (the individual, at the limit), you realize that status has all sorts, and is relative to many social groups. hence, the position that statuses outnumber people through both the multidimensionality of social groups as well as the multidimensionality of status itself. a singular global social order is a fiction we don’t have to…

Personally, I think that extreme relativistic stance waters down the idea of "social" status to be meaningless because it negates the social aspect. At that point, it's no different than saying "people chase what they value". That's trivially obvious; the chasing of social status is a subset criteria meant to say "people chase what they value, and what they value is social standing defined by their desired in-group". That can be quite different because the trivial condition can have people chasing all sorts of non-socially minded goals. Regardless, the original point was that when people can't concretely define what they value, they often defer to chase that which their society values.

Using a "singular global social order" is a bit of a straw man. It doesn't have to global, just like it can't be individual.

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

#200

Post by OJFord » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #134

OJFord wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Anecdotally, I suspect a few people hosed themselves this year in the stock market. I met a few people early on in the pandemic who thought themselves very smart for paying attention to the news and getting their money out of the market before the first big drop. Admittedly, I haven't talked to them since, but they didn't seem to expect it to bounce right back up again. I wonder how many people out there did somethin…

That's why I emphasised started in March. As in started putting new money in in at or around the low, I think plenty of that happened.

Frankly I'm kicking myself for not doing as you say. I 'thought myself very smart' by being aware of it over the new year, reading how bad it will be, thinking markets will tank, and sticking to my guns because 'I won't try to time the dip'. And then of course with a modest amount of new money in March thought 'if I'd sold in January I'd definitely be pound cost averaging back in now, even if not piling back in, I'm an idiot for being 'sensible''.

If I had though I'd probably be thinking it's crazy at the moment (or especially a week or two ago) and piling back out... Remains to be seen how well that would've gone.

I think really it's all a good argument for separating 'boring, don't touch it, keep buying', and 'fun, dabble, hobby speculation'. Where the latter should be funded appropriately for what it is, a hobby.