The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners • Hacker News Board

Re: The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

#171

Post by jandrewrogers » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 7:37 PM UTC

ramphastidae wrote: post #128

jandrewrogers wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people with your net worth grind it out without any windfalls, the product of consistent hard work and reasonable choices over decades. It was always a possibility. Most people don't require an IPO to achieve that. Luck can accelerate that outcome but it is not necessary in any meaningful sense. It requires significantly greater extremes of wealth before luck plays a more frequent role. I know people well into 8…

> I know people well into 8-figures who were never anything more than blue-collar grinders. Can you elaborate? I don’t see how that’s possible unless they started work in their early 20s, have been maxing their retirement, never had an accident or have been unemployed, made incredible investment decisions, and are now 60+? Even then I dont see how it’s possible for blue collar folks. Well into 8 figures is like … at…

Start a small blue-collar business doing what you know, be good at it, and iterate. It compounds over decades through good times and bad times. Everyone I know that has built their wealth this way is insanely hardworking but they keep at it, creating value little by little. This is the "construction worker becomes general contractor" story or the equivalent in many boring blue-collar businesses.

I have a few of these in my extended family and seen how they've done it over my life. It is repeatable but I don't think many people would put in the level of work required and it is a slow, long game. Maxing retirement is easier but it also won't buy you beautiful estates on three continents. The people that do this also never really stop doing it in my experience, their work becomes a part of who they are.

Re: The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

#172

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 7:37 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #90

angarg12 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not accounting for luck as a factor of success is one of my pet peeves. I'm reading "So good they can't ignore you" and although I'm loving it, it's also guilty of that. Cal Newport tells the story of a Clean Tech VC and how he got the job using a personal connection to VC. But then he dismisses it by saying that "such small breaks are relatively common". Why is it so hard to admit that someone success is partially d…

Because few people are objective enough to put aside their deep emotional attachment to the notion that their particular bit of hard work and skill meant nothing without that luck. I’m wealthy now: very wealthy by any standard (mid 7-figure net worth). I came from humble beginnings (nearly homeless frequently as a youth with a single mom), but I am quite intelligent (PhD in physics) and I worked hard. I would have re…

A few mil is very wealthy? I thought it's what every SV code monkey has at 35.

Re: The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

#173

Post by someNameIG » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 7:40 PM UTC

psychphysic wrote: post #71

I feel much less sharp once I passed 30. Hangovers also started to last days. Learning new stuff that requires precision also seems harder - like syntax. Even though I feel like I'm much smarter when it comes to fuzzy processes like judging a good idea or programming language. Dementia runs in my family... But I think I'm too young for that and it's just what happens when you're not 25 anymore.

I'm 35, I have not noticed any drop in my ability to learn new things now compared to even my early 20s.

Re: The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

#174

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

angarg12 wrote: post #86

epistemer wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also disregards the type of lottery game that is a part of wealth accumulation. Of course, it is not all luck but to believe wealth accumulation is a type of purely deterministic meritocratic game without a giant stochastic factor is ridiculous. That might even be the dumbest aspect of our society. Believing the powerball lottery winner is a genius for picking the numbers they picked is obviously stupid. Yet we ba…

Not accounting for luck as a factor of success is one of my pet peeves. I'm reading "So good they can't ignore you" and although I'm loving it, it's also guilty of that. Cal Newport tells the story of a Clean Tech VC and how he got the job using a personal connection to VC. But then he dismisses it by saying that "such small breaks are relatively common". Why is it so hard to admit that someone success is partially d…

Luck is the particular details. Not luck is the broad arc of one's career. For example, you're not going to meet a parter sitting in your basement. You meet one by going out and interacting with people. The particular partner you wind up with is luck, but finding someone compatible is not.

I.e. the trick is to enable luck to find you. At some point, it becomes inevitable.

For another example, stock investing. You can't make money in stocks if you don't invest in stocks. Individual stock performance is a bit of a crap shoot. But if you're a patient investor, pick good companies, follow a sensible investment plan, the math is inevitable that you're going to make money in it.

Re: The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

#175

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #90

angarg12 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not accounting for luck as a factor of success is one of my pet peeves. I'm reading "So good they can't ignore you" and although I'm loving it, it's also guilty of that. Cal Newport tells the story of a Clean Tech VC and how he got the job using a personal connection to VC. But then he dismisses it by saying that "such small breaks are relatively common". Why is it so hard to admit that someone success is partially d…

Because few people are objective enough to put aside their deep emotional attachment to the notion that their particular bit of hard work and skill meant nothing without that luck. I’m wealthy now: very wealthy by any standard (mid 7-figure net worth). I came from humble beginnings (nearly homeless frequently as a youth with a single mom), but I am quite intelligent (PhD in physics) and I worked hard. I would have re…

> hard work

It is not about working hard. It is about working smart, i.e. working on the right things. You choose those things, it is not luck.

Re: The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

#176

Post by friedman23 » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 7:57 PM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #166

amelius wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game features a set of dice, so anecdotes such as this one are not impossible, it's just that you need to be extremely lucky.

This seems unlikely to me, do you have any stats to back it up. Also immigrants usually don't come to literak nothing. While its certainly difficult for them, usually there are cultural or religious groups that help them out or they have family that immigrated before them to help them get on their feet.

My parents came with literally nothing because the government they escaped took everything from them. Both of my grandfathers had their education but they could not practice their craft because their accreditation did not matter in the US, my father could not speak english, neither could my mother. My mother knew so little english that she couldn't even ask to go to the bathroom in her first week of school so she peed her pants.

Re: The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

#177

Post by someweirdperson » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 7:59 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #85

friedman23 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also disregards the type of lottery game that is a part of wealth accumulation. It's not a lottery game, it's a poker game (and in reality, it's much easier than poker because the economy is positive sum and poker is zero sum). If you only consider "wealthy" to be people who have made billions or hundreds of millions then it's a lottery. But someone that consistently makes decisions that maximize expected moneta…

Fun fact: The average American perceives “wealthy” as having just over $2.2million in net worth. https://www.kiplinger.com/personal-finance/605075/are-you-ri... This is very achievable to most HN types. Maybe not in our 30’s, but easily by retirement. Just maxing out your 401k for an entire tech career will get you there.

> his is very achievable to most HN types. Maybe not in our 30’s, but easily by retirement.

Should be pretty easy to reach 2.2m for many people in 40 years, inflation corrected that's something like 500k.

Re: The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

#178

Post by boppo1 » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 8:03 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #130

boppo1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just going off the abstract, they did find that cognitive ability correlated strongly with earning ability. The hook is just that it's not a monotonic relationship.

It is a monotonic relationship, monotonic just means that it doesn't change directions. The word for this is "convex."

They said the top 1% of earners performs less well than the group below, a change in direction.

Re: The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

#179

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 8:10 PM UTC

actually_a_dog wrote: post #136

friedman23 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not accounting for luck as a factor of success is one of my pet peeves. Why do you model life as a single bet where you have a 1 or 2% chance of winning? In reality you are making bets every day, each with a range of odds of succeeding and each success can produce a range of outcomes. Look at poker, a game that has a massive "luck" component, people still consistently win.

Let’s start with you have to grow up in an environment where you can the rules of the game, generally by watching others. If you know how to “hard work” yourself into growing up right, I’d like to know how.

> I’d like to know how

1. stay in school

2. pay attention in school

3. go to college

4. don't do drugs

5. don't do crimes

This is a solid ticket for anyone wishing to get into the middle class.

Re: The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

#180

Post by closeparen » Sat, Feb 04, 2023, 8:11 PM UTC

epistemer wrote: post #58

solatic wrote: post #28

Implicit is the presumption that the smartest people optimize for wealth, or that the smartest people are good at optimizing for wealth. Outside of Wall Street, "smart" people - academics, doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. - are just as likely to make bad personal finance decisions and/or to stay in labor (rather than management) positions for most of their careers (leave aside the dual-track IC/management ladder at…

It also disregards the type of lottery game that is a part of wealth accumulation. Of course, it is not all luck but to believe wealth accumulation is a type of purely deterministic meritocratic game without a giant stochastic factor is ridiculous. That might even be the dumbest aspect of our society. Believing the powerball lottery winner is a genius for picking the numbers they picked is obviously stupid. Yet we ba…

Case in point: the tech industry has generated at least as much wealth for right-place-right-time homeowners as for its elite-educated LeetCode warrior engineers.