I never realized how poor I was until I started seeing articles like this. Growing up in rural Ohio, my dad made something like $15-20K to support a family of 5. It's a completely different world for someone who has a $40K+ student loan and a substantial amount of credit card debt hanging over him the day he's done with college.
How rich kids already won the career game
181–190 of 275 posts
Re: How rich kids already won the career game
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
"NBA star" != "NBA players"
That's true enough, parent should have been more careful in word choice. But it doesn't change the fact that even the worst players get paid a significant amount of money and should be able to retire just fine, if they knew how to manage their money.
I was going to argue with this but after some research, NBA players really do get decent minimums. In other sports, you can be the last pro who managed to not get cut and only get $100k per year, which is nice but isn't "retire after five years of it" money either. In the NBA, the minimum salary for a rookie is still $490k and it goes up to $788k after one year. That really is "retire after five years of it" money.
Re: How rich kids already won the career game
#183The 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.
Wow, that's a slanted view of the world!
Outside of the software industry, which is a tiny (~1%) portion of the economy, what has changed since 1995? Suppose you're an investment banker, and you hate your boss, as most investment bankers do. Want to start your own investment bank? How? You need to have connections to upper management at lots and lots of companies, so you can arrange deals. And very few people have that.
Or, suppose you're an accountant. Can you start your own accounting practice? Sure, maybe, it's not a crazy idea. But is it really any different than it was 15 years ago? You still need to get a reputation, build up a client list, market yourself well, etc. Not much has really changed.
Or, even, suppose that you're in another, non-software tech industry, like pharmaceuticals. That's way harder than it was 15 years ago, because of tighter FDA regulation. Just try getting a drug to market with less than $100,000,000 in capital, and very few people can raise that kind of capital.
Re: How rich kids already won the career game
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Modern logistics developed mainly during the Second World War and post-war period, along with the computer revolution. My point is however that the last few decades have seen a refinement of more revolutionary changes in the first half of the twentieth century. For example, from 1902 - 1960 we went from the Kitty Hawk to the jet passenger plane. From 1960 we went from the jet plane to .... ? We're still flying around…
So you're saying if any trend reaches an asymptote, technology is dead? Did you expect planes to be the size of skyscrapers by now? In any case the limiting factors there are economics, not technology. We could build a flying skyscraper, if we really wanted to. In any case the standards of technology are always the thing that's changing the fastest. In the early 20th century, it was transport and chemistry. Today it'…
In 1900, noone could predict jumbo jets of 1960s. In 1960s, noone could predict we would still be flying same jumbo jets of 1960s in 2010.
I mean, it's 60 years. Imagine yourself transported to 2070 only to find people still using Twitter from their Android phones.
Re: How rich kids already won the career game
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hard work is very different from skills/talent or luck. The OP is claiming that the rich kid has a different/better personality skill set from the regular kid based on his wealth, and I disagree with that. I believe the rich kid has more opportunities, yes, but I don't believe rich kids are bred to have a better personality to take advantage of those opportunities. Therefore, it falls upon our society which looks at…
I'm not sure you've really disproved anybody's point. Consider that a rich kid's parents will likely spend hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not more) on their child's education, on everything from the best preschools to a top prep school to an Ivy League university. Do you really think those schools offer nothing in exchange for all that money, aside from some better social connections and big names on someone's…
I'm not underestimating the benefits of those advantages at all. But those are opportunities bought with money. I know plenty of my peers from Ivy League schools who had the personality/skills to take advantage of everything their private schools and Ivy League upbringing had to offer - studying abroad, discussing with the best professors, etc. But I also know plenty from this same group of peers who have had access to these opportunities but are still softspoken and shy, or nervous when speaking with people, or have insecurity issues, or are elitist snobs who turn people off, so on and so forth. Sure, maybe they took Calculus in high school and have a PHD in whatever metaphysics but does that mean they are better adjusted to take advantage of all the opportunities that money has bought them? In fact, if you have 2 kids, one rich and one average, the rich one being socially ill-adjusted (because his parents were hyper-ambitious) and the average kid being happy-go-lucky, smart, and resourceful (because his parents nurtured his childhood with love and taught him the skills of problem solving and confidence), assuming they had the same opportunities, which do you think would do better in an interview? Obviously I'd like the say the latter, but that then brings up the point of whether society values the better resume and lesser merit or vice versamore.
Re: How rich kids already won the career game
#186Earlier 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.
Welcome to America. We were founded by Puritans.
Re: How rich kids already won the career game
#187You're right it's hopeless and unfair. We are all losers that should stop trying immediately. We should spend our time wishing for impossible utopian communism that will somehow arbitrarily add fairness. Then we can complain that we aren't as tall as other people, or as strong.
Or we could act like winners. Turn the tables and determine where life is unfair in your favor and play that game, or at least push the game closer to that direction. Rich kids are pushed into certain roles/behaviors as well. There are risks that they fear that you do not.
Re: How rich kids already won the career game
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I'm guessing you failed to comprehend any of the material... READ A FUCKING BOOK. If you're so much cleverer than this chap, why have you not felt it necessary to accompany your ad-hominem attacks with at least a basic level of elucidation? To the chap in question: insightful views clearly stated. I applaud your goals and I hope we can make it happen.
He did not claim the author was an idiot and dismiss his writing because of it. That would be ad hominem. He read and ingested the article and then (rightfully) drew the conclusion that the author is an idiot.
Even if one accepts his conclusion as correct, he did not explain how he came to that conclusion very well.
While I can, in fact, guess why he concluded that, I am merely guessing because his reasoning was not explained very well.
I really hope that I'm wrong in believing that about half of his problems are with the use of political labels. The very meaning of all political labels is contested: people abuse them constantly for their own purposes, so they do not carry the same meaning for all people. For example, "socialism" can be anything from an oppressive government that ruthlessly punishes success to neighbors banding together to help each other out in times of trouble. Or it can be used as a simple insult.
The problem isn't that these words have no meaning, the problem is that people are fighting over what these words should mean. As Lewis Carroll put it, 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master -- that's all.'
Re: How rich kids already won the career game
#189"rich kids don’t fear the boss."
So true. And if you start acting like a boss, you'll start being treated like one. Of course, this is a tricky business (as Michael mentions), and a lot depends on your role and the company's culture. But with the right approach, a mix of social skills and "knowing your stuff", it's possible. Especially in the field of technology.
Re: How rich kids already won the career game
#190I am fearless because I was poor and it ain't so bad. Being born middle-class must suck.