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

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#221

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 10:59 PM UTC

johngalt wrote: post #207

jbooth wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Investment banker: Work hard where you're at and then steal the client list to go start your own shop." That's actually the one action where a non-compete is universally and trivially enforceable in all 50 states. As I understand it, IANAL. Additionally, it's unethical if you believe in that sort of thing. So, bad idea. Not sure what communism has to do with anything. At all.

If you sign a non-compete, are you surprised that it's difficult to go out and found a competing organization? If you can't manage starting your own investment firm, then you apply what you've learned as a banker to a different slice of the pie. Fundamentally you're looking at ways it won't work rather than looking at ways it can work. "Not sure what communism has to do with anything. At all." The article? Specifical…

[deleted]

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#222

Post by johngalt » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 11:03 PM UTC

haploid wrote: post #211

johngalt wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would this shock you? Don't you find it interesting/impressive?

I am not particularly impressed with people who, by virtue of being born into money, spend years of their lives engaged in various unproductive pursuits. I do find it interesting that someone named johngalt would be impressed by someone living the benefits of unearned wealth. Perhaps you should have adopted a more appropriate username. Were philiprearden and jamestaggart taken?

While it's not what I would choose for my kids, the money isn't uneared. His parents or ancestors earned it and spending it on him is what they want to do. It's not like he took it from them by force? FYI, objectivists are also allowed to buy birthday presents for their toddlers.

Do I find the idea of traveling the world and surfing interesting? Yes I do. Would I consider that adequate job experience? Not at all.

Remove the chip from your shoulder. Someone who wasn't you was able to do something fun. Don't be jealous of that.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#223

Post by WalterBright » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 11:07 PM UTC

apsec112 wrote: post #183

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.

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 t…

I know lots of people who started their own companies in fields that have nothing to do with technology, investment banking, etc. Most of them are doing well. Look around you - there are businesses everywhere. All started by someone. Heck, the woman down the street started a barber shop in an empty slot in a local strip mall.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#224

Post by jessriedel » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 11:07 PM UTC

tomkarlo wrote: post #172

jessriedel wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Oh, I totally agree. I was just looking to make a point about statistical significance because I'm an annoying nerd.

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#225

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 11:09 PM UTC

johngalt wrote: post #193

jbooth wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

There are things that a small group can't accomplish (building an oil pipeline for example). However, a little expertise and the right scope could attack the industry obliquely. Rather than try to build the whole system perhaps you have a small part of it that you make. You can't build the pipeline, but maybe you can build a better O-ring seal.

[deleted]

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#226

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 11:12 PM UTC

johngalt wrote: post #193

jbooth wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

There are things that a small group can't accomplish (building an oil pipeline for example). However, a little expertise and the right scope could attack the industry obliquely. Rather than try to build the whole system perhaps you have a small part of it that you make. You can't build the pipeline, but maybe you can build a better O-ring seal.

[deleted]

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#227

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 11:32 PM UTC

johngalt wrote: post #207

jbooth wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Investment banker: Work hard where you're at and then steal the client list to go start your own shop." That's actually the one action where a non-compete is universally and trivially enforceable in all 50 states. As I understand it, IANAL. Additionally, it's unethical if you believe in that sort of thing. So, bad idea. Not sure what communism has to do with anything. At all.

If you sign a non-compete, are you surprised that it's difficult to go out and found a competing organization? If you can't manage starting your own investment firm, then you apply what you've learned as a banker to a different slice of the pie. Fundamentally you're looking at ways it won't work rather than looking at ways it can work. "Not sure what communism has to do with anything. At all." The article? Specifical…

[deleted]

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#228

Post by jbooth » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 11:47 PM UTC

johngalt wrote: post #207

jbooth wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Investment banker: Work hard where you're at and then steal the client list to go start your own shop." That's actually the one action where a non-compete is universally and trivially enforceable in all 50 states. As I understand it, IANAL. Additionally, it's unethical if you believe in that sort of thing. So, bad idea. Not sure what communism has to do with anything. At all.

If you sign a non-compete, are you surprised that it's difficult to go out and found a competing organization? If you can't manage starting your own investment firm, then you apply what you've learned as a banker to a different slice of the pie. Fundamentally you're looking at ways it won't work rather than looking at ways it can work. "Not sure what communism has to do with anything. At all." The article? Specifical…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#229

Post by abstractbill » Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 11:50 PM UTC

sgman wrote: post #178

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.

This is only "by definition" if companies are always big. Perhaps they'll get smaller over time?

Re: How rich kids already won the career game

#230

Post by calibraxis » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 12:16 AM UTC

warrenwilkinson wrote: post #171

calibraxis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry, you're correct, I should have linked to the HN discussion, where steveklabnik does a good job explaining. I was very distracted and rushed when posting.

(http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1653063)