Incompetent, rich people are more likely to get ahead than smart people with no money

[ZiprHead]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/incompetent-people-from-wealthy-backgrounds-are-more-likely-to-act-like-theyre-smart-and-people-believe-them-2019-05-21

Jones has mulled that question while reading the many conclusions from a series of studies published last month by researchers from Stanford University and the University of Virginia in the peer-reviewed Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes. “Individuals with relatively high social class are more overconfident,” they concluded. And, they said, others buy into it. The result? “Advantages beget advantages.”

It’s difficult not to be impressed by a colleague with, say, an Ivy League education, tailor-made suit and a spring in their step. “Social class shapes the beliefs that people hold about their abilities and that, in turn, has important implications for how status hierarchies perpetuate,” the lead authors, Peter Belmi, assistant professor of leadership and organizational behavior at the University of Virginia, and Margaret A. Neale, a professor of management at Stanford University, wrote.

 

[barbos]

I wonder if they studied this effect dependence on different fields. I bet effect is more pronounced in leadership and organizational behavior and management. That's not to say that this Stanford professor is "rich". However I know one professor from Stanford who is ridiculously "rich".

 

[PyramidHead]

We already had a thread on this article not too long ago, I think.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Does this result surprise anyone?

 

[ZiprHead]

Does this result surprise anyone?

It would surprise bootstrap republicans but they probably wouldn't understand the big words.

 

[barbos]

Does this result surprise anyone?

It would surprise bootstrap republicans but they probably wouldn't understand the big words.

But conclusions are true for academia (which is left leaning) as well. You are more likely to get ahead if you are bullshitter from top university.

 

[Trausti]

If you’re more sociable, you’ll probably have more success regardless of how smart you are. An example would be the two Steves of Apple. Woz had much more technical smarts than Jobs. But without Jobs’s social skills, Woz’s creation would have collected dust in a garage.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If you’re more sociable, you’ll probably have more success regardless of how smart you are. An example would be the two Steves of Apple. Woz had much more technical smarts than Jobs. But without Jobs’s social skills, Woz’s creation would have collected dust in a garage.

Yup. Charisma goes a long way towards success even without smarts. For an extreme example, consider Individual 1.

 

[barbos]

If you’re more sociable, you’ll probably have more success regardless of how smart you are. An example would be the two Steves of Apple. Woz had much more technical smarts than Jobs. But without Jobs’s social skills, Woz’s creation would have collected dust in a garage.

Yup. Charisma goes a long way towards success even without smarts. For an extreme example, consider Individual 1.

But Individual 1 has no Charisma.

 

[RVonse]

If you’re more sociable, you’ll probably have more success regardless of how smart you are. An example would be the two Steves of Apple. Woz had much more technical smarts than Jobs. But without Jobs’s social skills, Woz’s creation would have collected dust in a garage.

Agree.

Also risk tolerance is extremely important and always overlooked. Usually more intelligent people have less risk tolerance than people who are not smart. Yet the ability to tolerate risk is a key factor to making oneself wealthy.

 

[fast]

“smart people with no money”
“smart people with no money”
“smart people with no money”

If I was drunk, and I mean drunk off my ass, i’d tell yauz a ting-er-2 about
“smart people with no money”

 

[bilby]

If you’re more sociable, you’ll probably have more success regardless of how smart you are. An example would be the two Steves of Apple. Woz had much more technical smarts than Jobs. But without Jobs’s social skills, Woz’s creation would have collected dust in a garage.

Agree.

Also risk tolerance is extremely important and always overlooked. Usually more intelligent people have less risk tolerance than people who are not smart. Yet the ability to tolerate risk is a key factor to making oneself wealthy.

Rusk tolerance is necessary, but far from sufficient. You can't win the lottery without buying a ticket; But buying a ticket in the expectation of winning is still dumb.

The key factor - indeed the ONLY factor - in making oneself wealthy is luck.

Most wealthy people achieve their wealth by having the luck to be born into wealth.

Those very few who are born into poverty, and become wealthy, are always keen to tell everyone how their success is due to personal decisions such as a willingness to take risks, working hard, and perseverance, but this is just a rationalization founded in survivorship bias. The VAST majority of people who start out poor, then take risks, work incredibly hard, and refuse to admit defeat or let go of their dreams, end up poor and psychologically shattered. But nobody interviews those people for Forbes magazine.

Hard work and perseverence can make a poor person into a comfortable person. But wealth - serious wealth, Bill Gates wealth, get interviewed about how you got there wealth - is a lottery.

Which is why earnings over a million bucks a year should be taxed into oblivion. You didn't earn that, you don't deserve it, and there are plenty of people more deserving and more needy who have a stronger moral right to eat every day than you have a right to a third gold-plated Lear jet.

 

[Trausti]

The inhertitance that matters is genes, not wealth. Unless you have the smarts to handle and maintain wealth, you’ll lose it.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The inhertitance that matters is genes, not wealth. Unless you have the smarts to handle and maintain wealth, you’ll lose it.

Agreed. When I was a banker, I mostly worked in mergers and acquisitions. I would guess that at least 50% of the deals that I worked on where the kids were taking over the company failed. But it's not just "smarts" that maintains success. You also need to have drive, good leadership, and decision making capability. The most important factor that drives success is making correct decisions. IMO.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The key factor - indeed the ONLY factor - in making oneself wealthy is luck.

I have repeatedly pointed out the book The Millionaire Next Door that soundly refutes this. At least in the USA most millionaires are self-made. (Perhaps in your neck of the world the government keeps anyone from becoming wealthy.)

Hard work and perseverence can make a poor person into a comfortable person. But wealth - serious wealth, Bill Gates wealth, get interviewed about how you got there wealth - is a lottery.

"Wealthy" covers an awful lot more than Bill Gates level wealth. And note that there were a lot of people who could have done the same thing. Bill Gates had the skill to recognize and take advantage of the opportunity.

Which is why earnings over a million bucks a year should be taxed into oblivion. You didn't earn that, you don't deserve it, and there are plenty of people more deserving and more needy who have a stronger moral right to eat every day than you have a right to a third gold-plated Lear jet.

You're assuming people didn't earn it. If you create $10 million in value due to improving efficiency how is it wrong to get $1 million for doing that?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The inhertitance that matters is genes, not wealth. Unless you have the smarts to handle and maintain wealth, you’ll lose it.

It's not just genes but what you learn from your parents growing up.

 

[RVonse]

Hard work and perseverence can make a poor person into a comfortable person. But wealth - serious wealth, Bill Gates wealth, get interviewed about how you got there wealth - is a lottery.

Yes, Bill also got very lucky too. But luck and ability to handle risk are two separate things. The risk I am talking about is when Bill decided to skip college and go out on his own. Most anyone else would play it safe, stay in college, and work for someone else to basically live an average life.

That is the kind of risk that I am talking about. Entrepreneur risk to start ones own firm from nothing. And also consider the tycoons like Howard Hughes or Donald Trump who already have money, but still are willing to put everything on the line for more airplanes or hotels. Its not everyone who will take that kind of risk. But that is the kind of risk that always seems to be overlooked by people who think riches come entirely by luck.

 

[ZiprHead]

Hard work and perseverence can make a poor person into a comfortable person. But wealth - serious wealth, Bill Gates wealth, get interviewed about how you got there wealth - is a lottery.

Yes, Bill also got very lucky too. But luck and ability to handle risk are two separate things. The risk I am talking about is when Bill decided to skip college and go out on his own. Most anyone else would play it safe, stay in college, and work for someone else to basically live an average life.

That is the kind of risk that I am talking about. Entrepreneur risk to start ones own firm from nothing. And also consider the tycoons like Howard Hughes or Donald Trump who already have money, but still are willing to put everything on the line for more airplanes or hotels. Its not everyone who will take the kind of risk. But that is the kind of risk that always seems to be overlooked by people who think riches come entirely by luck.

Bill Gates got lucky by having rich parents.

 

[Trausti]

Hard work and perseverence can make a poor person into a comfortable person. But wealth - serious wealth, Bill Gates wealth, get interviewed about how you got there wealth - is a lottery.

Yes, Bill also got very lucky too. But luck and ability to handle risk are two separate things. The risk I am talking about is when Bill decided to skip college and go out on his own. Most anyone else would play it safe, stay in college, and work for someone else to basically live an average life.

That is the kind of risk that I am talking about. Entrepreneur risk to start ones own firm from nothing. And also consider the tycoons like Howard Hughes or Donald Trump who already have money, but still are willing to put everything on the line for more airplanes or hotels. Its not everyone who will take the kind of risk. But that is the kind of risk that always seems to be overlooked by people who think riches come entirely by luck.

Bill Gates got lucky by having rich parents.

And he inherited their genes.

 

[ZiprHead]

Bill Gates got lucky by having rich parents.

And he inherited their genes.

Every kid inherits their parents genes. Not every kid is born into a rich family.