4 ms·

This would be very politically incorrect, but I'd wager the best way to find top performers is to ask "What do your parents do for work, and how much money do t

This would be very politically incorrect, but I'd wager the best way to find top performers is to ask "What do your parents do for work, and how much money do they make?" There is a very high correlation between the success of parents and their children.

jdc 11y ago
Citations?
- bluedevil2k 11y ago
  Discusses intelligence and genetics - key point, intelligence is about 50% heritable. http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/intelligence-and-genetics-do-some-people-inherit-an-edge http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/intelligence-and-genetics-d... Discusses the correlation between high intelligence and higher incomes - key point, the scatter diagram showing a clear correlation. http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/02/06/correlations-of-iq-with-income-and-wealth/ http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/02/06/correlations...
cocolos 11y ago
This reminds me of the freakanomics episode: Parent's don't matter (http://freakonomics.com/2011/06/15/how-much-do-parents-really-matter/ http://freakonomics.com/2011/06/15/how-much-do-parents-reall...)
- klenwell 11y ago
  Didn't listen to the podcast, but if the thesis is borrowed from Judith Rich Harris[0], then the GP's claim is still valid. To wit, parents' parenting practices have limited impact on their children (vs. peers and genetics) but their success and income do (via genetics and the influence of wealth over peer environment). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris
laxatives 11y ago
Certainly above average parents are likely to produce above average children. But most the top performing parents' children are likely to regress back towards the mean. Getting the highest umpteenth percentile in anything is going to be crapshoot if you only consider one factor.
emodendroket 11y ago
I don't think it'd be hard, if you gave it a moment, to think of counterexamples whom we'd almost all recognize.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  Avoiding false positives is much more important than eliminating all the false negatives. Ugly, but true.
  - vonmoltke 11y ago
    Much parroted, rarely if ever supported by hard data.
    - vinceguidry 11y ago
      One does not need data to support it. Attention is your scarcest resource at any company. You hire people to add to this resource. Bad hires do not add, but subtract from this pool, by forcing you to pay attention to them rather than on running your business. No amount of "hard data" can make that untrue.
      - vonmoltke 11y ago
        > One does not need data to support it. I'm an engineer; one always needs data to support something. > Attention is your scarcest resource at any company. You hire people to add to this resource. Not sure what you mean by "attention", but I think it is the same thing I would call "throughput": the rate at which the company can turn customer requirements into engineering products (and thus money). If so, I would agree, as pretty much all resources of the company combine to affect this. > Bad hires do not add, but subtract from this pool, by forcing you to pay attention to them rather than on running your business. Still on board with you. I would agree that someone whose net throughput contribution is negative is a bad hire. The problem is, this has nothing to do with the statement I was originally reacting to: "Avoiding false positives is much more important than eliminating all the false negatives." That statement needs hard data about: - The expected number of false positives - The expected magnitude of the throughput loss from each false positive - The expected number of false negatives - The expected magnitude of the lost potential throughput due to the false negatives

jdc 11y ago

Citations?

bluedevil2k 11y ago
Discusses intelligence and genetics - key point, intelligence is about 50% heritable. http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/intelligence-and-genetics-do-some-people-inherit-an-edge http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/intelligence-and-genetics-d... Discusses the correlation between high intelligence and higher incomes - key point, the scatter diagram showing a clear correlation. http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/02/06/correlations-of-iq-with-income-and-wealth/ http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/02/06/correlations...

cocolos 11y ago

This reminds me of the freakanomics episode: Parent's don't matter (http://freakonomics.com/2011/06/15/how-much-do-parents-really-matter/ http://freakonomics.com/2011/06/15/how-much-do-parents-reall...)

klenwell 11y ago
Didn't listen to the podcast, but if the thesis is borrowed from Judith Rich Harris[0], then the GP's claim is still valid. To wit, parents' parenting practices have limited impact on their children (vs. peers and genetics) but their success and income do (via genetics and the influence of wealth over peer environment). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris

laxatives 11y ago

Certainly above average parents are likely to produce above average children. But most the top performing parents' children are likely to regress back towards the mean. Getting the highest umpteenth percentile in anything is going to be crapshoot if you only consider one factor.

emodendroket 11y ago

I don't think it'd be hard, if you gave it a moment, to think of counterexamples whom we'd almost all recognize.

vinceguidry 11y ago
Avoiding false positives is much more important than eliminating all the false negatives. Ugly, but true.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  Much parroted, rarely if ever supported by hard data.
  - vinceguidry 11y ago
    One does not need data to support it. Attention is your scarcest resource at any company. You hire people to add to this resource. Bad hires do not add, but subtract from this pool, by forcing you to pay attention to them rather than on running your business. No amount of "hard data" can make that untrue.
    - vonmoltke 11y ago
      > One does not need data to support it. I'm an engineer; one always needs data to support something. > Attention is your scarcest resource at any company. You hire people to add to this resource. Not sure what you mean by "attention", but I think it is the same thing I would call "throughput": the rate at which the company can turn customer requirements into engineering products (and thus money). If so, I would agree, as pretty much all resources of the company combine to affect this. > Bad hires do not add, but subtract from this pool, by forcing you to pay attention to them rather than on running your business. Still on board with you. I would agree that someone whose net throughput contribution is negative is a bad hire. The problem is, this has nothing to do with the statement I was originally reacting to: "Avoiding false positives is much more important than eliminating all the false negatives." That statement needs hard data about: - The expected number of false positives - The expected magnitude of the throughput loss from each false positive - The expected number of false negatives - The expected magnitude of the lost potential throughput due to the false negatives