19 ms·

IQ is only a minor factor in success

261 points by tempw 10y ago

exolymph 10y ago
I can answer the headline question very easily: because being smart isn't all that's required.
- hourislate 10y ago
  As someone who comes from a family that has a few successful traditional businesses, luck and who you know plays a big part of your success. It's hard for people who haven't been in business to understand. They have been told that a great product at a fair price with fantastic customer service is what it takes. While that plays a role it is does not even amount to 50% of the formula.
  - dpc59 10y ago
    In my experience business luck and knowing the right people can at least partially be the result of hard work.
  - Clubber 10y ago
    Can you give a breakdown of what you've found to be the percentages "the formula?" I'm honestly curious.
- bottled_poe 10y ago
  Is it required at all? Perhaps... if by 'smart' you mean 'able to exploit opportunities to personal benefit'.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    It certainly helps.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    I'd expect that there are a number of factors that help improve your odds, and that being "smart" will be one of them. But so would being born into a wealthy family, or just bing born in a developed country, and be of good health, and any numbers of other factors. As well as a huge amount of chance - e.g. my first company got funded because one of my co-founders ran into a guy in a bar that happened to be in the country for a week or two. Maybe we'd have found other funding if that didn't happen. Maybe not. We'll never know.
- discombobulate 10y ago
  From the study, > Both IQ and personality remain as important predictors in wage equations when both are included in a regression
gozur88 10y ago
The assumption here is that everyone sees the accumulation of wealth as the most important goal in life. I don't think that's accurate.
- tensaix2j 10y ago
  Accumulation of wealth may not be the ultimate goal, but it shortcuts your way to achieve the goals of other pursuits.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    But at what cost? Certainly you could work at a Biglaw firm in NYC (or whatever) and get rich if you're willing to trade your youth and your health. But is that smart?
    - adventured 10y ago
      You're making several very large assumptions. 1) That you have to trade your health. I wonder if lawyers at Biglaw live longer than the bottom 75% of income earners. My opinion is that they very likely do. 2) Smart isn't applicable to the context you set up. It's dependent on what you want out of life, these are personal life choices. If I prioritize money over life expectancy, and I get rich but die at 63 years of age (due to the work lifestyle I undertook to get rich), that was my subjective choice - smart doesn't enter into it. 3) Most people with careers trade their youth for work to some substantial degree. The exceptions are extremely few, and extremely far between. Just working 35 to 60 hours per week, from the age of 20 to 67 (the soon to be social security retirement age), is heavily trading your youth for work.
      - dpc59 10y ago
        There is a difference between healthiness and life expectancy.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
amorphid 10y ago
It's "easy" to make money if you aren't super concerned with the means through which you acquire it.
- deleted 10y ago
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- dmichulke 10y ago
  Like cooking meth and such? :-) Please elaborate!
therealpeal 10y ago
A truly smart person will have a very impressive, convincing answer to this question.
- Clubber 10y ago
  Having a rich daddy is probably the largest influence in someone's chances of being rich themselves, at least in the US.
  - spajus 10y ago
    This is a common misconception. Most (balance sheet, not "appear to be") rich people are self made, and first generation rich. Kids of rich parents tend to just blow their inheritance away quickly.
    - TAForObvReasons 10y ago
      This is a common misconception. Most of the self-made / "first generation" rich came from households that weren't poor to begin with. Bill Gates, for example, had a trust fund from his grandfather that gave him a cushion in case he failed. That gave some freedom for him to take calculated risks. What you find is that you need the freedom to be able to take a risk and fail. If you come from a household living paycheck to paycheck and just barely scraping by, you start off with a very risk averse mentality and never really escape it. When the big opportunity shows up, if you were risk averse your entire life it is unlikely that you will take the shot. https://despair.com/products/overconfidence https://despair.com/products/overconfidence sums it up best: "Before you attempt to beat the odds, be sure you could survive the odds beating you".
      - tjfl 10y ago
        > Bill Gates, for example, had a trust fund from his grandfather that gave him a cushion in case he failed. Do you happen to have a source? I'd not heard this and was curious as to the amount.
fsloth 10y ago
I have to point out that this question functions as a classical reference to the life of Thales (born 624 BC) - touted as the first philosopher. In the apocryphal story, he proved he could be wealthy if he wanted to and- according to one version - grew rich by predicting that the olive harvest would be good and investing accordingly. Having information others do not has always thus ruled the markets :) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales_of_Miletus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales_of_Miletus
- brownbat 10y ago
  Similarly, philosophy grads today tend to have higher lifetime earnings than other humanities majors. (Though I think it's because the degree eventually confers the wisdom that an advanced degree in a different, marketable field would be a good idea. That's how it worked for me anyway.) http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/11/20/surprise-humanities-degrees-provide-great-return-on-investment/#4c8a4f0994a9 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/11/20/surpri...
- pizza 10y ago
  H = Σ p log p
errantspark 10y ago
I'm probably decently smart, but I'm not rich at all. In fact I'm quite poor by most people's standards. I'm also really happy and work fewer hours per week than anyone I know. If there's one thing I worry about it's that I should be trying to be rich because I probably have the means to make that happen. I might be making 200k/yr if I worked full time. I might be able to start a successful company if I put my mind to it. I've never been able to convince myself that it's worth it. Money just doesn't seem that useful to me. I don't need a car, I'd actually prefer a smaller studio for less money if I could find one. My bills add up to maybe $1400/month. It's trivial to make that much money. I have a fulfilling part time job which I could sleep through and still cover my expenses. Every dollar I earn writing software is a bonus. It constantly surprises me how much money my peers are capable of spending. Fixing things is also really fun. I have $300 dollar headphones, they cost me $0 because I pulled them out of the trash and spent a couple hours overhauling them. The biggest material source of joy in my life is a $280 bicycle, my laptop cost the same, both off craigslist. Going out for a night on the town can cost hundreds of dollars, if I want to indulge in a vice I can buy enough weed to last me 3 months for the same amount of money. I'm always free to spend time with friends doing cool things. The skills I have that I use to earn money are all learned from spending free time messing around doing small projects just for the hell of it. I wouldn't have these skills if I didn't have so much free time to explore whatever strikes my fancy. It really seems like the point at which working harder to earn money hits diminishing returns comes much much earlier that most people think.
- pier25 10y ago
  I'm guessing you are single and not planning to have kids, right?
  - errantspark 10y ago
    I'm not single, but you're right about the kids. In my world view having a kid is similar to an 18 year prison sentence.
    - icelancer 10y ago
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lisper 10y ago
Getting rich, at least under our current system, has a lot more to do with luck (mainly being in the right place at the right time) than it does with being smart or even working hard. The reason perseverance (which is related to working hard, but is not quite the same thing) helps is that the more willing you are to keep playing the game without winning the more likely you are to eventually win. (You can see this dynamic at work in the small here on HN. Getting a lot of upvotes has more to do with getting a pithy comment in early enough that it rises to the top where it gets noticed before the story falls off the front page and people stop paying attention. The wisest comment in the world won't get any love if it's submitted after the story drops off the home page. A similar dynamic also plays itself out on the New page. It's even more dramatic there because very few people ever look at the New page. And yet, the more participate, the more likely you are to hit an upvote jackpot.)
- NicoJuicy 10y ago
  Getting rich is doing instead of thinking. Smart people tend to overthink to much.
  - christmaswoot 10y ago
    Getting rich is having instead of being. Dumb people underthink.
    - beachstartup 10y ago
      no, being rich is having. in order to get rich, you must do. many smart people overthink, constantly, and to a fault. it usually manifests in the form of 'what if something goes wrong???' and spirals from there. any rich person will tell you, things go wrong constantly, and at the worst possible time. the only important thing is your confidence in your ability to fix things when they break.
      - Fnoord 10y ago
        > it usually manifests in the form of 'what if something goes wrong???' and spirals from there. That is because we compare to the successful rich only, not all those who tried to become rich and utterly failed. This is just masculine vs feminine thinking. Or VC versus slow growth. Or the way we nurture children in the West vs cats, or in Africa. Or quality vs quantity. You never hear about all the times people prayed to $diety and it didn't help. You never hear about all those people who went to Stanford and didn't graduate. You never hear about all those people who made a startup and failed. OK, you do (on the latter, here), but it takes courage, shame, and selfishness. PS: You might wanna use some capital letters at the start of a sentence.
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tumbas 10y ago
the real question every american should ask themselves is why are they poor is it because free mason oligarchs like Trump or Klinton or Bush or Soros or Rockfelers or Rotshields made them poor on purpose to turn them into stomach that will do nothing
supercon 10y ago
In the book 'Outliers', M. Gladwell talks about this very subject and suggests that a persons social upbringing has a lot to do with how you can navigate through the world and have it work for you. A high IQ is surely a good thing to have and will make it easier for one to become successful, but if you totally lack the skill of 'getting your way' in the social maze that surrounds our daily lives, it will probably be a lot harder.
- VladKovac 10y ago
  Stopped reading this comment after "Gladwell".
peteretep 10y ago
Interesting. I'm a 1%er and I have a piece of paper that says I'm pretty smart, but: > a personality trait marked by > diligence, perseverance and > self-discipline I see myself as pretty lazy, impulsive, and slap-dash, and tend to use my brain to brute-force lazy solutions to problems. I am too lazy and don't have the concentration span to pay attention much in meetings, but can generally utter something profound near the end which makes it look like I was paying attention the whole time. I have always assumed I'm just coasting by on a pretty useful brain.
- deleted 10y ago
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- croon 10y ago
  I can definitely relate. I'm not rich, but I do alright. I have a high IQ (according to "official" tests available), but I don't feel I'm smarter than anyone. I however do feel that I'm lazy, and have "cheated" my way through life by cunning rather than legitimately solving problems the way they're "supposed" to. I guess that's a skill in its own right, but it's made it harder for me to actually learn new stuff because my brain wants to get by with as little work as possible.
  - peteretep 10y ago
    Hate to hijack the thread, but a lot of that speaks to me. > I have a high IQ, but I don't > feel I'm smarter than anyone. Quite. My recently acquired particular piece of paper puts it beyond any shred of doubt, objectively, but it's only recently I've really acknowledged it. I suspect this has been immensely annoying for people around me. > it's made it harder for me to > actually learn new stuff > because my brain wants to get > by with as little work as > possible Yes! A related symptom for me was assuming that people who were good at stuff I'd never bothered to learn were a lot smarter than me.
    - croon 10y ago
      That's not a hijack, so it's quite alright. I replied simply because I recognized a similarly typed human :)
ken47 10y ago
Does it not require intelligence to understand how to be fulfilled without wealth? I think most of the smartest people have figured out that there are more important things in life than becoming as rich as possible.
SyneRyder 10y ago
Huh, did the title on HN get changed? It's now "IQ is only a minor factor in success" which doesn't match the Bloomberg article title "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?". It makes some of the comments that were written before the change seem a bit strange.
- acqq 10y ago
  And isn't the current title an editorializing of the article's title, against HN guidelines? I don't find the original too linkbaity. Moreover, it appears to me that the paper http://www.pnas.org/content/113/47/13354.short?rss=1 http://www.pnas.org/content/113/47/13354.short?rss=1 was already discussed here?
NotThe1Pct 10y ago
Willingness to cross the line between crime and honesty appears to be the major factor behind success, to me. Every successful company has a dark side.
cyberjunkie 10y ago
There are many parts to this. We're talking about IQ and these same people may not necessarily be emotionally intelligent, for one. A lot of people with high IQs may also be very rational / logical in their approach towards life. They might think objectively, and that's the point. They're right - they don't need the excess wealth at all. They've accounted for everything they needed to - their life, their security, and that of their children, spouse, parents, etc. They're for the most part content with their personal lives, their success, their jobs and most importantly their income. They're I assume, smart enough to know what could make them more money, and how they need to behave and interact. It's not ignorance; it's sheer conscious choices. On the other hand, there are those who aren't smart / wise enough. They'll make much more money, but may not be as nearly satisfied, no matter how much they make. We might be mistaking intelligence / business-sense with wisdom, which is a higher domain - it's got more to it, than just IQ.
- whenwillitstop 10y ago
  This is a narrative, it's not what happens in reality.
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asher_ 10y ago
I'm not addressing the claim of this article, just the methods. IQ has a misleading (and factually inaccurate) name. The Q stands for quotient, but an actual IQ is not a quotient at all. IQs are ordinal ONLY. They allow you (to the extent that IQ tests measure intelligence) to rank people, not assign numerical values. It is not possible from IQ scores to say "Alice is x% more intelligent than Bob", only "Alice is more intelligent than Bob". Due to the non-cardinal nature of IQ scores, the correlation with income as reported in the article isn't something that you can really do. To do this, we would need a cardinal measurement of intelligence instead.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  For some more details, I bookmarked this page that explains "IQ", so that I can post it in forums whenever the subject comes up :-) http://www.michna.com/iq.htm http://www.michna.com/iq.htm Relevant paragraph quoted: Misconception: The IQ is a direct measure of brain performance. For example, somebody with an IQ of 120 can do 20% more mental work in the same amount of time than somebody with an IQ of 100. In truth the IQ is a purely statistical measure. It has no direct relation to brain performance, is not proportional to it, and doesn't even have any linear or otherwise straightforward relation to it. The only thing you can say is that somebody with a higher IQ will show higher scores on most other brain performance tests as well, but the IQ doesn't say how much higher.
  - Noseshine 10y ago
    To clarify: My comment is in support of the parent. Could the downvoters please explain what they think is wrong that I add MORE information and a link to an extended explanation??
    - chriscool 10y ago
      I think many people here just don't like it when people tell them that IQ is not as important as they think. I also got downvoted in the following comment sometime ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7977021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7977021 where I quoted researchers saying basically that creativity tests are the "...best childhood predictors we have of future real-world achievements..."
mistercow 10y ago
I don't understand why people so often say "success" when they mean "income". Those are different concepts.
pacomerh 10y ago
If we consider that there are different types of intelligence, say logical/analytical, artistic, physical (dancers, crafters) etc. Then the answer to the question becomes more complex. You may know the answers to most questions, or solutions to most problems, but that doesn't mean you will act on solving those problems, that requires will, passion, commitment, etc. There are a lotta factors that play into making money, including being at the right place at the right time.
eikenberry 10y ago
In my psych classes they always explained IQ as a measurement of success in western culture. That it didn't really measure intelligence, because it is way to complex to measure that easily. But IQ was shown to correlate with basic success which is why it was useful. So if that is not the case it sounds like IQ is of no value.
scandox 10y ago
Most non-exceptional things depend on character. Extreme intelligence only manifests its value in areas of extreme complexity. When I hire programmers for a job I'm looking for characteristics like consistency, patience, memory, organisation skills, attention to detail, a touch of pendantry and a reasonable analytical mind. I don't actively avoid extremely intelligent people, but given the work at hand I certainly don't care if someone is or not. So in the world of non-exceptional development, character is king. Likewise in business, except at times of revolutionary change, character always wins out. Persistence, focus, a dash of greed, people skills...Brains are right at the bottom of your priorities.
- PlugTunin 10y ago
  Pedantry, not pendantry.
  - scandox 10y ago
    You're hired
halugalugh 10y ago
Millennial alert
sofaofthedamned 10y ago
I always retell this story when this subject comes up: When I was 17 in 1989 I was desperate for a job in 'computers' as it was all I knew, I was damn good at programming etc, but had the usual experience trap - no experience equalled no job. Being naive I paid attention to one of those adverts in the back of the weekend newspapers. I don't know if they were a UK only thing but they had a puzzle and stated that if you could solve it within 1/2 hour you could be a member of Mensa, which if anybody doesn't know is a club for those with a high IQ. I completed the puzzle then got posted back another one, if I could complete this within an hour I would be invited back to a proper, invigilated exam. Passed both, paid my dues and became a member of the clever club, along with people at the time like Sir Clive Sinclair. My mum was very proud. I went to one of their meetups shortly afterwards in a bad cheap suit hoping to meet some other clever person who'd recognise my skills and give me a big wad of cash and a job. It didn't turn out that way. There were 30~ men at one side of the club all staring at their drinks, with 3 woman at the other side about 20 metres away keeping away from the fellas. One woman came in by mistake to the side with the men at which point they all swarmed her. The only topic of conversation they had went like: "What's your IQ?" "x" "oh, mines <x+10>" When it came to IQ these people were the top of the pile, with social interaction however they were abjectly hopeless. They'd be able to build you a nuclear bomb, but they wouldn't be able to sell or explain it, or even go to the shop to buy the parts for it. This encounter came at a good point for me - it made me relax a bit about being 'clever', and showed the importance of other indicators. I let my membership lapse and wince when I occasionally see 'member of Mensa' on a CV.
- wslh 10y ago
  One of the members of our team is in charge of a Mensa group in our city, and he always tells us how difficult is to agree on basic organizational issues, just like in a condo.
- kiiski 10y ago
  I was a member about 5 years ago. I also left the club soon, but my experience was pretty different from yours. I never went to the "official" meetings, but I did go to two of the "Mensa youth" (I was around 20, others there seemed to be 25-35) weekend gatherings in the countryside. The gender ratio was around 60/40 men/women. I don't think anyone even mentioned the term "IQ". It was mostly like a student group outing with people drinking, talking, playing board games, going to sauna (this was in Finland), swimming, flying around in a inflatable boat someone had converted to an ultralight floatplane and such.
baccheion 10y ago
But it should be a major factor (assuming motivation is at an acceptable level). It not being relevant is more telling of issues with politics, corruption, favoritism, etc than of intelligence being irrelevant.
ihaveahadron 10y ago
What the Americans call iq tests are just tests of how much American university culture you know, they don't measure intelligence. That's a fact that can't be argued against. Sure usually that equates to intelligence. However iq tests do not, measure intelligence.
visarga 10y ago
"Don't eat the marshmallow" (willpower / delayed gratification) is more important or at least as important a predictor of success as IQ. It's not always about books smarts, but real life smarts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
anovikov 10y ago
Most of the cash-rich people i know are not smart at all. They are just conservative and can withhold themselves from impulse spending, and introverts, so they don't need to spend much to hang out with friends, which allowed them to build decent savings and build passive income (mostly by buying residential and commercial property, while that will be different in developed countries). Most income-rich on the other hand, are smart.
bryanrasmussen 10y ago
as an idiot I support this.
dschiptsov 10y ago
It is the second major factor after chance. "Fortune favors the prepared".
dschiptsov 10y ago
It is the second major factor after chance. "Fortune favors the prepared". Adaptability (and continuous improvement) is the key, and it is another name for intelligence.
deleted 10y ago
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arethuza 10y ago
Becoming successful in lot of fields appears to be less about doing challenging stuff (where raw intelligence is perhaps most applicable) and perhaps more about scaling an organization to manage other people doing the challenging stuff. Most of the brightest people I know have either no interest in, or an active aversion to, "managing" people in any sense whatsoever.
qazpot 10y ago
It is so nice to see that Money is now the only criteria for success. By that logic J.K Rowling is a more successful author than the Hemingway, Eliot, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Tolkien and the entire Beat generation plus several others put together.
- nolemurs 10y ago
  I know right? We jump from > how much of the difference between people’s incomes can be tied to IQ to > So if IQ is only a minor factor in success, what is it that separates the low earners from the high ones? The second doesn't follow at all. Lots of evidence suggests that beyond a certain baseline, income is almost uncorrelated to happiness, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the highest income earners are less happy for the life they've chosen. I would not categorize that as success. If you're smart, and not crazy, your goal isn't to maximize your income.
- Sohakes 10y ago
  Exactly. Many intelligent people I know don't even care that much about money, past a certain point.
faragon 10y ago
TL;DR: correlation vs causation.
enterx 10y ago
High IQ here too. Used an algebra to rotate and combine equations back in school to solve them. Never knew what they were really about until the uni times. Playing puzzles with the rest of the class was quite boring. Discipline however plays the important role for success, I agree, so does the environment and DNA.
k__ 10y ago
Much is luck, yes. But also, much seems to be doing the right thing. I know a bunch of founders of smallish IT companies. If I talk to them, they don't seem too smart. But they did a company, and kept it running for many years. So they learned stuff about running a company. Knowing how to run a company is a rather important skill if you want to get rich. And you can get this skill, even if you aren't smart. You probably won't make millions but more than a senior dev or something. At one point you can even do it with a low skill level. Because you can employ many smart people who keep the company running even if you don't know what's going on anymore. What angers me is that you often need money to get started and almost all people with rich parents I knew did it with their parents money. Yes they failed a few times, but who cared, they were young and their parents would help them out. By the time they were 30, they had 10 years of founding experience.
- collyw 10y ago
  I was thinking when I read the headline "having rich parents is a bigger factor".
wolfgke 10y ago
> The study found that grades and achievement-test results were markedly better predictors of adult success than raw IQ scores. That might seem surprising -- after all, don’t they all measure the same thing? Not quite. Grades reflect not just intelligence but also what Heckman calls “non-cognitive skills,” such as perseverance, good study habits and the ability to collaborate [emphasis by me] -- in other words, conscientiousness. I would consider myself as quite conscientious - but working together with people who have less of this trait always ends/ended in a tragedy. So I would rather assume that there are also reasons for the hypothesis that conscientiousness rather hinders your ability to collaborate. > University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth found that IQ scores also reflected test-takers’ motivation and effort. Diligent, motivated kids will work harder to answer tough questions than equally intelligent but lazier ones. When I was at school I took multiple IQ tests (I don't know what their exact scores were, but they were really high). At that time I found the problems in the IQ test really exciting. A few years ago I had to solve some "logic puzzles" (what image in a 3x3 or 4x4 box with one missing fits by the hidden rules). 15 years ago I would have considered them as really easy (though "formally" they were not). I would say that since I finished studying mathematics, I find these puzzles much harder. Did studying mathematics make me worse in logic? Surely not (quite the opposite). Did studying mathematics make me worse in solving "logic puzzles" in IQ tests? I'm very sure it did.
- lgessler 10y ago
  > but working together with people who have less of this trait always ends/ended in a tragedy. If by that you mean you were then unable to collaborate with them, perhaps you have less of this than you imagined?
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > If by that you mean you were then unable to collaborate with them, perhaps you have less of this than you imagined? I am not an English native speaker, so perhaps I misunderstand some subtleties that exist in the English language, but not in the German translation of the word "conscientiousness". The dictionary translates "conscientiousness" to German "Gewissenhaftigkeit" and "Pflichtbewusstsein". I tend to work hard - thus I am conscientious. But I also expect other people to do so - so I don't tolerate loafing on my behalf; again a trait of "conscientiousness", but exactly what leads to difficulties working together with other people who are less conscientious.
keefe 10y ago
In broad terms of course emotional intelligence is very useful when interacting with other humans. to pick at the 1-2% numbers a bit the impact of IQ depends on the individual; physical size/height is only profoundly important for the success of certain people - athletes primarily. however, both also have correlation with success. I'm sure the paper was more careful than this article. IQ is often used as a proxy for intelligence, when in fact it's just a set of standard metrics that nobody thinks is that good beyond a certain point - after all the term comes from early attempts to quantify developmental delay. Leaving that aside for a moment.
alkonaut 10y ago
If I were to guess I'd bet a low IQ is a stronger predictor for failure than a high IQ is a predictor for success. Presumably, once you have "enough" capability for abstract thinking for what we consider success, then other factors, internal and external, will decide.
plg 10y ago
IQ is only a minor factor in intelligence. Hampshire, A., Highfield, R. R., Parkin, B. L., & Owen, A. M. (2012). Fractionating human intelligence. Neuron, 76(6), 1225-1237.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
The actual paper, available on sci-hub, does not agree with this innumerate journalist's interpretation of it. http://www.pnas.org.sci-hub.ac/content/113/47/13354.short?rss=1 http://www.pnas.org.sci-hub.ac/content/113/47/13354.short?rs... In fact, the paper shows that IQ is a great predictor. Personality is a much worse predictor on highly g-loaded tasks, and a good predictor on some others (e.g. wages). But (IQ, personality) pairs are an even better predictor than IQ or personality. The only way you can draw the conclusion that IQ doesn't matter much is if you compare to predictors of the form (IQ, personality, achievement, grades) (and a few similar ones). Shockingly, using achievement to predict achievement yields a more accurate predictor than using (IQ, personality). (I really do not understand this paper's methodology of graphing r^2 values. I don't get how this was published, but lets assume that was a reasonable way to go.) This paper also ignores the fact that IQ, grades, and many personality traits are correlated. Insofar as these metrics are correlated, it completely invalidates this analysis; some of what the authors attribute to personality or grades is actually just the explanatory power of a second IQ measurement.
- tomrod 10y ago
  I haven't read the paper yet, but I'd be genuinely surprised if PCA or factor analysis wasn't performed.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    I just skimmed it, but I don't see them doing that anywhere.
- Declanomous 10y ago
  They are testing whether personality and IQ are correlated to success. R-squared is a measurement of dependence. So basically they are graphing this correlation on a scale from from 0 being "this variable is independent of success", to 1 being "success is perfectly correlated with this variable". The actual measurements are in a separate appendix, so I'm not sure how the calculated all this.
- mcguire 10y ago
trishume 10y ago
The low correlation of IQ and future wage is surprising to me given what I've seen elsewhere. For example https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Sternberg2/publication/228859220_The_predictive_value_of_IQ/links/09e4150d72ed6b102a000000.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Sternberg2/publi... finds that IQ predicts 15% of the variance in income and 25% of the variance in socioeconomic status. Also See http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%20Validity%20and%20Utility%20Psychological%20Bulletin.pdf http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%... where IQ tests predict future job performance measurements across many studies as well as job interviews and only slightly worse than work sample tests. Although I did look at the original study and that number comes from a linear regression of log wages and IQ percentiles. I'm not convinced that the R^2 number you get out of those two numbers really means much, the correlation is highly significant at least.
- rch 10y ago
  Why do these studies primarily look at wages? Personal autonomy might be a better metric, just more difficult to quantify.
  - trishume 10y ago
    Perhaps that study looks at wages because I specifically looked for another study that also measured IQ-wage correlation. There are studies measuring other things, I was just looking for something to compare to the study the article mentions. And I would argue that personal autonomy is just another proxy. If you're trying to measure if IQ is helpful, perhaps what you really want to look at is life satisfaction.
caseysoftware 10y ago
> After following some 1,000 New Zealanders for more than 30 years, researchers concluded that tests of language, behavioral skills and cognitive abilities taken when children were just three years old could predict who was most likely to need welfare, commit crimes, or become chronically ill. Whether this is true or not, this is going to have huge ramifications as people believe it and try their various notions of pre-crime and their latest "save humanity" scheme. And if it is true, it has the potential to disrupt society as certain groups - by ethnicity, socioeconomic, geographic, religion, etc - tend to fall in or out of this bucket: the idea that "[group X] is always/never on welfare and therefore..." Without even knowing the rest of the "therefore" it's fascinating and scary to consider.
hintingonwhoiam 10y ago
So, the takeaway is... hard work > IQ in influence. Sounds like shitty science wrapped up in nice language... booooooo
Sohakes 10y ago
Hmm, I was thinking... being ambitious, maybe a little greedy, should be a great factor for "success" in terms of importance and money. I mean, many intelligent people I know don't care much about this kind of success anyway, so I think it's clear that it's more correlated to personality than IQ. Some personality types will have greater success, simply because they are searching for it. IQ is still correlated simply because, in our society, we came to think that this kind of success is desirable, so many people want it, even if they are not that ambitious. So if you have a high IQ, you will probably have a decent income and moderate success, even if you don't want to be rich or something like that.
JoeAltmaier 10y ago
But is it because we reward (unjustly) those that score well and go to prestigious schools? Society is certainly not a blind test; we cannot conclude that these 'predictors' will actually help an employer choose a high-functioning employee. It only predicts who an employer will pay more. Heck, for the best predictor that, we only need to look in their pants.
walrus1066 10y ago
I think your parents socioeconomic class has a big influence on your likelihood to be 'successful' (http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595437-america-no-less-socially-mobile-it-was-generation-ago-mobility-measured http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595437-america...). Social/networking should also play a big role. My anecdotal observation is, having both of the above (from upper class family and good at networking) is the biggest determinant of success. It sort of makes sense, the upper class bit gives you access to other successful/wealthy people (through private school, parents network), and the social skills the ability to leverage this access. Also, having loads of money from family makes it very easy to succeed. In the UK you'd just buy as much real estate as possible, farm off the management to an agency, and just sit on your arse while the assets gain in value.
setra 10y ago
IQ and education level are well correlated. It would be odd if that did not also correlate with success.
gerby 10y ago
Why measure an "Intelligence Quotient" with methods of examination that have been shown to be a pseudo-science? People should be measuring "Intelligence Potential" using proper scientific methods with less subjectivity involved, and more objective evidence used as a way to get closer to true, justified beliefs.
jbhatab 10y ago
duh
DoodleBuggy 10y ago
Mostly, it's about perseverance, and luck.
WhitneyLand 10y ago
How much of a factor is mental health in success? Someone could be a 4th standard deviation IQ genius yet be debilitated by anxiety, depression, or some other condition. On the flipside many successful people have credited drugs with some part of their success by boosting ambition, endurance, creativity, confidence, etc. If a Cocaine substitute was discovered that had no negative side effects, could this positively affect scientific progress? Occasionally a mental "disability" can seemingly be related to success. So many great scientists have been on the Autistic spectrum, or suffered from severe OCD. Can the success of the person be separated from the disorder? Could "cures" for Autism and OCD actually negatively affect scientific progress?
VladKovac 10y ago
Contentiousness is a ~50% heritable personality trait, only slightly less than IQ.
Hydraulix989 10y ago
IQ is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for success. If you aren't smart, you get through life in a walking haze, as others continually take advantage of you, and you are never truly aware of what is going on. For example, you'll mismanage your money, or forget crucial details, or you'll make the wrong decisions.
walrus1066 10y ago
A good lse lecture about the role of luck in success and failure, and how people interpret it asymmetrically (my success was due to hard work and talent vs I failed due to bad luck/didn't get a break), with some interesting social experiments that showcase this: http://www.lse.ac.uk/InternationalInequalities/Videos-Podcasts/Success-and-Luck-good-fortune-and-the-myth-of-meritocracy.aspx http://www.lse.ac.uk/InternationalInequalities/Videos-Podcas...
johnwheeler 10y ago
I like to think of IQs using a car analogy. You can have someone with an 8000 HP motor for a brain cranking away like a nitromethane dragster. These people don't have a ton of practical utility, but if you point them in the right direction and let 'em rip, they shred through certain problems like chainsaws through logs. Then you've got Jeeps. Much more practical they are. They cover lots of terrain, but they're not as optimized on the street as typical sedans, and not as good on rough terrain as Humvees. If you want to be successful, be a Porsche. Optimize for driving well on the most practical terrain that can take you the most places.

261 points by tempw 10y ago

exolymph 10y ago

I can answer the headline question very easily: because being smart isn't all that's required.

hourislate 10y ago
As someone who comes from a family that has a few successful traditional businesses, luck and who you know plays a big part of your success. It's hard for people who haven't been in business to understand. They have been told that a great product at a fair price with fantastic customer service is what it takes. While that plays a role it is does not even amount to 50% of the formula.
- dpc59 10y ago
  In my experience business luck and knowing the right people can at least partially be the result of hard work.
- Clubber 10y ago
  Can you give a breakdown of what you've found to be the percentages "the formula?" I'm honestly curious.
bottled_poe 10y ago
Is it required at all? Perhaps... if by 'smart' you mean 'able to exploit opportunities to personal benefit'.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  It certainly helps.
- vidarh 10y ago
  I'd expect that there are a number of factors that help improve your odds, and that being "smart" will be one of them. But so would being born into a wealthy family, or just bing born in a developed country, and be of good health, and any numbers of other factors. As well as a huge amount of chance - e.g. my first company got funded because one of my co-founders ran into a guy in a bar that happened to be in the country for a week or two. Maybe we'd have found other funding if that didn't happen. Maybe not. We'll never know.
discombobulate 10y ago
From the study, > Both IQ and personality remain as important predictors in wage equations when both are included in a regression

gozur88 10y ago

The assumption here is that everyone sees the accumulation of wealth as the most important goal in life. I don't think that's accurate.

tensaix2j 10y ago
Accumulation of wealth may not be the ultimate goal, but it shortcuts your way to achieve the goals of other pursuits.
- gozur88 10y ago
  But at what cost? Certainly you could work at a Biglaw firm in NYC (or whatever) and get rich if you're willing to trade your youth and your health. But is that smart?
  - adventured 10y ago
    You're making several very large assumptions. 1) That you have to trade your health. I wonder if lawyers at Biglaw live longer than the bottom 75% of income earners. My opinion is that they very likely do. 2) Smart isn't applicable to the context you set up. It's dependent on what you want out of life, these are personal life choices. If I prioritize money over life expectancy, and I get rich but die at 63 years of age (due to the work lifestyle I undertook to get rich), that was my subjective choice - smart doesn't enter into it. 3) Most people with careers trade their youth for work to some substantial degree. The exceptions are extremely few, and extremely far between. Just working 35 to 60 hours per week, from the age of 20 to 67 (the soon to be social security retirement age), is heavily trading your youth for work.
    - dpc59 10y ago
      There is a difference between healthiness and life expectancy.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

amorphid 10y ago

It's "easy" to make money if you aren't super concerned with the means through which you acquire it.

deleted 10y ago
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dmichulke 10y ago
Like cooking meth and such? :-) Please elaborate!

therealpeal 10y ago

A truly smart person will have a very impressive, convincing answer to this question.

Clubber 10y ago
Having a rich daddy is probably the largest influence in someone's chances of being rich themselves, at least in the US.
- spajus 10y ago
  This is a common misconception. Most (balance sheet, not "appear to be") rich people are self made, and first generation rich. Kids of rich parents tend to just blow their inheritance away quickly.
  - TAForObvReasons 10y ago
    This is a common misconception. Most of the self-made / "first generation" rich came from households that weren't poor to begin with. Bill Gates, for example, had a trust fund from his grandfather that gave him a cushion in case he failed. That gave some freedom for him to take calculated risks. What you find is that you need the freedom to be able to take a risk and fail. If you come from a household living paycheck to paycheck and just barely scraping by, you start off with a very risk averse mentality and never really escape it. When the big opportunity shows up, if you were risk averse your entire life it is unlikely that you will take the shot. https://despair.com/products/overconfidence https://despair.com/products/overconfidence sums it up best: "Before you attempt to beat the odds, be sure you could survive the odds beating you".
    - tjfl 10y ago
      > Bill Gates, for example, had a trust fund from his grandfather that gave him a cushion in case he failed. Do you happen to have a source? I'd not heard this and was curious as to the amount.

fsloth 10y ago

I have to point out that this question functions as a classical reference to the life of Thales (born 624 BC) - touted as the first philosopher. In the apocryphal story, he proved he could be wealthy if he wanted to and- according to one version - grew rich by predicting that the olive harvest would be good and investing accordingly. Having information others do not has always thus ruled the markets :) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales_of_Miletus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales_of_Miletus

brownbat 10y ago
Similarly, philosophy grads today tend to have higher lifetime earnings than other humanities majors. (Though I think it's because the degree eventually confers the wisdom that an advanced degree in a different, marketable field would be a good idea. That's how it worked for me anyway.) http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/11/20/surprise-humanities-degrees-provide-great-return-on-investment/#4c8a4f0994a9 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/11/20/surpri...
pizza 10y ago
H = Σ p log p

errantspark 10y ago

I'm probably decently smart, but I'm not rich at all. In fact I'm quite poor by most people's standards. I'm also really happy and work fewer hours per week than anyone I know. If there's one thing I worry about it's that I should be trying to be rich because I probably have the means to make that happen. I might be making 200k/yr if I worked full time. I might be able to start a successful company if I put my mind to it. I've never been able to convince myself that it's worth it. Money just doesn't seem that useful to me. I don't need a car, I'd actually prefer a smaller studio for less money if I could find one. My bills add up to maybe $1400/month. It's trivial to make that much money. I have a fulfilling part time job which I could sleep through and still cover my expenses. Every dollar I earn writing software is a bonus. It constantly surprises me how much money my peers are capable of spending. Fixing things is also really fun. I have $300 dollar headphones, they cost me $0 because I pulled them out of the trash and spent a couple hours overhauling them. The biggest material source of joy in my life is a $280 bicycle, my laptop cost the same, both off craigslist. Going out for a night on the town can cost hundreds of dollars, if I want to indulge in a vice I can buy enough weed to last me 3 months for the same amount of money. I'm always free to spend time with friends doing cool things. The skills I have that I use to earn money are all learned from spending free time messing around doing small projects just for the hell of it. I wouldn't have these skills if I didn't have so much free time to explore whatever strikes my fancy. It really seems like the point at which working harder to earn money hits diminishing returns comes much much earlier that most people think.

pier25 10y ago
I'm guessing you are single and not planning to have kids, right?
- errantspark 10y ago
  I'm not single, but you're right about the kids. In my world view having a kid is similar to an 18 year prison sentence.
  - icelancer 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

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lisper 10y ago

Getting rich, at least under our current system, has a lot more to do with luck (mainly being in the right place at the right time) than it does with being smart or even working hard. The reason perseverance (which is related to working hard, but is not quite the same thing) helps is that the more willing you are to keep playing the game without winning the more likely you are to eventually win. (You can see this dynamic at work in the small here on HN. Getting a lot of upvotes has more to do with getting a pithy comment in early enough that it rises to the top where it gets noticed before the story falls off the front page and people stop paying attention. The wisest comment in the world won't get any love if it's submitted after the story drops off the home page. A similar dynamic also plays itself out on the New page. It's even more dramatic there because very few people ever look at the New page. And yet, the more participate, the more likely you are to hit an upvote jackpot.)

NicoJuicy 10y ago
Getting rich is doing instead of thinking. Smart people tend to overthink to much.
- christmaswoot 10y ago
  Getting rich is having instead of being. Dumb people underthink.
  - beachstartup 10y ago
    no, being rich is having. in order to get rich, you must do. many smart people overthink, constantly, and to a fault. it usually manifests in the form of 'what if something goes wrong???' and spirals from there. any rich person will tell you, things go wrong constantly, and at the worst possible time. the only important thing is your confidence in your ability to fix things when they break.
    - Fnoord 10y ago
      > it usually manifests in the form of 'what if something goes wrong???' and spirals from there. That is because we compare to the successful rich only, not all those who tried to become rich and utterly failed. This is just masculine vs feminine thinking. Or VC versus slow growth. Or the way we nurture children in the West vs cats, or in Africa. Or quality vs quantity. You never hear about all the times people prayed to $diety and it didn't help. You never hear about all those people who went to Stanford and didn't graduate. You never hear about all those people who made a startup and failed. OK, you do (on the latter, here), but it takes courage, shame, and selfishness. PS: You might wanna use some capital letters at the start of a sentence.

deleted 10y ago

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tumbas 10y ago

the real question every american should ask themselves is why are they poor is it because free mason oligarchs like Trump or Klinton or Bush or Soros or Rockfelers or Rotshields made them poor on purpose to turn them into stomach that will do nothing

supercon 10y ago

In the book 'Outliers', M. Gladwell talks about this very subject and suggests that a persons social upbringing has a lot to do with how you can navigate through the world and have it work for you. A high IQ is surely a good thing to have and will make it easier for one to become successful, but if you totally lack the skill of 'getting your way' in the social maze that surrounds our daily lives, it will probably be a lot harder.

VladKovac 10y ago
Stopped reading this comment after "Gladwell".

peteretep 10y ago

Interesting. I'm a 1%er and I have a piece of paper that says I'm pretty smart, but: > a personality trait marked by > diligence, perseverance and > self-discipline I see myself as pretty lazy, impulsive, and slap-dash, and tend to use my brain to brute-force lazy solutions to problems. I am too lazy and don't have the concentration span to pay attention much in meetings, but can generally utter something profound near the end which makes it look like I was paying attention the whole time. I have always assumed I'm just coasting by on a pretty useful brain.

deleted 10y ago
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croon 10y ago
I can definitely relate. I'm not rich, but I do alright. I have a high IQ (according to "official" tests available), but I don't feel I'm smarter than anyone. I however do feel that I'm lazy, and have "cheated" my way through life by cunning rather than legitimately solving problems the way they're "supposed" to. I guess that's a skill in its own right, but it's made it harder for me to actually learn new stuff because my brain wants to get by with as little work as possible.
- peteretep 10y ago
  Hate to hijack the thread, but a lot of that speaks to me. > I have a high IQ, but I don't > feel I'm smarter than anyone. Quite. My recently acquired particular piece of paper puts it beyond any shred of doubt, objectively, but it's only recently I've really acknowledged it. I suspect this has been immensely annoying for people around me. > it's made it harder for me to > actually learn new stuff > because my brain wants to get > by with as little work as > possible Yes! A related symptom for me was assuming that people who were good at stuff I'd never bothered to learn were a lot smarter than me.
  - croon 10y ago
    That's not a hijack, so it's quite alright. I replied simply because I recognized a similarly typed human :)

ken47 10y ago

Does it not require intelligence to understand how to be fulfilled without wealth? I think most of the smartest people have figured out that there are more important things in life than becoming as rich as possible.

SyneRyder 10y ago

Huh, did the title on HN get changed? It's now "IQ is only a minor factor in success" which doesn't match the Bloomberg article title "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?". It makes some of the comments that were written before the change seem a bit strange.

acqq 10y ago
And isn't the current title an editorializing of the article's title, against HN guidelines? I don't find the original too linkbaity. Moreover, it appears to me that the paper http://www.pnas.org/content/113/47/13354.short?rss=1 http://www.pnas.org/content/113/47/13354.short?rss=1 was already discussed here?

NotThe1Pct 10y ago

Willingness to cross the line between crime and honesty appears to be the major factor behind success, to me. Every successful company has a dark side.

cyberjunkie 10y ago

There are many parts to this. We're talking about IQ and these same people may not necessarily be emotionally intelligent, for one. A lot of people with high IQs may also be very rational / logical in their approach towards life. They might think objectively, and that's the point. They're right - they don't need the excess wealth at all. They've accounted for everything they needed to - their life, their security, and that of their children, spouse, parents, etc. They're for the most part content with their personal lives, their success, their jobs and most importantly their income. They're I assume, smart enough to know what could make them more money, and how they need to behave and interact. It's not ignorance; it's sheer conscious choices. On the other hand, there are those who aren't smart / wise enough. They'll make much more money, but may not be as nearly satisfied, no matter how much they make. We might be mistaking intelligence / business-sense with wisdom, which is a higher domain - it's got more to it, than just IQ.

whenwillitstop 10y ago
This is a narrative, it's not what happens in reality.

deleted 10y ago

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asher_ 10y ago

I'm not addressing the claim of this article, just the methods. IQ has a misleading (and factually inaccurate) name. The Q stands for quotient, but an actual IQ is not a quotient at all. IQs are ordinal ONLY. They allow you (to the extent that IQ tests measure intelligence) to rank people, not assign numerical values. It is not possible from IQ scores to say "Alice is x% more intelligent than Bob", only "Alice is more intelligent than Bob". Due to the non-cardinal nature of IQ scores, the correlation with income as reported in the article isn't something that you can really do. To do this, we would need a cardinal measurement of intelligence instead.

Noseshine 10y ago
For some more details, I bookmarked this page that explains "IQ", so that I can post it in forums whenever the subject comes up :-) http://www.michna.com/iq.htm http://www.michna.com/iq.htm Relevant paragraph quoted: Misconception: The IQ is a direct measure of brain performance. For example, somebody with an IQ of 120 can do 20% more mental work in the same amount of time than somebody with an IQ of 100. In truth the IQ is a purely statistical measure. It has no direct relation to brain performance, is not proportional to it, and doesn't even have any linear or otherwise straightforward relation to it. The only thing you can say is that somebody with a higher IQ will show higher scores on most other brain performance tests as well, but the IQ doesn't say how much higher.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  To clarify: My comment is in support of the parent. Could the downvoters please explain what they think is wrong that I add MORE information and a link to an extended explanation??
  - chriscool 10y ago
    I think many people here just don't like it when people tell them that IQ is not as important as they think. I also got downvoted in the following comment sometime ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7977021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7977021 where I quoted researchers saying basically that creativity tests are the "...best childhood predictors we have of future real-world achievements..."

mistercow 10y ago

I don't understand why people so often say "success" when they mean "income". Those are different concepts.

pacomerh 10y ago

If we consider that there are different types of intelligence, say logical/analytical, artistic, physical (dancers, crafters) etc. Then the answer to the question becomes more complex. You may know the answers to most questions, or solutions to most problems, but that doesn't mean you will act on solving those problems, that requires will, passion, commitment, etc. There are a lotta factors that play into making money, including being at the right place at the right time.

eikenberry 10y ago

In my psych classes they always explained IQ as a measurement of success in western culture. That it didn't really measure intelligence, because it is way to complex to measure that easily. But IQ was shown to correlate with basic success which is why it was useful. So if that is not the case it sounds like IQ is of no value.

scandox 10y ago

Most non-exceptional things depend on character. Extreme intelligence only manifests its value in areas of extreme complexity. When I hire programmers for a job I'm looking for characteristics like consistency, patience, memory, organisation skills, attention to detail, a touch of pendantry and a reasonable analytical mind. I don't actively avoid extremely intelligent people, but given the work at hand I certainly don't care if someone is or not. So in the world of non-exceptional development, character is king. Likewise in business, except at times of revolutionary change, character always wins out. Persistence, focus, a dash of greed, people skills...Brains are right at the bottom of your priorities.

PlugTunin 10y ago
Pedantry, not pendantry.
- scandox 10y ago
  You're hired

halugalugh 10y ago

Millennial alert

sofaofthedamned 10y ago

I always retell this story when this subject comes up: When I was 17 in 1989 I was desperate for a job in 'computers' as it was all I knew, I was damn good at programming etc, but had the usual experience trap - no experience equalled no job. Being naive I paid attention to one of those adverts in the back of the weekend newspapers. I don't know if they were a UK only thing but they had a puzzle and stated that if you could solve it within 1/2 hour you could be a member of Mensa, which if anybody doesn't know is a club for those with a high IQ. I completed the puzzle then got posted back another one, if I could complete this within an hour I would be invited back to a proper, invigilated exam. Passed both, paid my dues and became a member of the clever club, along with people at the time like Sir Clive Sinclair. My mum was very proud. I went to one of their meetups shortly afterwards in a bad cheap suit hoping to meet some other clever person who'd recognise my skills and give me a big wad of cash and a job. It didn't turn out that way. There were 30~ men at one side of the club all staring at their drinks, with 3 woman at the other side about 20 metres away keeping away from the fellas. One woman came in by mistake to the side with the men at which point they all swarmed her. The only topic of conversation they had went like: "What's your IQ?" "x" "oh, mines <x+10>" When it came to IQ these people were the top of the pile, with social interaction however they were abjectly hopeless. They'd be able to build you a nuclear bomb, but they wouldn't be able to sell or explain it, or even go to the shop to buy the parts for it. This encounter came at a good point for me - it made me relax a bit about being 'clever', and showed the importance of other indicators. I let my membership lapse and wince when I occasionally see 'member of Mensa' on a CV.

wslh 10y ago
One of the members of our team is in charge of a Mensa group in our city, and he always tells us how difficult is to agree on basic organizational issues, just like in a condo.
kiiski 10y ago
I was a member about 5 years ago. I also left the club soon, but my experience was pretty different from yours. I never went to the "official" meetings, but I did go to two of the "Mensa youth" (I was around 20, others there seemed to be 25-35) weekend gatherings in the countryside. The gender ratio was around 60/40 men/women. I don't think anyone even mentioned the term "IQ". It was mostly like a student group outing with people drinking, talking, playing board games, going to sauna (this was in Finland), swimming, flying around in a inflatable boat someone had converted to an ultralight floatplane and such.

baccheion 10y ago

But it should be a major factor (assuming motivation is at an acceptable level). It not being relevant is more telling of issues with politics, corruption, favoritism, etc than of intelligence being irrelevant.

ihaveahadron 10y ago

What the Americans call iq tests are just tests of how much American university culture you know, they don't measure intelligence. That's a fact that can't be argued against. Sure usually that equates to intelligence. However iq tests do not, measure intelligence.

visarga 10y ago

"Don't eat the marshmallow" (willpower / delayed gratification) is more important or at least as important a predictor of success as IQ. It's not always about books smarts, but real life smarts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...

anovikov 10y ago

Most of the cash-rich people i know are not smart at all. They are just conservative and can withhold themselves from impulse spending, and introverts, so they don't need to spend much to hang out with friends, which allowed them to build decent savings and build passive income (mostly by buying residential and commercial property, while that will be different in developed countries). Most income-rich on the other hand, are smart.

bryanrasmussen 10y ago

as an idiot I support this.

dschiptsov 10y ago

It is the second major factor after chance. "Fortune favors the prepared".

dschiptsov 10y ago

It is the second major factor after chance. "Fortune favors the prepared". Adaptability (and continuous improvement) is the key, and it is another name for intelligence.

deleted 10y ago

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arethuza 10y ago

Becoming successful in lot of fields appears to be less about doing challenging stuff (where raw intelligence is perhaps most applicable) and perhaps more about scaling an organization to manage other people doing the challenging stuff. Most of the brightest people I know have either no interest in, or an active aversion to, "managing" people in any sense whatsoever.

qazpot 10y ago

It is so nice to see that Money is now the only criteria for success. By that logic J.K Rowling is a more successful author than the Hemingway, Eliot, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Tolkien and the entire Beat generation plus several others put together.

nolemurs 10y ago
I know right? We jump from > how much of the difference between people’s incomes can be tied to IQ to > So if IQ is only a minor factor in success, what is it that separates the low earners from the high ones? The second doesn't follow at all. Lots of evidence suggests that beyond a certain baseline, income is almost uncorrelated to happiness, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the highest income earners are less happy for the life they've chosen. I would not categorize that as success. If you're smart, and not crazy, your goal isn't to maximize your income.
Sohakes 10y ago
Exactly. Many intelligent people I know don't even care that much about money, past a certain point.

faragon 10y ago

TL;DR: correlation vs causation.

enterx 10y ago

High IQ here too. Used an algebra to rotate and combine equations back in school to solve them. Never knew what they were really about until the uni times. Playing puzzles with the rest of the class was quite boring. Discipline however plays the important role for success, I agree, so does the environment and DNA.

k__ 10y ago

Much is luck, yes. But also, much seems to be doing the right thing. I know a bunch of founders of smallish IT companies. If I talk to them, they don't seem too smart. But they did a company, and kept it running for many years. So they learned stuff about running a company. Knowing how to run a company is a rather important skill if you want to get rich. And you can get this skill, even if you aren't smart. You probably won't make millions but more than a senior dev or something. At one point you can even do it with a low skill level. Because you can employ many smart people who keep the company running even if you don't know what's going on anymore. What angers me is that you often need money to get started and almost all people with rich parents I knew did it with their parents money. Yes they failed a few times, but who cared, they were young and their parents would help them out. By the time they were 30, they had 10 years of founding experience.

collyw 10y ago
I was thinking when I read the headline "having rich parents is a bigger factor".

wolfgke 10y ago

> The study found that grades and achievement-test results were markedly better predictors of adult success than raw IQ scores. That might seem surprising -- after all, don’t they all measure the same thing? Not quite. Grades reflect not just intelligence but also what Heckman calls “non-cognitive skills,” such as perseverance, good study habits and the ability to collaborate [emphasis by me] -- in other words, conscientiousness. I would consider myself as quite conscientious - but working together with people who have less of this trait always ends/ended in a tragedy. So I would rather assume that there are also reasons for the hypothesis that conscientiousness rather hinders your ability to collaborate. > University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth found that IQ scores also reflected test-takers’ motivation and effort. Diligent, motivated kids will work harder to answer tough questions than equally intelligent but lazier ones. When I was at school I took multiple IQ tests (I don't know what their exact scores were, but they were really high). At that time I found the problems in the IQ test really exciting. A few years ago I had to solve some "logic puzzles" (what image in a 3x3 or 4x4 box with one missing fits by the hidden rules). 15 years ago I would have considered them as really easy (though "formally" they were not). I would say that since I finished studying mathematics, I find these puzzles much harder. Did studying mathematics make me worse in logic? Surely not (quite the opposite). Did studying mathematics make me worse in solving "logic puzzles" in IQ tests? I'm very sure it did.

lgessler 10y ago
> but working together with people who have less of this trait always ends/ended in a tragedy. If by that you mean you were then unable to collaborate with them, perhaps you have less of this than you imagined?
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > If by that you mean you were then unable to collaborate with them, perhaps you have less of this than you imagined? I am not an English native speaker, so perhaps I misunderstand some subtleties that exist in the English language, but not in the German translation of the word "conscientiousness". The dictionary translates "conscientiousness" to German "Gewissenhaftigkeit" and "Pflichtbewusstsein". I tend to work hard - thus I am conscientious. But I also expect other people to do so - so I don't tolerate loafing on my behalf; again a trait of "conscientiousness", but exactly what leads to difficulties working together with other people who are less conscientious.

keefe 10y ago

In broad terms of course emotional intelligence is very useful when interacting with other humans. to pick at the 1-2% numbers a bit the impact of IQ depends on the individual; physical size/height is only profoundly important for the success of certain people - athletes primarily. however, both also have correlation with success. I'm sure the paper was more careful than this article. IQ is often used as a proxy for intelligence, when in fact it's just a set of standard metrics that nobody thinks is that good beyond a certain point - after all the term comes from early attempts to quantify developmental delay. Leaving that aside for a moment.

alkonaut 10y ago

If I were to guess I'd bet a low IQ is a stronger predictor for failure than a high IQ is a predictor for success. Presumably, once you have "enough" capability for abstract thinking for what we consider success, then other factors, internal and external, will decide.

plg 10y ago

IQ is only a minor factor in intelligence. Hampshire, A., Highfield, R. R., Parkin, B. L., & Owen, A. M. (2012). Fractionating human intelligence. Neuron, 76(6), 1225-1237.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

The actual paper, available on sci-hub, does not agree with this innumerate journalist's interpretation of it. http://www.pnas.org.sci-hub.ac/content/113/47/13354.short?rss=1 http://www.pnas.org.sci-hub.ac/content/113/47/13354.short?rs... In fact, the paper shows that IQ is a great predictor. Personality is a much worse predictor on highly g-loaded tasks, and a good predictor on some others (e.g. wages). But (IQ, personality) pairs are an even better predictor than IQ or personality. The only way you can draw the conclusion that IQ doesn't matter much is if you compare to predictors of the form (IQ, personality, achievement, grades) (and a few similar ones). Shockingly, using achievement to predict achievement yields a more accurate predictor than using (IQ, personality). (I really do not understand this paper's methodology of graphing r^2 values. I don't get how this was published, but lets assume that was a reasonable way to go.) This paper also ignores the fact that IQ, grades, and many personality traits are correlated. Insofar as these metrics are correlated, it completely invalidates this analysis; some of what the authors attribute to personality or grades is actually just the explanatory power of a second IQ measurement.

tomrod 10y ago
I haven't read the paper yet, but I'd be genuinely surprised if PCA or factor analysis wasn't performed.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I just skimmed it, but I don't see them doing that anywhere.
Declanomous 10y ago
They are testing whether personality and IQ are correlated to success. R-squared is a measurement of dependence. So basically they are graphing this correlation on a scale from from 0 being "this variable is independent of success", to 1 being "success is perfectly correlated with this variable". The actual measurements are in a separate appendix, so I'm not sure how the calculated all this.
mcguire 10y ago

trishume 10y ago

The low correlation of IQ and future wage is surprising to me given what I've seen elsewhere. For example https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Sternberg2/publication/228859220_The_predictive_value_of_IQ/links/09e4150d72ed6b102a000000.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Sternberg2/publi... finds that IQ predicts 15% of the variance in income and 25% of the variance in socioeconomic status. Also See http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%20Validity%20and%20Utility%20Psychological%20Bulletin.pdf http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%... where IQ tests predict future job performance measurements across many studies as well as job interviews and only slightly worse than work sample tests. Although I did look at the original study and that number comes from a linear regression of log wages and IQ percentiles. I'm not convinced that the R^2 number you get out of those two numbers really means much, the correlation is highly significant at least.

rch 10y ago
Why do these studies primarily look at wages? Personal autonomy might be a better metric, just more difficult to quantify.
- trishume 10y ago
  Perhaps that study looks at wages because I specifically looked for another study that also measured IQ-wage correlation. There are studies measuring other things, I was just looking for something to compare to the study the article mentions. And I would argue that personal autonomy is just another proxy. If you're trying to measure if IQ is helpful, perhaps what you really want to look at is life satisfaction.

caseysoftware 10y ago

> After following some 1,000 New Zealanders for more than 30 years, researchers concluded that tests of language, behavioral skills and cognitive abilities taken when children were just three years old could predict who was most likely to need welfare, commit crimes, or become chronically ill. Whether this is true or not, this is going to have huge ramifications as people believe it and try their various notions of pre-crime and their latest "save humanity" scheme. And if it is true, it has the potential to disrupt society as certain groups - by ethnicity, socioeconomic, geographic, religion, etc - tend to fall in or out of this bucket: the idea that "[group X] is always/never on welfare and therefore..." Without even knowing the rest of the "therefore" it's fascinating and scary to consider.

hintingonwhoiam 10y ago

So, the takeaway is... hard work > IQ in influence. Sounds like shitty science wrapped up in nice language... booooooo

Sohakes 10y ago

Hmm, I was thinking... being ambitious, maybe a little greedy, should be a great factor for "success" in terms of importance and money. I mean, many intelligent people I know don't care much about this kind of success anyway, so I think it's clear that it's more correlated to personality than IQ. Some personality types will have greater success, simply because they are searching for it. IQ is still correlated simply because, in our society, we came to think that this kind of success is desirable, so many people want it, even if they are not that ambitious. So if you have a high IQ, you will probably have a decent income and moderate success, even if you don't want to be rich or something like that.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago

But is it because we reward (unjustly) those that score well and go to prestigious schools? Society is certainly not a blind test; we cannot conclude that these 'predictors' will actually help an employer choose a high-functioning employee. It only predicts who an employer will pay more. Heck, for the best predictor that, we only need to look in their pants.

walrus1066 10y ago

I think your parents socioeconomic class has a big influence on your likelihood to be 'successful' (http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595437-america-no-less-socially-mobile-it-was-generation-ago-mobility-measured http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595437-america...). Social/networking should also play a big role. My anecdotal observation is, having both of the above (from upper class family and good at networking) is the biggest determinant of success. It sort of makes sense, the upper class bit gives you access to other successful/wealthy people (through private school, parents network), and the social skills the ability to leverage this access. Also, having loads of money from family makes it very easy to succeed. In the UK you'd just buy as much real estate as possible, farm off the management to an agency, and just sit on your arse while the assets gain in value.

setra 10y ago

IQ and education level are well correlated. It would be odd if that did not also correlate with success.

gerby 10y ago

Why measure an "Intelligence Quotient" with methods of examination that have been shown to be a pseudo-science? People should be measuring "Intelligence Potential" using proper scientific methods with less subjectivity involved, and more objective evidence used as a way to get closer to true, justified beliefs.

jbhatab 10y ago

duh

DoodleBuggy 10y ago

Mostly, it's about perseverance, and luck.

WhitneyLand 10y ago

How much of a factor is mental health in success? Someone could be a 4th standard deviation IQ genius yet be debilitated by anxiety, depression, or some other condition. On the flipside many successful people have credited drugs with some part of their success by boosting ambition, endurance, creativity, confidence, etc. If a Cocaine substitute was discovered that had no negative side effects, could this positively affect scientific progress? Occasionally a mental "disability" can seemingly be related to success. So many great scientists have been on the Autistic spectrum, or suffered from severe OCD. Can the success of the person be separated from the disorder? Could "cures" for Autism and OCD actually negatively affect scientific progress?

VladKovac 10y ago

Contentiousness is a ~50% heritable personality trait, only slightly less than IQ.

Hydraulix989 10y ago

IQ is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for success. If you aren't smart, you get through life in a walking haze, as others continually take advantage of you, and you are never truly aware of what is going on. For example, you'll mismanage your money, or forget crucial details, or you'll make the wrong decisions.

walrus1066 10y ago

A good lse lecture about the role of luck in success and failure, and how people interpret it asymmetrically (my success was due to hard work and talent vs I failed due to bad luck/didn't get a break), with some interesting social experiments that showcase this: http://www.lse.ac.uk/InternationalInequalities/Videos-Podcasts/Success-and-Luck-good-fortune-and-the-myth-of-meritocracy.aspx http://www.lse.ac.uk/InternationalInequalities/Videos-Podcas...

johnwheeler 10y ago

I like to think of IQs using a car analogy. You can have someone with an 8000 HP motor for a brain cranking away like a nitromethane dragster. These people don't have a ton of practical utility, but if you point them in the right direction and let 'em rip, they shred through certain problems like chainsaws through logs. Then you've got Jeeps. Much more practical they are. They cover lots of terrain, but they're not as optimized on the street as typical sedans, and not as good on rough terrain as Humvees. If you want to be successful, be a Porsche. Optimize for driving well on the most practical terrain that can take you the most places.