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In the original student, Karen Arnold went to great lengths to highlight this counter-intuitive phenomenon as a gendered issue [0] in which women, who tended to

In the original student, Karen Arnold went to great lengths to highlight this counter-intuitive phenomenon as a gendered issue [0] in which women, who tended to get better grades then men [0], would still end up less successful. It's seriously regrettable that her point got lost in this rehashing. On a side note, I don't have the data, but would expect a similar effect with Asian-Americans, who tend to excel academically, but through socialization and institutional barriers, may fail to hit the "highest levels of success metrics" mentioned in this video. [1] [0] https://archives.library.illinois.edu/erec/University%20Archives/3901018/Topic%20Files/N-Z/Valedictorian%20Study.pdf https://archives.library.illinois.edu/erec/University%20Arch... [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/liyanchen/2016/01/20/how-asian-americans-can-break-through-the-bamboo-ceiling/#1022f1511e43 https://www.forbes.com/sites/liyanchen/2016/01/20/how-asian-...

hasenj 9y ago
I would say that having high grades has no correlation with business success. The required traits and skills for the two things are vastly different. (Think Tesla vs Edison, and Wozniak vs Jobs). Sure, if you measure it across the entire population, it might appear that there's some correlation between academic success and being a millionaire, but if you measure it within the people who are already smart enough to get into universities, the correlation is probably non-existent, or might even be negative.
- ryanmarsh 9y ago
  Why anyone confuses what it takes for academic success with what it takes for financial success baffles me. It's like there's One True system for success and it requires good grades. I know very wealthy guys (real estate investors) who can't log into their home wifi. They're just good with people, and can do basic math. Hell, I'm a high school dropout and I billed my clients over $300k last year.
  - hasenj 9y ago
    > It's like there's One True system for success and it requires good grades. There is one thing that is required for success and it can be measured: IQ. If you don't have enough of it, you will struggle with a lot of things. But having it alone doesn't tell you what kind of field you can succeed in. I bet the wealthy real estate investors do have IQs that are well above average. (Not knowing how to use certain technologies is not a good indicator of IQ).
    - ryanmarsh 9y ago
      IQ is a very narrow measure of intelligence. Grades aren't a useful measure of IQ.
- kartan 9y ago
  > I would say that having high grades has no correlation with business success. Maybe it should. The fact that so many people is business successful while being uninformed and mostly incompetent is a problem. The current USA's president is a really good example on this. A general immoral behavior, and lack of knowledge allows him to accumulate wealth. And that's bad for a society, as it means that it is rewarding the wrong behaviors. In a lot smaller scale I have seen this make business fail. In one company sales people were getting money on every sale, so they had their long time customers (company customers really) and had to do nothing to keep earning a big salary. The company changed this policy to bigger bonuses but just associated with new customers. This was a game changer. If you reward the correct behavior, you get it. While we reward lobby creation, abuse of the legal system, etc. that's what makes rich people and that's what we get.
meric 9y ago
"end up less successful" If you mean end up less successful at being old millionaires with big houses and flashy cars, that's true. Is it important for males and females to become that in equal numbers? Do we need old millionaires driving around with flashy cars and big houses at all? What about parents raising children who are upright, have morals, and contribute to wellbeing of society? Are they less successful?
- delazeur 9y ago
  Are you suggesting that there isn't something fundamentally inequitable about large segments of society having a harder time obtaining material wealth? I agree with what I assume is your position that material wealth shouldn't be the sole metric of success, but I also think the fact that women and minorities struggle relative to white men to obtain material wealth is a problem we should try to solve. Those positions are not contradictory.
  - recursive 9y ago
    If fewer people accumulate material wealth, can you conclude that they had a harder time doing it? I mean, I'm not ruling it out, but it also seems plausible the group wasn't trying to do that as much.
  - meric 9y ago
    Is that what we are? Biological-chemical constructions who accumulate metrics of successes? Will people become more fulfilled in their lives because we give them all material wealth? Why not have a world where people don't think of excessive material wealth as a metric of success at all, where people care about what fulfils their own and other's lives? In this world people don't accumulate wealth for the sake of accumulating it in the first place, and the distribution of wealth will also be more equal. Your position would work directly against this vision, as an example.
    - manigandham 9y ago
      You're talking about changing human behavior, across the entire species. And if that's the end goal, there are many more critical issues to resolve than (material) wealth judgement.

hasenj 9y ago

I would say that having high grades has no correlation with business success. The required traits and skills for the two things are vastly different. (Think Tesla vs Edison, and Wozniak vs Jobs). Sure, if you measure it across the entire population, it might appear that there's some correlation between academic success and being a millionaire, but if you measure it within the people who are already smart enough to get into universities, the correlation is probably non-existent, or might even be negative.

ryanmarsh 9y ago
Why anyone confuses what it takes for academic success with what it takes for financial success baffles me. It's like there's One True system for success and it requires good grades. I know very wealthy guys (real estate investors) who can't log into their home wifi. They're just good with people, and can do basic math. Hell, I'm a high school dropout and I billed my clients over $300k last year.
- hasenj 9y ago
  > It's like there's One True system for success and it requires good grades. There is one thing that is required for success and it can be measured: IQ. If you don't have enough of it, you will struggle with a lot of things. But having it alone doesn't tell you what kind of field you can succeed in. I bet the wealthy real estate investors do have IQs that are well above average. (Not knowing how to use certain technologies is not a good indicator of IQ).
  - ryanmarsh 9y ago
    IQ is a very narrow measure of intelligence. Grades aren't a useful measure of IQ.
kartan 9y ago
> I would say that having high grades has no correlation with business success. Maybe it should. The fact that so many people is business successful while being uninformed and mostly incompetent is a problem. The current USA's president is a really good example on this. A general immoral behavior, and lack of knowledge allows him to accumulate wealth. And that's bad for a society, as it means that it is rewarding the wrong behaviors. In a lot smaller scale I have seen this make business fail. In one company sales people were getting money on every sale, so they had their long time customers (company customers really) and had to do nothing to keep earning a big salary. The company changed this policy to bigger bonuses but just associated with new customers. This was a game changer. If you reward the correct behavior, you get it. While we reward lobby creation, abuse of the legal system, etc. that's what makes rich people and that's what we get.

meric 9y ago

"end up less successful" If you mean end up less successful at being old millionaires with big houses and flashy cars, that's true. Is it important for males and females to become that in equal numbers? Do we need old millionaires driving around with flashy cars and big houses at all? What about parents raising children who are upright, have morals, and contribute to wellbeing of society? Are they less successful?

delazeur 9y ago
Are you suggesting that there isn't something fundamentally inequitable about large segments of society having a harder time obtaining material wealth? I agree with what I assume is your position that material wealth shouldn't be the sole metric of success, but I also think the fact that women and minorities struggle relative to white men to obtain material wealth is a problem we should try to solve. Those positions are not contradictory.
- recursive 9y ago
  If fewer people accumulate material wealth, can you conclude that they had a harder time doing it? I mean, I'm not ruling it out, but it also seems plausible the group wasn't trying to do that as much.
- meric 9y ago
  Is that what we are? Biological-chemical constructions who accumulate metrics of successes? Will people become more fulfilled in their lives because we give them all material wealth? Why not have a world where people don't think of excessive material wealth as a metric of success at all, where people care about what fulfils their own and other's lives? In this world people don't accumulate wealth for the sake of accumulating it in the first place, and the distribution of wealth will also be more equal. Your position would work directly against this vision, as an example.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    You're talking about changing human behavior, across the entire species. And if that's the end goal, there are many more critical issues to resolve than (material) wealth judgement.