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That's because the skills and traits that get you straight As in school are not the skills and traits that produce innovation and greatness. The former relies o

by User23 9y ago

That's because the skills and traits that get you straight As in school are not the skills and traits that produce innovation and greatness. The former relies on conforming to set expectations and the latter involves either ignoring those expectations altogether, or exceeding them to such a degree that they can barely be said to apply at all and in the process setting an entirely new baseline. Anyone who has any understanding of American history and our national character can see why we're attracted to nonconformists who achieve great success.

alexbeloi 9y ago
I don't have any data on this, but to me this seems like a case of confirmation bias + survivor bias. I don't see skills related to getting good grades vs skills related to innovation as being at odds with each other.
wfo 9y ago
The skills that get you straight As in school are trying, being organized, dedicated to seeing things through, and being willing to work hard. That's it. It's just a question of priorities. I think the big answer here is that there is something that causes both not caring about school and succeeding in "innovation" and business. It's called "wealth" and is the most effective predictor of any kind of success. Americans are always looking for get rich quick schemes. We love to hear the story, "working hard is for suckers, just have a good idea one time and you'll be a billionaire" -- it lets us blame the poor for being poor (the cornerstone of American economic culture) because they obviously just aren't smart enough to come up with a good idea. We like to say "getting As is for suckers, you don't need it" because we want to feel better than those nerds in school who wasted their energy and time trying hard.
- meebs 9y ago
  > The skills that get you straight As in school are trying, being organized, dedicated to seeing things through, and being willing to work hard. Alternatively, being good at memorizing and having a high reading comprehension. Not to forget understanding the game or simply having greater resources (past samples, etc.). Let's not pretend like good grades, especially in America, require the sought after talents of organization and work ethic.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  In high school, lots of people get straight As without any of that drudgery. Just 1.5σ gets one so far out of range of teachers that one need only glance at the books at which one chooses to glance. Then we get to college...
- User23 9y ago
  Poverty and wealth are both primarily consequences rather than causes. It's very easy to confuse the direction of the arrow of causation though. And of course I say primarily because there are feedback loops that muddy the picture a bit. Saying wealth is a predictor of success is like saying success is a predictor of success. You're not wrong, but it's not a very interesting statement. And I don't know about you, but the nerds at my school didn't waste their time on pointless crap like learning to pretend to do physics while not using calculus (preferring to do the bare minimum to get adequate grades) and instead poured their passion into things like sports, playing chess and magic, and teaching themselves how to program.
musage 9y ago
Not gonna fly on HN, where any "serious" programming by definition takes place in teams, where people welcome stuff like Go enforcing a brace style just so they don't have to argue with others, but alas, it's true: > This silent consensus had informed me, both at the lyé and at the university, that one shouldn't bother worrying about what was really meant when using a term like "volume", which was "obviously self-evident", "generally known", "unproblematic", etc. I'd gone over their heads, almost as a matter of course, even as Lesbesgue himself had, several decades before, gone over their heads. It is in this gesture of "going beyond", to be something in oneself rather than the pawn of a consensus, the refusal to stay within a rigid circle that others have drawn around one - it is in this solitary act that one finds true creativity. All others things follow as a matter of course. -- Alexandre Grothendieck, "The Life of a Mathematician - Reflections and Bearing Witness" (1986) > Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. -- C. S. Lewis

by User23 9y ago

alexbeloi 9y ago

I don't have any data on this, but to me this seems like a case of confirmation bias + survivor bias. I don't see skills related to getting good grades vs skills related to innovation as being at odds with each other.

wfo 9y ago

The skills that get you straight As in school are trying, being organized, dedicated to seeing things through, and being willing to work hard. That's it. It's just a question of priorities. I think the big answer here is that there is something that causes both not caring about school and succeeding in "innovation" and business. It's called "wealth" and is the most effective predictor of any kind of success. Americans are always looking for get rich quick schemes. We love to hear the story, "working hard is for suckers, just have a good idea one time and you'll be a billionaire" -- it lets us blame the poor for being poor (the cornerstone of American economic culture) because they obviously just aren't smart enough to come up with a good idea. We like to say "getting As is for suckers, you don't need it" because we want to feel better than those nerds in school who wasted their energy and time trying hard.

meebs 9y ago
> The skills that get you straight As in school are trying, being organized, dedicated to seeing things through, and being willing to work hard. Alternatively, being good at memorizing and having a high reading comprehension. Not to forget understanding the game or simply having greater resources (past samples, etc.). Let's not pretend like good grades, especially in America, require the sought after talents of organization and work ethic.
jessaustin 9y ago
In high school, lots of people get straight As without any of that drudgery. Just 1.5σ gets one so far out of range of teachers that one need only glance at the books at which one chooses to glance. Then we get to college...
User23 9y ago
Poverty and wealth are both primarily consequences rather than causes. It's very easy to confuse the direction of the arrow of causation though. And of course I say primarily because there are feedback loops that muddy the picture a bit. Saying wealth is a predictor of success is like saying success is a predictor of success. You're not wrong, but it's not a very interesting statement. And I don't know about you, but the nerds at my school didn't waste their time on pointless crap like learning to pretend to do physics while not using calculus (preferring to do the bare minimum to get adequate grades) and instead poured their passion into things like sports, playing chess and magic, and teaching themselves how to program.

musage 9y ago

Not gonna fly on HN, where any "serious" programming by definition takes place in teams, where people welcome stuff like Go enforcing a brace style just so they don't have to argue with others, but alas, it's true: > This silent consensus had informed me, both at the lyé and at the university, that one shouldn't bother worrying about what was really meant when using a term like "volume", which was "obviously self-evident", "generally known", "unproblematic", etc. I'd gone over their heads, almost as a matter of course, even as Lesbesgue himself had, several decades before, gone over their heads. It is in this gesture of "going beyond", to be something in oneself rather than the pawn of a consensus, the refusal to stay within a rigid circle that others have drawn around one - it is in this solitary act that one finds true creativity. All others things follow as a matter of course. -- Alexandre Grothendieck, "The Life of a Mathematician - Reflections and Bearing Witness" (1986) > Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. -- C. S. Lewis