3 ms·

I went to an elite engineering school. My colleagues are all really smart. After 20 years, some are wealthy, some are poor. There is no apparent link between ho

by ttul 7y ago

I went to an elite engineering school. My colleagues are all really smart. After 20 years, some are wealthy, some are poor. There is no apparent link between how hard they worked and how rich they became. However you can definitely trace how a few good breaks led to one guy being rich and another not. Did the guys who went to work for Google take any additional risk? Yet, they are now millionaires. How about the entrepreneurs? A few are super rich now. The guy who went to work at McKinsey is now a pubco COO making millions. Yes, by my direct observation, it’s mostly chance.

akhilcacharya 7y ago
> Did the guys who went to work for Google take any additional risk? Yet, they are now millionaires. They probably are smarter though! If they weren't, they wouldn't get in.
- ttul 7y ago
  Haha. They are all smart. Not everyone chooses to apply for a job at Google.
  - akhilcacharya 7y ago
    That's a heck of a bubble then! Usually the choice isn't the bottleneck for mere mortals like the people I went to undergrad with.
    - throwaway_bad 7y ago
      I think it's pretty typical for schools like CMU. Look at their post graduation survey: https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2018_one_pagers/scs/1-Pager_SCS%20BS%202018%20rev%202.1.19.kc.pdf https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2018_one_pagers/scs/1-P... Out of 170 graduates, 27 went to facebook, 21 went to google, 13 went to microsoft, 6 went to amazon, 2 went to apple, etc. That's basically half the class including a lot of people from the bottom half of the class (the best people I knew usually didn't choose FAAMG and their outcomes were a crapshoot).
      - akhilcacharya 7y ago
        Really cool report. Looking through the list the Google and FB numbers go up including Waymo, DeepMind, and WhatsApp. Out of about ~150 graduates at my undergrad, I think 3 went to Amazon (including myself), 1 went to Facebook, 1 went to Microsoft in a support role and the rest went to Cisco, IBM, and consulting companies. I wonder why CMU only had 6 to Amazon. That seems low! I think trading firms like JS, Two Sigma, Jump and Ansatz had more combined...
        throwaway_bad 7y ago
        It seems kind of asshole to say this but Amazon is considered low-tier at CMU so people don't choose it unless they got rejected from everyone else. =/ I am looking at MIT's salary survey and they have similar ratios: https://capd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/about/files/GSS2017.pdf https://capd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/about/files/GSS2017...
        akhilcacharya 7y ago
        > It seems kind of asshole to say this but Amazon is considered low-tier at CMU so people don't choose it unless they got rejected from everyone else. = Why is that? Also, MIT's distribution seems very different. Amazon and Facebook are near equal and GM takes a big chunk, which is not what I would have expected. Oracle is also around the same as my undergrad.
        throwaway_bad 7y ago
        You work there so you probably have a better idea than I do but they have a terrible reputation externally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17062782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17062782
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- drdeadringer 7y ago
  I'm not particularly smart. I've contracted with Google a couple times, just like >50% of their workforce. Would I like millions? Sure. Do I have that? No. Would I work myself to death for it? No. Do I believe Google [or whatever FAANG company you want] is The Greatest Everest Of All? I'm smarter than that and you should be as well.
simonsarris 7y ago
> Yes, by my direct observation, it’s mostly chance. Wait, what? Are you sure you're reaching the right conclusion? It sounds like your anecdote supports the opposite once you stop looking inter-your-small-group, and start comparing groups. Have you compared median wage data for your elite university versus median wage data for the country you are in? I suspect the difference is noticeable. It appears you are making the mistake of comparing a group of successful entrepreneurs, failed entrepreneurs, and people who went to work at Goog and McKinsey with each-other, but you really need to compare that group to people who couldn't get a job at Google or McKinsey at all. Obviously life is not nearly that uni-dimensional, but I'd wager your median "all really smart" colleague is wildly beating the median person, even if some of them are broke.
- ttul 7y ago
  This is a very good point. I would be shocked if the median income among grads from an elite engineering school is not considerably higher than the median income of the population.

by ttul 7y ago

akhilcacharya 7y ago

> Did the guys who went to work for Google take any additional risk? Yet, they are now millionaires. They probably are smarter though! If they weren't, they wouldn't get in.

ttul 7y ago
Haha. They are all smart. Not everyone chooses to apply for a job at Google.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  That's a heck of a bubble then! Usually the choice isn't the bottleneck for mere mortals like the people I went to undergrad with.
  - throwaway_bad 7y ago
    I think it's pretty typical for schools like CMU. Look at their post graduation survey: https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2018_one_pagers/scs/1-Pager_SCS%20BS%202018%20rev%202.1.19.kc.pdf https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2018_one_pagers/scs/1-P... Out of 170 graduates, 27 went to facebook, 21 went to google, 13 went to microsoft, 6 went to amazon, 2 went to apple, etc. That's basically half the class including a lot of people from the bottom half of the class (the best people I knew usually didn't choose FAAMG and their outcomes were a crapshoot).
    - akhilcacharya 7y ago
      Really cool report. Looking through the list the Google and FB numbers go up including Waymo, DeepMind, and WhatsApp. Out of about ~150 graduates at my undergrad, I think 3 went to Amazon (including myself), 1 went to Facebook, 1 went to Microsoft in a support role and the rest went to Cisco, IBM, and consulting companies. I wonder why CMU only had 6 to Amazon. That seems low! I think trading firms like JS, Two Sigma, Jump and Ansatz had more combined...
      - throwaway_bad 7y ago
        It seems kind of asshole to say this but Amazon is considered low-tier at CMU so people don't choose it unless they got rejected from everyone else. =/ I am looking at MIT's salary survey and they have similar ratios: https://capd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/about/files/GSS2017.pdf https://capd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/about/files/GSS2017...
        akhilcacharya 7y ago
        > It seems kind of asshole to say this but Amazon is considered low-tier at CMU so people don't choose it unless they got rejected from everyone else. = Why is that? Also, MIT's distribution seems very different. Amazon and Facebook are near equal and GM takes a big chunk, which is not what I would have expected. Oracle is also around the same as my undergrad.
        throwaway_bad 7y ago
        You work there so you probably have a better idea than I do but they have a terrible reputation externally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17062782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17062782
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
drdeadringer 7y ago
I'm not particularly smart. I've contracted with Google a couple times, just like >50% of their workforce. Would I like millions? Sure. Do I have that? No. Would I work myself to death for it? No. Do I believe Google [or whatever FAANG company you want] is The Greatest Everest Of All? I'm smarter than that and you should be as well.

simonsarris 7y ago

> Yes, by my direct observation, it’s mostly chance. Wait, what? Are you sure you're reaching the right conclusion? It sounds like your anecdote supports the opposite once you stop looking inter-your-small-group, and start comparing groups. Have you compared median wage data for your elite university versus median wage data for the country you are in? I suspect the difference is noticeable. It appears you are making the mistake of comparing a group of successful entrepreneurs, failed entrepreneurs, and people who went to work at Goog and McKinsey with each-other, but you really need to compare that group to people who couldn't get a job at Google or McKinsey at all. Obviously life is not nearly that uni-dimensional, but I'd wager your median "all really smart" colleague is wildly beating the median person, even if some of them are broke.

ttul 7y ago
This is a very good point. I would be shocked if the median income among grads from an elite engineering school is not considerably higher than the median income of the population.