8 ms·

This was an whiny and awful post about "life isn't fair". The socially outgoing and confident worker will always outperform his socially awkward counterpart of

by watty 16y ago

This was an whiny and awful post about "life isn't fair". The socially outgoing and confident worker will always outperform his socially awkward counterpart of equal intelligence. It doesn't matter that he came from a wealthy family, what matters is he has MORE skills. It isn't discrimination until you start hiring the less wealthy (with less skills) because of the fact that they're less wealthy.

forgotAgain 16y ago
Agreed, there is some serious projecting going on here.
Duff 16y ago
I think the scenario in this article works in some banks, law firms and other places that give a hoot about Ivy League connections and hire a few proles to avoid being painted as a company full of elitists.
- Maro 16y ago
  So doing a startup is not about connections? LOL. Having good connection is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition to identifying customer pain points, finding VC money, doing sales, etc.
  - Duff 16y ago
    Never said that. The article isn't about entrepreneurs, which are an entirely different type of person that makes different kinds of mistakes. An entrepreneur isn't afraid of making mistakes, regardless of his place in the social order. That's why he's starting a company instead of working for a bank. The example given in the article was: "two analysts at a prestigious financial firm". A "prestigious financial firm" is not a startup, and while networking is important, it isn't the same networking/hustle that a entrepreneur engages in.
  - haploid 16y ago
    I don't think it would be possible to disagree more. Connections are not at all necessarily required for startup success. I am speaking here merely from an anecdotal and firsthand perspective, but all it takes is one data point to refute the claim that condition A is necessary for outcome B.
Alex3917 16y ago
"This was an whiny and awful post about 'life isn't fair'." It wasn't whiny at all. "The socially outgoing and confident worker will always outperform his socially awkward counterpart of equal intelligence. It doesn't matter that he came from a wealthy family, what matters is he has MORE skills." This was the author's point.
- watty 16y ago
  No, his point was that rich kids have better attitudes, skills and perceived work ethic which is simply not true. "Middle-class kids generally fuck up their first few years of the career game in one of two ways." - really??
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    "His point was that rich kids have better attitudes, skills and perceived work ethic which is simply not true." I mean I can point you to any number of academic studies confirming this, e.g. Hart & Risley's Meaningful Differences book. Or just go to any elite private university and compare the kids who are there during summer session with the kids who are there during the rest of the year. The only real difference is SES, as you can't apply financial aid to summer session classes, and you also can't be there if you need a job over the summer. And yet the kids are completely different than the ones who are there during the regular school year.
    - jobu 16y ago
      You could probably say the same thing about the summer session at most universities. The kids willing to give up their summers for education have a different level of drive than the ones that attend the rest of the year. Not that summer session is always the best course of action. An internship will go a lot further toward most careers than a few extra classes.
      - Alex3917 16y ago
        "The kids willing to give up their summers for education have a different level of drive than the ones that attend the rest of the year." Not really, if anything it takes less drive. It's vastly easier to take classes over the summer (when classes are usually easier), and then do your internships in fall or spring when there's no competition. The only reason not everyone does this is that it wouldn't be financially viable.
grammaton 16y ago
"The socially outgoing and confident worker will always outperform his socially awkward counterpart of equal intelligence." I think you missed the point of the article.
- watty 16y ago
  Ok, how about: "Show me statistics that say rich kids are socially outgoing and more confident than middle class kids."
  - grammaton 16y ago
    That's a little better. Granted, it's difficult to quantify things like socially outgoing and confident. Also, that's still not quite what the author is arguing here.
  - jonnathanson 16y ago
    It's not about general social skills or confidence, but about specific (and subconscious) knowledge about how to navigate certain social dynamics that are foreign to some kids and very familiar to others.
tomkarlo 16y ago
Seconded. And it's worth noting that the percentage of people in the US whose parents make >$10M a year is so small that it's unlikely that anyone knows enough of them to make statistically valid assumptions about their performance relative to kids from more median backgrounds. You'd need to know or track 1000+ of those individuals to find statistical significant in a phenomenon that's probably a few percentage points in size. It makes the article very hard to disagree with in a concrete way (since I doubt any of us know that many trust funders) but I doubt the OP really has that level of data either. This is just a long anecdotal gripe based on a few data points.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  Not a statistician, but I don't believe this is true. You need ~1000 individuals to find statistically significant phenomena in a population the size of the U.S.. Since the population of rich people is so much smaller, you'd need a smaller number of individuals to draw statistical inferences from it. Anyone know the actual formula for statistical significance, and able to work out how big a sample needs to be for, say, a population of 100k?
  - tomkarlo 16y ago
    The funny thing about sample sizes is that they don't scale with population size. [Edited the part where I said they don't scale "much"... they don't scale.] If you're studying a phenomena with less than 5% impact, you need 1000+ data points to reach 95% significance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_hypothesis_testing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_hypothesis_testing [Fixed link, deleted my incorrect comment.]
    - jessriedel 16y ago
      Looks like we just replied to nostrademons at the same time, but we slightly disagree. You say that the dependence on population size is slow (sqrt) but I say there is no dependence for most cases. Are you sure you aren't confusing the dependence of confidence on sample size as opposed to population size? See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance#Signal.E2.80.93noise_ratio_conceptualisation_of_significance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance#Signal... I could be making a mistake somewhere.

by watty 16y ago

forgotAgain 16y ago

Agreed, there is some serious projecting going on here.

Duff 16y ago

I think the scenario in this article works in some banks, law firms and other places that give a hoot about Ivy League connections and hire a few proles to avoid being painted as a company full of elitists.

Maro 16y ago
So doing a startup is not about connections? LOL. Having good connection is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition to identifying customer pain points, finding VC money, doing sales, etc.
- Duff 16y ago
  Never said that. The article isn't about entrepreneurs, which are an entirely different type of person that makes different kinds of mistakes. An entrepreneur isn't afraid of making mistakes, regardless of his place in the social order. That's why he's starting a company instead of working for a bank. The example given in the article was: "two analysts at a prestigious financial firm". A "prestigious financial firm" is not a startup, and while networking is important, it isn't the same networking/hustle that a entrepreneur engages in.
- haploid 16y ago
  I don't think it would be possible to disagree more. Connections are not at all necessarily required for startup success. I am speaking here merely from an anecdotal and firsthand perspective, but all it takes is one data point to refute the claim that condition A is necessary for outcome B.

Alex3917 16y ago

"This was an whiny and awful post about 'life isn't fair'." It wasn't whiny at all. "The socially outgoing and confident worker will always outperform his socially awkward counterpart of equal intelligence. It doesn't matter that he came from a wealthy family, what matters is he has MORE skills." This was the author's point.

watty 16y ago
No, his point was that rich kids have better attitudes, skills and perceived work ethic which is simply not true. "Middle-class kids generally fuck up their first few years of the career game in one of two ways." - really??
- Alex3917 16y ago
  "His point was that rich kids have better attitudes, skills and perceived work ethic which is simply not true." I mean I can point you to any number of academic studies confirming this, e.g. Hart & Risley's Meaningful Differences book. Or just go to any elite private university and compare the kids who are there during summer session with the kids who are there during the rest of the year. The only real difference is SES, as you can't apply financial aid to summer session classes, and you also can't be there if you need a job over the summer. And yet the kids are completely different than the ones who are there during the regular school year.
  - jobu 16y ago
    You could probably say the same thing about the summer session at most universities. The kids willing to give up their summers for education have a different level of drive than the ones that attend the rest of the year. Not that summer session is always the best course of action. An internship will go a lot further toward most careers than a few extra classes.
    - Alex3917 16y ago
      "The kids willing to give up their summers for education have a different level of drive than the ones that attend the rest of the year." Not really, if anything it takes less drive. It's vastly easier to take classes over the summer (when classes are usually easier), and then do your internships in fall or spring when there's no competition. The only reason not everyone does this is that it wouldn't be financially viable.

grammaton 16y ago

"The socially outgoing and confident worker will always outperform his socially awkward counterpart of equal intelligence." I think you missed the point of the article.

watty 16y ago
Ok, how about: "Show me statistics that say rich kids are socially outgoing and more confident than middle class kids."
- grammaton 16y ago
  That's a little better. Granted, it's difficult to quantify things like socially outgoing and confident. Also, that's still not quite what the author is arguing here.
- jonnathanson 16y ago
  It's not about general social skills or confidence, but about specific (and subconscious) knowledge about how to navigate certain social dynamics that are foreign to some kids and very familiar to others.

tomkarlo 16y ago

Seconded. And it's worth noting that the percentage of people in the US whose parents make >$10M a year is so small that it's unlikely that anyone knows enough of them to make statistically valid assumptions about their performance relative to kids from more median backgrounds. You'd need to know or track 1000+ of those individuals to find statistical significant in a phenomenon that's probably a few percentage points in size. It makes the article very hard to disagree with in a concrete way (since I doubt any of us know that many trust funders) but I doubt the OP really has that level of data either. This is just a long anecdotal gripe based on a few data points.

nostrademons 16y ago
Not a statistician, but I don't believe this is true. You need ~1000 individuals to find statistically significant phenomena in a population the size of the U.S.. Since the population of rich people is so much smaller, you'd need a smaller number of individuals to draw statistical inferences from it. Anyone know the actual formula for statistical significance, and able to work out how big a sample needs to be for, say, a population of 100k?
- tomkarlo 16y ago
  The funny thing about sample sizes is that they don't scale with population size. [Edited the part where I said they don't scale "much"... they don't scale.] If you're studying a phenomena with less than 5% impact, you need 1000+ data points to reach 95% significance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_hypothesis_testing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_hypothesis_testing [Fixed link, deleted my incorrect comment.]
  - jessriedel 16y ago
    Looks like we just replied to nostrademons at the same time, but we slightly disagree. You say that the dependence on population size is slow (sqrt) but I say there is no dependence for most cases. Are you sure you aren't confusing the dependence of confidence on sample size as opposed to population size? See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance#Signal.E2.80.93noise_ratio_conceptualisation_of_significance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance#Signal... I could be making a mistake somewhere.