>> If you want a high paying or high status job, it’s not clear to me how you escape the requirement for very hard work. This applies to almost everyone, so I

>> If you want a high paying or high status job, it’s not clear to me how you escape the requirement for very hard work. This applies to almost everyone, so I agree. The counterexamples everyone brings up are people who are top 5th percentile in office politics / social skills or top 5th percentile in natural gifted ability, or simply luck. For the majority of what you're talking about, it's certainly accurate - very hard work at some point was required. For some reason this is becoming very hard to accept in society, and popular discourse is trending towards "everything is mostly luck."