> But work hard on stupid things? No one cares and you'll be overlooked and even hated on at times. You clearly have no experience in multinational corporation

> But work hard on stupid things? No one cares and you'll be overlooked and even hated on at times. You clearly have no experience in multinational corporations, this quality is enough, with a bit of luck (ie don't get fired by chance in some broad firing rounds, your direct manager is not psycho, your whole location is closed etc.) to get quite far. Corps need people who are willing to wade through bureaucracy, cumbersome rules and processes, chase people across globe and tick checklists. Hard work can get all that done, no real brilliance needed. Also there are tons of stupid things that are required by various regulations and laws for example. I mean of course within limits. You are not going to move 10 levels higher to c-suite just by working hard for 2 decades, but having non-trivial career jumps is not unheard of.