5 ms·

Surprised to be the first person to point this out. The entire premise of the article is dependent on a single study that definitely cannot demonstrate causatio

• juliangoldsmith 2mo ago
  A possible "third variable" could be intelligence. It's been shown to be strongly correlated with success in general, and it seems likely people of similar intelligence would find it easier to relate to each other.
  • LPisGood 2mo ago
    > It's been shown to be strongly correlated with success in general Has it? I was under the impression we could hardly define, much less measure that.
    • asdfasgasdgasdg 2mo ago
      I think we have many very decent measures of intellect. It’s true that none of them are perfect but I think it’s basically propaganda to say we can’t define or measure it at all.
      • dd8601fn 2mo ago
        > I think it’s basically propaganda to say we can’t define or measure it I worked at a (very well known) test publishing company, for some time. You would not believe how often someone would hear where I work and lecture me about intelligence measurement being nonsense. Almost like they were offended that the test batteries exist. But also, they had absolutely no idea how those tests were developed and validated. They weren’t even aware of the language and cultural work involved in making test variations that validate across different people. I would mostly shrug and keep my mouth shut. I’m not an expert on the subject. But I saw a bit of what those many smart people did at work, and I’m confident that they were better informed. Maybe it was just silly defensiveness, but for a while I started to think all the delightful, “You’re all special in your own way.” messaging of our youth had been extrapolated into more unreasonable notions.
    • Swizec 2mo ago
      > > It's been shown to be strongly correlated with success in general > Has it? I was under the impression we could hardly define, much less measure that. IQ has a strong positive correlation with life outcomes. Economic and otherwise. Whether IQ is a good measure of "intelligence" remains debated but there's no question that high scores in that measure correlate with high scores in life outcome measures: Life expectancy, economic success, relationship success, etc. Every single thing you can measure about a person's life trends upwards with IQ. Some (maybe much) of the effect can be attributed to privilege and other covariants, so we don't know if IQ is causal for life outcomes but we have strong evidence that it's correlated. one study of many: https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=74943 https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=74943
      • timr 2mo ago
        All of these things are strong covariates, which is something the online hive-mind struggles with. It's not intelligence OR wealth OR hard work OR $thing, it's all of the above, with some weighting function that spits out high values for all factors. And since IQ is just a proxy for intelligence (however good), it also correlates to some greater or lesser degree with the other factors.
        • Swizec 2mo ago
          > All of these things are strong covariates Yeah it turns out having positive multipliers on your inputs leads to better outcomes. Who knew!
    • estearum 2mo ago
      There is "something" that seems to correlate strongly with wealth, education, test scores across every subject/dimension, seems highly heritable from parents to offspring, and fits with both SAT and IQ test results. It can't possibly be intelligence (would be inconvenient if it were) but there's something there. Maybe we can call it "shminshmellishence".
      • LPisGood 2mo ago
        Could it also be called wealth-mellishence or perhaps familialValuationOfWorkEthic-melloshence?
        • estearum 2mo ago
          Those were some of the leading candidates until twin studies and controls for familial wealth invalidated them and left us only with shminshmellishence :/
          • LPisGood 2mo ago
            “Controls” for familial wealth have mostly been debunked by any kind of basic statistical analysis.
            • estearum 2mo ago
              Look up twin studies. "Intelligence doesn't exist" is just a defense mechanism for above-average intelligence people to feel like they earned all their good outcomes. But here's the thing: even if it was all hard work and not that you were born of above-average intelligence, it's pure luck that you were born someone who works hard. But also intelligence exists and it's wildly discrediting to insist it doesn't.
              • AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
                You don't think people can choose to work hard?
  • tartoran 2mo ago
    There are intelligent people who may not be necessarily be on the same scale socially and they do get burned by it.
    • juliangoldsmith 2mo ago
      Impulse control issues, like ADHD, can factor in too.
  • heroprotagonist 2mo ago
    Tell that to the generation of autistics roaming America that were never properly diagnosed in their youth. High intelligence, often even high paying jobs, but all the other 'success' metrics will probably end up looking very wavy.
    • annzabelle 2mo ago
      I'd argue that mildly autistic people had much better outcomes decades ago before we started thinking it was something to diagnose. My grandfather was probably autistic, but there was no internet to sink into so he had to interact with people and build some basic social skills. Out of high school he joined the Navy as a radar technician and lived in a structured environment that taught a lot of life skills. Then he went to college for engineering and was set up on dates with my grandmother (as a bit of a matchmaking thing). Suburban house, 4 children, married for decades, church. Generally a very normal and happy life, even if he was considered eccentric and sensitive to noises. I don't think anybody ever thought to diagnose him with it. My brother is mildly autistic, too, but he has always had the option to skip out of socialization in favor of the computer, and we've lost the societal structure that helped my grandfather thrive. I don't think it's diagnosis that helps people.
      • disgruntledphd2 2mo ago
        > I don't think it's diagnosis that helps people. It might be the societal structure is good for everyone, regardless of their diagnoses, or lack thereof.
      • Timon3 2mo ago
        I strongly disagree that getting diagnosed causes worse outcomes in such cases. I'm not sure what the link is between your brother getting diagnosed, and him having the option to skip out on socializing. Undiagnosed people frequently make the same choice under worse circumstances, since it's hard to name why they want to choose this escape. I wouldn't be surprised if the undiagnosed made this choice more often, as they struggle in ways most people around them don't seem to, which naturally leads to the struggling seeking community in other places (= digital ones). It may well be that a life journey like your grandfather's was more likely for mildly autistic people 50 years ago (though I'd urge you not to forget that many in that situation just break and die early), but the world has fundamentally shifted since then. IMO not getting diagnosed wouldn't improve things, people would largely live the same, but with much greater self-doubt, anger and broken relationships.
• over_bridge 2mo ago
  Many places I've worked didn't promote hard workers at all. Hard workers were hard to replace so they were kept where they were and even blocked from promotions at times. People floating about with few duties were easy to backfill so could move to new positions, including up. This is mostly public sector and utilities
  • orev 2mo ago
    Those people “floating about” were doing something: building relationships with others who could promote them. Something that’s very difficult for hard workers to do, because they’re busy actually…working.
    • markus_zhang 2mo ago
      Or something they are not willing to do. Genuinely, my career development plan is to be so good at a certain technical niche that people are still going to hire me even if I spit before them. Of course reality hits hard so I’m now good with people. Not my taste but I can fake it easily.
      • orev 2mo ago
        I would recommend reconsidering that strategy; it’s not sustainable for your entire working lifetime. There WILL come a point where you cannot maintain the pace of being “so good” that the works speaks for itself. When you reach that point, the relationships you build NOW, will become very important to that future you. It doesn’t mean you need to stop being technical now, but at least start allocating a few hours a month to relationships in a meaningful, intentional way.
        • markus_zhang 2mo ago
          Thanks. Actually I already reconsidered due to my difficulties to hop into the next more technical job.
  • genghisjahn 2mo ago
• newhotelowner 2mo ago
  Hard working helps but not enough. Connection helps more. At least in my career. I couldn't get a job after graduation (post dot com bust). I started master, and in one of the class, I did the group project myself. One of the member of the group project was manager who got me the interview at her company and hired me.
  • HPsquared 2mo ago
    Did the same work dynamic play out after you started working there?
  • matwood 2mo ago
    Hard work and productivity are table stakes. Connections are the next step.
• asdf88990 2mo ago
  The meritocracy fiction.
• baxtr 2mo ago
  I think it’s right if it’s corrected for one thing: It’s not about working hard but about creating the perception that you’re working hard for the company!
• jldugger 2mo ago
  > Hard working people tend to know other hard working people. ... Hard working people get more done. Getting promoted at a FAANG is like a micro-effect. One percent of one percent of one percent. Generalizing our experience to 72 million Americans ain't it boss. And our experience is subject to dozens of selection bias. For example, most of the best people I know at my current job are that way in part because I trained them at my last job at a university. And then they referred me into their employer networks. Beyond the hurdles of getting into a flagship state school, having those connections matter. Nobody I know from undergrad had any employment at FAANG when I was laid off a decade ago, I just got lucky enough to have a second cohort contacts in the form of student employees at a different flagship state university doing internships, landing jobs and looking for referral bonuses. Last I checked LinkedIn I'm the only engineer from my alma mater at my employer.
• rTX5CMRXIfFG 2mo ago
  > Getting more done seemed to get you promoted, at least where I worked Anyone who has decades of experience won’t believe this. Promotion is very much a politics thing, the “merit” serving only documentation purposes. It’s not an indicator of your long-term performance after the promotion. It’s good to point out that a single study can’t definitively draw causality but you should apply the same level of discernment to yourself.
• xphos 2mo ago
  Consider your assertions contrapositive. If hard work implies good outcomes. --contrapositive -> If bad outcomes implied bad work. I don't think it takes a lot of life experience to see that the above is not true. I argee that hardwork can definitely be corrolated or rather feels corrolated in retrospect but its not a given. Some of the hardest working people are paid the least if you adjust for the hours they actually work, or if the inherent value of their work is low (you mentioned failure to generalize) but even in specific case of tech its not a given that hardwork will actually make the differnece. Almost no amount of hardwork can overcome the better sitution some people are born into / inherent. Someone staving in africa just isn't going to be the next physics star or atleast the statisistics don't predict them. There is certainly an equalization curve where if you incoming connects and circumstances are good enough hardwork because the decider. But your starting conditions play a huge role on where you will land in the grand scheme of things. You certainly can change your outcome but sometimes hardwork is not the same as smart work, if getting a promotion is 5 year process at your current job or moving to a new place. The better outcome actually comes from working less. I think some other commenters mention this as well.
  • asdfasgasdgasdg 2mo ago
    I don’t know too many unsuccessful people, to be honest, so it’s hard for me to evaluate the contrapositive. The few unsuccessful people I do know definitely show a pattern of not working as hard as the typical successful person I know. I definitely agree that where you start has a huge impact on what’s possible. I am not saying that a really hard working villager in sub Saharan Africa is going to get better outcomes than the lazy child of an upper middle class family in the US.
• TFYS 2mo ago
  How does one become hardworking? I doubt it's completely up to genetics. People who grow up around hardworking people are more likely to see hard work and its rewards, and are therefore more likely to become hardworking themselves.
• JKCalhoun 2mo ago
  "Hard working people tend to know other hard working people. Hard working people get more done." That reads so odd to me. It's like someone did a search-and-replace for "Well off" with "Hard working". I am not aware of hard working people knowing each other. Like did they attend the same "hard working" schools or something?
  • Den_VR 2mo ago
    Imagine you are a team lead and you have 10 people that work for you, two of them do 80% of the work. When there is an event, you need to send one of those two so that you do not embarrass yourself and so that you can look good. Just imagine. Now imagine, that there are 10 teams like yours in the world. what do you think the likelihood that those top two performers know the other top two performers and at least one of those other teams?
    • JKCalhoun 2mo ago
      That sounds like they meet after they're successful? I mean, they got on the teams to begin with—implying they got through college, got hired by a big company, etc.
      • asdfasgasdgasdg 2mo ago
        Yes, that’s exactly the implication. I.e. the connection is downstream of success/hard work/intellect, not upstream of it.