Hacker News Reader

Comment by cmdli | Hacker News Reader

> Anti-social, passive aggressive, and a hyperactive imagination? That’s a lot different from the image most of us hold.

On the contrary, I think that's precisely the stereotypical image of smart people (e.g. Turing in The Imitation Game). I think a bunch of people who think they are smart would agree with this self-evaluation; I'm tempted to see myself as the intelligent loner who is right while others are wrong. However, I think that view is more narrative than having an actual bearing on aptitude.

View on HN

The article is talking about our image of "successful" not "smart".

The problem with articles like this is that it's in our natural tendency to think "oh this is me". Everyone thinks they are smart and we're not particularly good at successfully finding others who are smart (hence the hiring problem in this industry ). Instead we hire based on whether someone is like us, because we think we're smart so if they like me, they are also smart.

Articles like this will perpetuate that belief. Bad soft skills? Lack of a structured lifestyle? Cannot focus? Many people will relate to these because they take effort to build.

Though Wilson touches a good point. Medium levels of intelligence is require for most jobs, even in Investing you do not need to be that bright to be "the best" in the field. Additionally, we know now that novel ideas comes from a background process in your brain that takes a lot of time and domain knowledge to develop.

In psychology there is a concept called the big 5 personality traits. The three most highly correlated to success are: highly disagreeable, highly conscientious, and high stress tolerance. So depending on what you mean by bad soft skills, that might be an asset since being highly disagreeable correlates to success.

> Medium levels of intelligence is require for most jobs, even in Investing you do not need to be that bright to be "the best" in the field.

At the risk of kicking off a debate to define the word “intelligence”, I think you’re massively underestimating the intelligence - not just effort and experience, but actual intellectual horsepower - poured into the upper echelons of investing strategy.

More generally, while I agree with your overall comment I’d say there’s likely few fields where the best professionals aren’t extraordinarily intelligent in addition to other success-amplifying qualities.

No doubt professionals in the investing field have done good work, highly competent and smart. I was making a reference to Warren Buffet, there was a story where he was working with very high IQ individuals that made a mistake by over-complicating the strategy behind a decision. In the end, he said that you only needed a IQ of 130, smart but not a genius.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com