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Comment by hospitalJail | Hacker News Reader

The Ivy leagues cannot catch a break.

I imagine this stuff happens at state schools too, but yet another nail in the coffin of their reputation.

Sincerely, a person who went to a school you've never heard of, but makes a ton of money because I know 4 skills that synergize and scarce.

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> Sincerely, a person who went to a school you've never heard of, but makes a ton of money

I always find it odd when people choose this as a metric for success. Why not "a person who went to a school you've never heard of, but has a job they enjoy deeply and that gives them purpose"?

I think this arises because we view academics as accomplished experts within their walled gardens, but don't bestow a similar place in the real estate of the mind to people who have been successful at applying their skills in the real world.

Ikigai.

It is not that dissimilar as branding in the real world. There are a ton of great little restaurants, but when you don't have time to really explore, some many small restaurants are also horrible, you pick a brand you are familiar with. The reason is that you know what to expect.

Similar to why so many people want to get Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, etc on their resume. While there are a ton of amazing small companies they just do not have the same brand recongition.

I think the economic term for this is "signalling." Having associating with these brand name schools gives you instant credibility: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)

> I always find it odd when people choose this as a metric for success. Why not "a person who went to a school you've never heard of, but has a job they enjoy deeply and that gives them purpose"?

It's not odd. If your metric was "be as useful as possible to others" then making lots of money is an excellent proxy metric.

It's more a measurement of how useful you appear to rich people. You can't make money being useful to people without money. You can make money convincing rich people you're useful to them when you're not.

Lots of businesses make money from people who are poor. Your average McDonalds demographic.

> It's more a measurement of how useful you appear to rich people. You can't make money being useful to people without money.

I disagree that the two types of people are "rich people" and "people with no money"; the latter of which is vanishingly rare in developed countries.

> You can make money convincing rich people you're useful to them when you're not.

You can, but I don't think this accounts for all or most or much movement of money.

>the latter of which is vanishingly rare in developed countries.

You may live in a bubble

Hence the limiting of things to developed countries.

Even in developed countries many people live in poverty!

That's partly because the word "poverty" gets redefined. It doesn't mean "people with no money", which is the only statement being challenged.

It really isn’t thought. I might help 10 very reach people and make a lot of money or I might help 1000 and do it for free. Money is not an excellent proxy metric. Money is just money.

I know you might, but our working lives, which are how most of us spend most of our effort, eventually end up in things people buy directly, or things governments buy. If our skills/contacts/thinking/strength/work ethic is/are valuable to others, they are generally compensated better.

Who do you think helped more people by managing a project, Linus Trovalds (Linux) or Elon Musk (Tesla)? Now compare who has more money. Money is just a proxy for wealth, and there are several ways to acquire wealth (sometimes by even screwing people over). And even if you are making a median argument (most people you know work in offices) you are talking ask if there is no unfairness ever in salaries. This is a very reductionist way to look at the world.

I'm not saying it's a perfect metric, but I also don't see how the context of getting paid a lot to do a job relates to what you're saying. A general principle is not reductionalist.

Teachers and nurses would disagree!

They could be saying "by the metrics and values of this thing I'm criticizing, I'm successful by not doing that."

Also, financial success is on-topic here, as this forum originated for Silicon Valley bros seeking wealth. In past lives, we were "greed is good" Wall Street bros. I'm sure some percentage of our earlier counterparts started out really loving spreadsheets, before the schemes.

>Why not "a person who went to a school you've never heard of, but has a job they enjoy deeply and that gives them purpose"?

Because when a person has a lot of money, it vastly increases the scope of available activities that they enjoy and give them purpose.

> Why not "a person who went to a school you've never heard of, but has a job they enjoy deeply and that gives them purpose"?

Because by and large people go to university to have a better chance of making more money

All ten of those people don't make a good case for any particular school.

Because in America (and most places), if you can have a job your enjoy that gives you purpose you're probably already rich. Usually with inherited middle class wealth, like having a stable home or better. You're probably sitting on top of the privilege pyramid by your countries standard.

Most aspirational people who are out to make mega bucks are trying to put distance between themselves and the time they didn't have that, and to setup the structures in their life so if they have kids, they can give that easy going life to their heirs.

The ivy/state dichotomy is unnecessary for research quality as it depends more on the research capacity and capability of an institution, e.g. if its an R1 vs. R2. You're probably right that perverse incentives degrade or corrupt research anywhere--it's a systemic problem. Moreover, any discussion of research ethics that doesn't include industry or industry-sponsored work is incomplete.

If scientists had more than a citation index to establish productivity so that they can justify getting or keeping funding, the community could probably make some headway towards addressing behavior such as Gino's. Outright fraud is less prevalent than bad science or misinterpreted or misunderstood results. Personally I am in favor of a replication index for all original work, at least.

Gino worked for a business school, as did several of her collaborators.

Often for business school profs, their work will be judged less on academic acceptance (peer-reviewed publication, etc) and more on its 'real-world impact'. You are seen as a good academic of marketing if you can market yourself into Ted talks, pop science publications, and ultimately, influence on 'decision-makers' (the sort of politicians and thinktanks who believe that eg healthcare can be solved by painting hospitals orange).

So there are strong incentives to falsify results but they are quite different from those which bear on actual scientists.

The headline gets way more engagement when it's Harvard. Kind of like Foxconn headlines with "Apple factory" not Nokia factory etc.

This is just supposition but it's entirely possible there is some causality at play. The ivies are the most competitive universities in the U.S. (modulo some outliers like Stanford and MIT). If you are successful at cheating in academia then by definition you are going to end up teaching/researching at a more competitive university.

> Sincerely, a person who went to a school you've never heard of, but makes a ton of money

Hey, good for you!

>Sincerely, a person who went to a school you've never heard of, but makes a ton of money because I know 4 skills that synergize and scarce.

I always thought people in academia don't really make much money compared with what they could make in business. Adding to it that it takes a very long time and lots of hard work to get "to the top - get tenure" I'm amazed we're still seeing any scientific progress being made.

> because I know 4 skills that synergize and are scarce.

Those would be? (Asking sincerely.)

The Ivy leagues catch tons of breaks because they don't even notice this kind of thing. It's a complete non issue

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