Hacker News Reader

Comment by ldjkfkdsjnv | Hacker News Reader

Yeah the older you get, the more visible the grift is. CEOs/Elite companies hide behind abstractions of eliteness/prestige. From the outside it always seems they are on the ball. On the inside you realize the guy that went to Harvard that is now CEO, got into Harvard due to rowing, and fell upwards for 15 years afterwards. Close interactions with these people will almost always reveal that they are mediocre regular human beings that got put into a seat early in life.

While you were toiling away on some task at work, he was busy trying to meet people higher up the chain.

The kicker though is that Harvard does attract real outliers (mark zuckerberg, bill gates), and so the name brand rests on them identifying one guy a year that might change the world.

View on HN

Funnily enough, both names you mentioned dropped from Harvard

they still attracted them.

Is Bill Gates a real outlier? Seems to have massively exploited the people around him. Didn't even build DOS, got the contract because of parents connections. If he's lucky, his lasting legacy will be donkey.bas.

I think you are massively underestimating the amount of work he put in, and his abilities outside of just this deal.

He didn't just buy DOS, he made sure it kept up with the best OS on the market, including Apple's. He also recognized the initial quality of DOS outside of several other OS on the market, which he learned because he was an expert in the field and made BASIC. He also Microsoft ahead of the curve at almost every point during the computer revolution.

lol. Basic was made by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1963.

How were they ahead of the curve? By implementing a GUI well after Apple had stolen the designs from Xerox?

Microsoft didn't even write the port of qDos for the IBM PC, they had to get Tim Paterson from SCP to write it for them.

I meant a BASIC interpreter for the Altair, but HN won't let me edit post. There's no doubt that Gates is a capable programmer.

Microsoft was successful for a reason. They were much faster, and better than other computers. They demolished the personal computer market for decades.

Wouldn't you say someone who became a billionaire in their lifetime is by definition, an outlier, whether or not you agree with how they got there?

The persons might not posses any outlier capabilities. A big part of success is being born in the right circumstances at the right time and being lucky with a few things.

No. Outlier from what? We're talking about the distribution of grift among executives, not wealth among the general public.

> On the inside you realize the guy that went to Harvard that is now CEO, got into Harvard due to rowing, and fell upwards for 15 years afterwards.

Not just the ones that started at Harvard, though. The way the corporate springboard is built, at some point in every executive's career, gravity reverses itself, and they simply cannot fall at all (unless they choose to)... You never see a SVP at a FAANG drop back to being a mere Director after a bad run. They will always fail their way into CEO at a smaller company or something. You never see a Director go work for some other company as a Software engineer after failing to get promoted. None of this class ever seem to be worried about "Crap, what if there are layoffs--will I need to be an IC (individual contributor) for a bit until I find my next VP job?"

I'm closing in on 50, still as an Individual Contributor worker bee. If I lose my job, I face a non-zero likelihood that I'll be unable to find anything else besides stocking shelves at Home Depot. If I were ever to reach "Director" level, I'd never have to worry about that again.

> None of this class ever seem to be worried about "Crap, what if there are layoffs--will I need to be an IC (individual contributor) for a bit until I find my next VP job?"

This is not entirely true. Some directors do go to another company at a Sr. Manager level.

That said, the reason they appear to always find another job at a sideways or higher level is because most people at director or VP level at successful companies just retire and become "consultants" or "career coaches".

For those that are still looking for a titled job, there is always a smaller company that needs experienced managers. They will give the title to make up for lower compensation.

These upper managers hire executive recruiters who find them opportunities. They sometimes rely on their network.

These managers are never questioned on technical skills, market understanding or ability to lead which is why their likeability gets them the next job.

But realistically, most of them retire with a few million. They are just not in the market like us plebs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com