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Comment by asdfasgasdgasdg | Hacker News Reader

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 causation. The results of the study could equally well be explained by a third variable that causes both better financial outcomes and a higher likelihood to have more relationships with people who are wealthier.

Beyond that, I just have a lot of trouble accepting the conclusion because of everything I have seen in my career. Hard working people tend to know other hard working people. Hard working people get more done. Getting more done seemed to get you promoted, at least where I worked. Getting promoted had a meaningful, positive effect on income. People who weren’t very productive languished, conversely.

Possible this experience does not generalize to all workplaces!

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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

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.

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.

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.

Thanks. Actually I already reconsidered due to my difficulties to hop into the next more technical job.

> Many places I've worked didn't promote hard workers at all.

There's a type of hard worker who puts in a lot of effort and hopes it's noticed, but gets stuck being loyal to jobs like this.

If you work at one of those jobs, they're going to collect around you. You might be getting pulled into that type of work without knowing it.

The successful ones know that getting promoted is just 1 out of many potential career moves for them to consider at a given point. If they're not getting promoted, they get up and leave for another company where their hard work will be appreciated.

Some people get stuck at those companies, watch people working hard and getting nowhere, and go in the opposite direction: They stay put and stop trying hard. That can be fine for people whose goal is to have a stable job that isn't too demanding. However it gives a very wrong impression of the relationship between hard work and success when extrapolate over an entire career.

There are a lot of things about dysfunctional and broken companies that shouldn't be generalized. It's too easy to get trapped in cycles of cynicism and defeatism in a place like those.

I'm in this position! I chose to stay in the lackluster mobility because the money was too good. Now it's running dry and I'm ready for my next thing

Your thesis is that companies pay more (by promoting) to people they could easily backfill instead of just letting them go and replacing them?

I'm not American. It's hard to fire people. You have to recycle them into new positions. The author seems to be French so I imagine it's similar there

I do wish it were easier to fire people for poor performance though. Nothing kills morale like tolerating incompetence

If the unemployment benefits are strong then I have no problem with easier dismissal rules

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.

Hard work and productivity are table stakes. Connections are the next step.

Did the same work dynamic play out after you started working there?

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

> > 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

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.

> All of these things are strong covariates

Yeah it turns out having positive multipliers on your inputs leads to better outcomes. Who knew!

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.

> 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.

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".

Could it also be called wealth-mellishence or perhaps familialValuationOfWorkEthic-melloshence?

Those were some of the leading candidates until twin studies and controls for familial wealth invalidated them and left us only with shminshmellishence :/

Wait, flesh this thought out? Twin studies were the dominant methodology of the 1970s-1990s, until molecular genomics --- and genetic studies with controls for family relations demolished their heritability estimates. You just wrote a sentence that implies a straight line of progress on understanding this (weirdly, giving a 70s-vintage point in one direction along with a 2010s-vintage point in the other), but it's the opposite (there's a whole thing about this, the "missing heritability problem").

"Go look up twin studies" is a very strange thing to tell someone on a message board in 2026. It's like saying "go look up phlogiston".

Identical twins reared together: .85 correlation in IQ

Fraternal twins reared together: .55 correlation in IQ

Identical twins reared apart: .75 correlation in IQ

And the genetic correlation grows as children age.

No, genetic studies did not "demolish" heritability estimates, they set a floor on them. Genetic studies do not and cannot (currently) predict all phenotypic outcomes, they set the floor on how much variation can be caused by genetic differences.

The genetic predictions don't even directly contradict, never mind demolish, the twin study findings.

The "missing heritability problem" is only a problem if one believes our genetic analysis techniques are comprehensive, but we already know they're not. For example, current methods are extremely limited in detecting gene-gene interactions, which we have good reason to suspect are widespread (otherwise making new genetic drugs would be trivial).

Even hereditarians don't believe the .85 number anymore. I think you probably want to do some more recent reading.

This has come up a bunch on HN and I don't want to rehash dozens of earlier comments, but the search bar will give you plenty of cites.

Yes, the .85 is probably at the upper end of the estimate. The genetic studies are the conceivable floor.

I'm not sure what you mean by "hereditarian" given that even the genetic studies obviously point to significant heritability.

This is always a funny conversation because on the one side you have people saying "intelligence is both heritable and correlated with nearly every outcome we care about."

On the other hand you have people saying "nuh uh! It's only... medium-high heritability and medium-high correlation with other positive outcomes," as if it makes any material difference to any downstream question.

It's not "the upper end of the estimate"; it's no longer the estimate. Meanwhile, hereditarians believe in strong genetic determinism for behavioral attributes. I think you should probably be more familiar with this field and its terms before being this confident about your numbers.

Again, the search bar will avail, but the answers you're giving here are very early-90s.

Most people who you'd (clearly) slur as hereditarians don't actually believe in "strong genetic determinism."

Why don't you just share what your estimate is?

Is it zero?

I don't know how we can continue discussing at this point, since "hereditarian" is not a slur (it's how many in the field would describe themselves). You either follow this research or you don't, either is fine, but it's not reasonable to attack other people for being familiar with it.

It's totally OK if we're just not going to persuade each other or develop any productive ideas in this thread! I've said all I originally wanted to say.

A good place to start: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46195226. (The submitter should be familiar.)

“Controls” for familial wealth have mostly been debunked by any kind of basic statistical analysis.

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.

You don't think people can choose to work hard?

It is by sheer chance they are the type of person to choose to work hard, that is correct.

So there are people who cannot choose to work hard? They have no agency in the matter?

That sounds... suspiciously convenient.

You think there are people who are fortunate enough to have the desire to work hard, but nonetheless choose not to?

No, there's actually nothing convenient about the fact that most people are accidents of their genetic, geographic, and environmental roll of the dice.

The convenient view is: I worked hard because I chose to work hard. I achieved hard things because I worked to be smart. People who did not achieve the same things did not do so because they chose not to work hard or they chose not to be smart.

Very self-serving and transparently wrong.

I did not say what your first paragraph says. I think there are people who do not have the desire to work hard, but who never the less choose to do so, even though they don't want to.

I will grant you that there are some people who, due to handicaps or other things beyond their control, do not have the option of choosing to work hard. But I claim (without statistical proof, I admit) that by far the majority of those who do not work hard, still have the real option of choosing to work hard, but do not.

For most of those who won't, "I can't" is also "very self-serving and transparently wrong."

What do you think is going on inside the brain of someone who says "I can't?"

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.

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.

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.

it depends what you do with the diagnosis. Once you have that label, does it make it an excuse or an explanation for the behavior. Do you go "I'm autistic so I get a pass" or is it "I know I'm autistic so I have to work harder just to keep up with everyone."

> 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.

There are intelligent people who may not be necessarily be on the same scale socially and they do get burned by it.

Impulse control issues, like ADHD, can factor in too.

> 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.

"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?

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?

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.

Yes, that’s exactly the implication. I.e. the connection is downstream of success/hard work/intellect, not upstream of it.

> 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.

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.

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!

The meritocracy fiction.

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