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!

I attribute 90% of my success in life to the fact that I happened to make the right childhood best friend. One thing led to another and I got a PhD and earn [unreasonable salary]/year now. Life is insanely unfair. On some level it is luck. I don’t know what the “skill issue” twitterites don’t get about it.

(Hard work doesn’t hurt, either, but that goes without saying.)

I don't disagree with the result but the argument may be flawed. How do you know it's not the other way around, that richness causes having rich friends, rather than rich friends causing richness?

This article feels like a "wet streets cause rain" kind of thing.

I think there are two factors at play beneath this:

1. Your expectations of yourself. If you grow up with studious and career oriented friends and family, you expect that of yourself. Same when you grow up around enrepreners. On the other than there are social groups that have the attitude roughly "I work a random job until I get fired" - if that's the subculture you are brought up with, that can steer your own life too.

2. You self select your friends. My highschool had a mix of poor but motivated immigrant kids, and just like "bad" kids. The two groups didn't mingle, one ended up in the 1% by and large and the other group is in jail or on welfare. So you could say we did better because we had friends who ended up better off but I think it's the other way - we associated with people who are on our trajectory.

"Who you know" is important - but the first job I got through a connection was at age 45. Everything before that came from who I am not who I knew, but who know is shaped by who I am (ie I wouldn't have had the connection that got me this job if the guy hadn't known he as a high performer to begin with)

This is probably the biggest value from going to college, or at least it was - making those connections. I got my first job from a college connection, and my second one as well. I'm not sure how useful the actual classes were, or the degree - my first job certainly didn't require one, and the second one would have likely waived the requirement for one since I was already employed as a software engineer.

Meeting people and making friends outside my income class through civic volunteering probably had a bigger impact on my lifetime earnings to date than either of my degrees or my work history itself.

I think it's how you appear to other people you work around.

Over a period of time, when the right person thinks you are useful/attractive/interesting, you get more opportunity/promotion.

This happens to explain the networking effect implied by the post (and related analyses).

The key to success is the same as it ever was: you buying my Product! Or even better, my Course about how you too can achieve success with your own Product.

27000 + 20% is 32400 not 47000, so not sure what's up with that sentence.

Also, define "success". Even if it's just about being exceptional in economic terms, AIUI a bog-standard swdev salary is enough to be in the top 10% with no favoritism needed. And if it's about being able to retire and have grandkids come visit sometimes, I think that might be more common than not.

Parents define a person. Yes genetically-of-course, but equally by being their primary and formative influences in almost everything. And obviously, functional parenting quality ranges from great to traumatic to non-existent.

Therefore there is no greater variable in nominal differences between youth peers. How could there possibly be?? It is near all-encompassing, and sustains for the first quarter of a persons life.

This concept is true going back through the ages, with the main difference being less social and economic mobility in the past. That does not = 100% social or economic mobility now, by any means.

Studies show tall people also earn more. https://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/standing

Also, physically attractive people earn more. https://wol.iza.org/press-releases/does-it-pay-to-be-beautif...

The key to your success are the connections of your dad.

I am in the circle of richer friends and there are few children. My anecdotal theory is harder drive in their families on career, education, etc resulted in this. And their families probably provided for that high economic connectedness, which enabled them for success. Genetic oblivion is a terrible reward for all that work.

First of all that could be a causality ≠ correlation, but more importantly. Even if it might be the biggest predictor, it might not be the biggest lever.

Still interesting train of thought that I might need, but the article is exaggerating the evidence and not adding the right disclaimers.

This appears to be trying to sell a system for meeting the right people, rather than giving any actionable advice about how to do so.

It also glosses over the fact that who you know is often a result of some combination of hard work and luck.

I think a huge part of success comes from stopping and spending some time in self reflection occasionally. It's really easy to get stuck on autopilot and not re-evaluate things. Especially when you are young. Stopping for a bit and spending time actually thinking instead of bashing my head against a wall has been my best strategy to date.

Your success eV is opportunities x success-rate.

Out of the gate, hard work improves success rates, but not the count of opportunities.

Connections improve opportunities, it doesn't do shit for success-rate.

Luck does for both sides of the mix.

As a startup founder in my 40s, the entire VP/SVP level in silicon valley is people one or two hops away for an intro, though admittedly a lot of the first hop there is through the other founders.

The original paper about importance of weak ties is under appreciated, because people you work with tend to go on to better & bigger things - especially in the beginning of your career, if you are a nice person.

Veritasium put out a very nice video[1] about knowing which sort of game we're playing. It is a power law game.

There are only two takeaways I had, "show up" and "get lucky". There is no winning without showing up.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBluLfX2F_k

i get the narrative the author is going for, but it's stupid. you can put in effort to get to know people and make friends. like it's a game you can play. yes in the extreme cases it can be hard or impossible, but for the audience this is written for, certainly not the case

The title is “Your Key to Success Isn't More Luck or Hard Work”, but I would hardly consider a 20% increase the “key” to anything.

It’s some combination of all the above plus some additional dimensions like decision making, etc.

It’s more reasonable to conclude that your success is linked to your birth these days than not. Especially in the USA.

I wonder if this is true in continental Europe.

a lot of life is transactional and businesslike (even if at times it doesn't feel that way.)

and just like in business, a lot of opportunities and outcomes are depended on being in the right place right time & knowing the right person.

hard work tips the balance a little bit. not much

Peterson before he went nuts covered the research on this quite bluntly:

Lifetime earnings is most strongly predicted by IQ, then conscientiousness. So those with both are considerably more likely. Social connectedness is entirely dependent on personality as well - extraversion predicts this, and extraversion also predicts ones interest in financial incentives rather curiously

This is absolutely it, and it's something I try to impart to college students. What programming language you learn, or what you put on your resume, or even how you dress and speak at e.g. job fairs all pale in comparison to. "Who do you know, who is in your 'network?'"

And note, this can be done without being sleazy. Try to be interested in other people, try to make random friends. That will "pay off" -- both in richness of life and in just money -- more than just about anything.

(One of my personal corollaries here is "go until they stop you." This works for nightclubs, conferences, etc. etc. And even if you are stopped, hit them with a HUGE mea culpa, and back away. Which will be rarer than you expect.)

(and one more. The other thing I do in every class: Each and every one of you knows something about something WAY MORE AND BETTER than literally everyone else in this room. No promises, but that might be your good avenue.)

Ultimately this kind of mechanism is what creates a society of hereditary classes.

This is not something to be celebrated - the one good thing about capitalism and open competition generally is that you can challenge this.

Hocking a product here huh, so, you rich dad poor dad too?

Since luck can be defined as the crossroads of opportunity and preparedness, and since it takes work to be prepared for opportunity, and since it takes effort and a trained eye to spot opportunity...then ultimately it takes hard work to be successful.

Let's not let some billionaires who enjoyed friends with benefits skew the results of millions of successful people.

Having the network that can lift you up IS the luck

> 20% Higher adult income for children with economically diverse friends, the gap between a family earning 27,000 and one earning 47,000 a year

So we're comparing poor people to even poorer people?

I have never had an "economically diverse" group of friends. I grew up even more broke than the groups being compared. My friends were mostly lowlifes back then. I still don't know anybody filthy rich right now. I work from home in the suburbs making 6 figures and so do all my new friends.

I'm not saying there isn't some nepotism in high places, but if we're just talking about the middle class... I mean what do you want me to say other than "stay in school"?

In other news: People who grew up locked away neglected by their parents earn less

But first, we must talk about the wetness of water

Sorry but what is this even trying to say? 1=1 ?

Clickbait title

Up next, water is wet...

Hardly news.

There are a lot of industries based on the "people I know" principle. From selling Tupperware and Herbalife to the whole Lobbying industry and politics, everything is about the right connections.

The world has been like that even before homo sapiens appeared on earth; higher primates also do a lot of making the right connections.

Same intuition here — until my own path disagreed. Roles via acquaintances were mostly meh; the best ones found me without networking.

Correlation is not causation.

In other words: the side effect of making more money is that you have more money to spend on your children’s education.

Another ad disguised as an article - nice.

Always been true. Physical proximity to wealthy people is the key to success. The reason to send your kid to a good college (or to a terrible "small private liberal arts college on the East Coast") is to get them to be near wealthy people. Sleep with them and compliment them. If you're black, or can pretend to be convincingly, give them a tacit "N-word pass." They probably won't use it, but it will give them a glow like they just voted for Obama again.

Tell them about the things you're working on and your business ideas, and praise every observation they make. Praise those observations so extensively that you abandon talking about your project entirely, and just talk about the implications of their astute observation. At the end, express gratitude for the universe giving you the opportunity to meet someone so much on the same page as you as they are. Ask them "why can't other people see it?" Try to develop a private joke from the conversations. Tell them about the difficulties your mother is going through.

Repeat until wealthy.

My favorite recent example is Carlos Watson. Got pulled up the greasy pole by Steve Jobs' wife, and after he slipped and fell into prison, got out through Trump circle ass-kissing. Even though I suspect owner of The Atlantic paid that bill, too, no matter the keyfabe.

Agree, but this "study" is trash. But indeed is its "who you know" and "who knows you", the way to the top i always through nepo. Al-ways.

There's maybe like one exception to this rule every century.

Pointing out that cronyism/nepotism is giving the largest boost for one's success instead of "meritocracy" is pretty depressing...