[quote=livinincali][quote=CA renter]
You keep referring to people who are not “like you” as lazy. Has it ever occurred to you that they might be harder-working, and even smarter than you? Some of the hardest workers are often the poorest, and I can show you many, many people with Ph.D.’s (even with your much-loved STEM degrees) who don’t even make $100K after decades on the job as a successful and proven employee.
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You don’t get wealth from working hard. You get wealth from working smart and some degree of luck. The innovators are the ones that figure out smarter way to do a task. Whether changing the process or using a machine to replace manual labor.
Business at it’s core is problem solving. Find a problem and create a efficient solution for it. Our education system should focus on problem solving, but often that takes a back seat to feel good topics. Not that feel good topics are bad, they just don’t do much to create economic growth.[/quote]
Yes, I addressed the “smart” part, above, and agree that problem-solving is key. Still, if you look at a list of the wealthiest individuals, you’ll see that very few of them are true problem solvers. Many of them inherited their wealth/privilege/position in society (luck), many inherited intelligence/good-looks/athletic ability (luck), and many were in the right place at the right time (the biggest factor in deciding who wins and who loses…again, luck). Overall, I’d say that luck has far more to do with success than whether or not one is working hard or smart. There are many, many very intelligent people out there who did all the right things and were very smart about it, but who failed nonetheless because the timing was wrong or some unexpected, exogenous variable entered the picture (health, divorce, death of a partner or key player, political or economic dislocations, “acts of God,” etc.) at the worst possible time. While one can always try to insure against such calamities, it will often cause massive failure, anyway.
Too many people seem to think that they are 100% responsible for their success, not acknowledging the role of pure luck (where, when, into which circumstances, and to whom one was born, etc.), team members and other integral players, a functioning infrastructure (usually not noticed at all until something goes terribly wrong), and good timing. There is so much more to success than working hard or even working smart, and I think it would be wise for those who are constantly dislocating their shoulders with all the self-congratulatory back-patting to learn some humility before their pride and ego get them into trouble. Nobody is invincible, no matter how many hours they spent on their homework assignments in college, nor how smart they are (think of all the people with I.Q. scores in the top 1% — lots and lots and lots of them), nor how adaptable they think they are to coming changes…which may well be very different from what they seem to be expecting.
