That's really all it is. Me and a couple others were the only "outside" students to get internships at a big bank. Rest of the interns had parents working at the firm. They all went on cruises and to their multi million dollar cottages every weekend. It was like some weird sick incestuous extended corporate family.
There is nothing weird about it, it's incentives: parents are always going to be more interested in their specific children than in the more generalized problem of maximizing the value of the company they work for. Particularly in the world of high-end banking, which is extremely competitive to get into but, at the end of the day, not particularly challenging for a reasonably smart person, we should expect rampant nepotism.
That is basically what the article said. In addition skills that would help to get those jobs independently are also taught within the family.
Students from a poor background (like me back in the day) may still be better of studying because they haven't been taught the networking skills to profit from socialising more. Conversely maybe they should try.
I am just lucky that at least university is heavily subsidised in Australia. Coming from a poor background puts you one step behind but at least I am one step behind, not ten steps behind.
I grew up with two blue-collar parents and was the first one in my family to go to college (while working full time for most of it). I now have a BS and MS in computer science, and along with my wife we probably make 4-5 times what my parents are currently making. We certainly aren't rich (considering cost of living, etc), but I must say that I'm glad I went to school and broke the pattern of (1) maybe graduate high school (2) find the first job you can and stay there as long as you can.
Bush's seemingly low culture is very much an act, one he learned in 1978 after getting stomped at a West Texas congressional election by Kent Hance, who successfully used rural populist rhetoric against the relatively yuppie Bush.
I've heard (and believe) this too but does anyone have any decent sources for it? I find the portrayal of Bush in the media interesting as while he played the fool regularly, there's no way he got to POTUS without being a smart operator.
I read a lot of reports that people who met W Bush were surprised by how intelligent/sharp he was. The media looks for gaffes for ratings, but gaffs have no bearing on intelligence. Once the "Hur hur Bush is stupid!" angle gets traction every minor mistake is seen as damning confirmation. Bush also made many terrible decisions, but that doesn't mean he was stupid. Probably just unprepared and blinded by ideology.
>I read a lot of reports that people who met W Bush were surprised by how intelligent/sharp he was.
So did I. They were virtually all from ideological supporters. I don't remember an opponent ever saying it.
> The media looks for gaffes for ratings, but gaffs have no bearing on intelligence.
Most gaffes actually went unreported. He made them nearly constantly if he wasn't following a script. At some point his handlers cottoned on to this and after that you very rarely saw him speak in public without a script.
And yes, it demonstrates a very real lack of intelligence. Bush was not a smart man.
Use Wikipedia for his environment: Born in New Haven, Connecticut, graduated Yale. His father (who also graduated Yale) was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to Senator Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush. Prescott Bush was a Wall Street executive banker and a United States Senator, representing Connecticut from 1952 until January 1963, whose father was Samuel P. Bush, an American industrialist born in New Jersey. The father of Samuel P. Bush, Rev. James Smith Bush was attorney, Episcopal priest, and religious writer. He entered Yale University in 1841, the first of what would become a long family tradition.
Put yourself in his shoes. You have a choice of the following headlines on the New York Times. A: President can't pronounce 'nuclear'. B: President orders ten thousand nuculer bombs. The smart choice is of course A.
His ASVAB scores put him in the top 5%, and his IQ is supposed to be in the high 130s. I've always thought it ironic he's more intelligent than the vast majority of people who think he's stupid.
It's probably human nature to think someone who doesn't agree with your politics is stupid.
No, he wasn't the brightest bulb in the box. Perhaps not the caricature the liberal media made him out to be, but still - we have enough of his gaffes on record (people in Latin America speaking Latin, etc.)
A friend of mine has a politician for a parent. They worked with Bush and told me that there are two myths people commonly believe about Bush. First, that he's dumb and second that he's nice.
Working class kids also benefit more from studying than high-SES kids, so as life advice this is kind of dubious. If working class kids don't study then they're still not going to get into college based on their grades/SATs/writing, whereas for wealthy kids they're already going to be fine even if they don't do a ton of work.
Also, given that the school system in part exists to screen out working class kids from elite jobs, if these kids actually started getting great grades and captaining the crew team or whatever then colleges and companies would just start selecting for other things.
This story was more revealing to me on another aspect. Why don't working class kids grow quickly in a fast growing company than a elite class kid? even though the working class kid probably knows more from a depth perspective.
If this is about the sort of elite jobs I'm thinking of, isn't the point to tell people what they want to hear so they have an excuse to do what they already wanted to do?
That would mean they have to be people worth listening to, and that this has to be for reasons other than scientific competence.
So I'm thinking that having the "right" social background probably would be an important factor in job performance (as would being highly paid). But only if it's not made explicit, since political incorrectness is also important for image.
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Also, focusing on the very few "best" jobs seems a bit silly. Why not look at what's in the top quarter or third, and how to make those more accessible?
Look, this is the Washington Post reporting this story, not the San Jose Mercury or the Boston Globe. It's written by, for, and about the self-styled power 1%.
The only reason it has anything to do with the rest of us is that the guys on the college beer-drinking team, including the one who barfed in the laundry machine I was using in the cellar of the college dorm, went on to get one of those so-called power jobs. In case there's any misunderstanding, this was Yale.
I like my job. Software's been good to me. I just washed those clothes again. They can schmooze each other all they want; it keeps them busy.
I think these kinds of articles miss the point. Colleges and employers choose admission and hiring criteria specifically to favor the upper class. This isn't out of malice, and for the most part I think it is unintentional. The people at the top simple favor other people who are like them --- just as all of us do.
If lower class kids started excelling at the sort of social activities and extracurricular activities which help one get ahead, the criteria will wind up changing. Again, not out of malice or spite. Its simply a function of human nature to form groups and favor those from your group.
I came here to say pretty much the same thing, but you beat me to it :)
The fact is that these elite jobs, while demanding, don't require particularly unusual talents. Many people can perform them. The supply is far greater than demand, which you can see, for example, in the number of people who apply for entry level positions at large financial firms, where many of the elite jobs are. It's similar at the elite universities, which could all easily fill their classes with valedictorians if that's what they wanted.
But yeah, it's pretty much what you said above. People like those who are like themselves and there are only so many spots available, so naturally they're going to pick people from similar backgrounds unless the candidate is lucky, charismatic, or significantly better than everyone else (which is unlikely when you're already choosing from an elite population).
Harvard is quite public with the fact that they reserve 30% year for "legacies". They don't even bother with the veneer of meritocracy. Just keeping the unwashed peasants away, you know
The Economist has had a couple of articles on how social mobility in the US is waay lower than it used to be and is now lower than in many European countries...
If they wanted the peasants away, they wouldn't charge zero tuition for peasants and keep 70% of the seats open. The legacies pay tuition for the peasants.
Affluent families also pay full tuition everywhere else, without getting special preferences.
Long story short - most colleges are about quotas these days, not pure meritocracies. But at least there is an egalitarian thought behind minority/diversity quotas.
I was going to comment that this had already happened, but I see scarmig had already gone into detail in another thread about how the rules had been changed to undermine Asian-Americans.
I'd maybe quibble about whether this falls under "malice" or not, seems to be pretty malicious to even have the fake meritocracy in the first place, never mind to continually alter it as people overcome the obstacles placed in their way.
Are people gaming the system by having merit or by simulating merit? If the latter then the hiring process needs examination (best people are not getting the jobs). If the former then the question becomes - how can applicants acquire those personal skills they need in the absence of an elite college education?
"Are people gaming the system by having merit or by simulating merit?"
In every single "meritocracy" I've ever seen, more of the latter. Whatever the system is, people will game it. Most especially, people at the top will redefine the metrics to favor those they've already decided should join them. That's the way it works in these elite jobs, but we in tech are hardly any better. Big companies, big foundations, etc. all exhibit the exact same behavior.
Chasing after elite jobs seem like something of mug's game to someone who wasn't born into them. Entrance into the upper echelons of American society isn't impossible, but the odds are sure as hell stacked against you.
It's illustrative to consider an example: working and middle class Asians. It's almost a truism at this point that, while they're good at getting good educations and jobs, they almost inevitably end up hitting a wall ("the bamboo ceiling"). And it's almost as if it's by design. Society told Asian kids that they have to study and get good grades to get ahead, so they did. Too well! So the rules changed, and then they had to have extracurriculars. And they did that too! Piano, Academic Decathlon, tutoring, tennis, violin... they aimed for what were seemingly all the good extracurriculars and excelled in them. But then certain gate keepers were like, "whoah, way too many Asians are getting in. Gotta change the rules again!" And so that kid with a perfect GPA, great test scores, even some research experience, and on top of that does pretty well in both cross country and piano (albeit not nationally ranked) gets kicked to the curb because he's too "cookie cutter." The new criteria are "extracurriculars, but make sure to do something that makes you stand out and be super unique!"
So now that's the new publicly-stated resume to optimize for. The right activity to do, as it turns out, is "do whatever only the already-elite have the resources to do." Elite gatekeepers have a set of signifiers for entrance into the upper class for one and one reason only: to keep out riff-raff like you. Any entry criteria that would change the cultural and literal complexion of the upper class too much is, ipso facto, a bad criteria for entry.
And consider the best case scenario: you do get in. But even then, you're still an outsider. Hell, you didn't even go to Andover or Exeter! And you didn't even travel internationally for the first time until you went to college? Back to the fields with you, peasant!
For most people, aiming for professional, middle-class jobs seems the most realistic goal to aim for. Ain't a bad lifestyle at all, if you can accept it's silly to try to win a game that's designed to make you lose.
I think your conclusion is right for most people, but you're a bit too cynical. The system isn't rigged purposefully. It is just that the people who decide who gets the elite jobs all act a certain way and had similar backgrounds. Naturally they like people like themselves and so the jobs go to those people. Even then, there are lots of qualified people from those backgrounds who don't get those jobs. Everyone is competing for a purely positional advantage (i.e. in order to move up, someone else must move down) and the 1% is already large enough to replenish its own ranks.
Everyone who wasn't born into the small elite is affected by the system, including me. It's not a competition to see who suffers the most.
Edit: also, the elite themselves are punished by the way things work. The number of truly elite jobs is small and the competition is very strong. For every kid whose parents bought his/her way through the system there were a number of others whose parents tried, but failed, to do the same thing.
Yes. The idea the wealthy got together and formed a big conspiracy to shut everyone else out is a bit on the paranoid side. It's not that you can't get a prestigious job without the right kind of background, it's that you don't have an advantage other people have. And, as you say, there aren't enough top jobs to go around.
But we don't have to look at top jobs to see this dynamic at play. Good looking people of both sexes get better jobs than the rest of us, as do people with more energy.
Right - this seems to advocate a sort of cargo cult around membership of the upper class. If you go to the right schools, dress the right way, participate in the right activities, that must be how you get an 'elite job', because upper class kids do all that and they get those jobs. It's literally as naive as thinking that building model planes and control towers on your island will bring real planes in to land.
That may be true, to some degree, but _not_ going to school makes it even less likely to get good jobs (not sure "elite" jobs is what everyone should be after).
It's not like blue collar graduates/bosses who started businesses are going to decide, you know what, I'll give all my key jobs to those guys and gals who didn't bother going to school. I'm going to go ahead and hire all those underachievers I used to know back in highschool.
So, elite kids just happen to do everything that they do out de novo, never having been told to do them by their parents?
Given the same resources and information, a large number of kids of all classes would do the same type of things that elite gatekeepers like to see from elite applicants.
The difference is resources. You guide your kid to grow, experiment, etc. If you're a pool family, no safety net, no connections, that's going to be a disaster.
Yes, but test scores are not necessarily an objective measure of how good an employee is going to be, unless their job is going to be to take tests. They're a proxy.
Suppose student A has talent 100, and student B has talent 90. Student A puts in a normal level of effort, and scores 100. Student B dedicates all of his time to studying, goes to cram school, etc., and also scores 100. Now they look the same, but A's higher talent of 100 is still going to give them an edge on the job. If you're trying to figure out the candidate's talent, what do you do? You have to look beyond test scores.
Basically, at some point putting too much effort into it is a way of gaming the system, since you're optimizing a proxy instead of what people are really looking for; and changing or expanding the proxy actually makes selection more accurate.
That's totally true: supposing there even is some objective value of merit, any given proxy metric for it will be subject to gaming.
My point would be that there will inevitably be proxy metrics for entry into the elite, and they will tend to be flawed in a way that advantages current spawn of the elite. Once a sufficient mass of people possessing "true" merit knows to chase after those proxies, they will change again to maintain the current composition of the upper class.
Or we could raise the ceiling on the SAT so only one kid on average gets a perfect score each year. And then filter students into institutions purely based on SATs. Studying for IQ tests has steeply diminishing returns. This would likely prevent these horrible signalling equilibrium where we burn our brightests' childhoods, forcing them to learn antiquated hobbies they don't enjoy. Test scores should be the only factor. Admissions could be replaced with a Python script. What ever you think about IQ tests, I promise you ad hoc admissions and unblinded admission procedures are drastically less meritocratic.
I'm getting downvoted, so let me explain. The test can not distinguish between him and student B and anyone above student Bs level. If you raised the ceiling this would solve the problem.
Though you should note, SAT prep has a negligible effect on scores. Intelligence, sadly, is mostly the result of genetics and non-shared environment, with an emphases on genetics. Our inability to admit this would be hilarious if its results weren't so tragic.
Raising the ceiling would also help with the Ivy-league's insane penchant for passing on some of the most able students. Scott Aaronson had perfect SAT scores at 15 - this was back when the SAT was much harder. In his words:
I admit that my views on this matter might be colored by my strange (though as I’ve learned, not at all unique) experience, of getting rejected from almost every “top” college in the United States, and then, ten years later, getting recruited for faculty jobs by the very same institutions that had rejected me as a teenager [...] I was a narrow, linear, A-to-B thinker who lacked depth and emotional intelligence: the exact opposite of what Harvard and Princeton were looking for in every way.
With a higher ceiling, sufficiently high scores are impressive enough on their own. I don't care about those institutions, it's Princeton and Harvard's loss. And Cornell's gain! But it's an insane way to do admissions and it has a real cost on kids. I have nightmares about promising programmers and mathematicians being forced to practice piano instead of doing what they love.
>For most people, aiming for professional, middle-class jobs seems the most realistic goal to aim for. Ain't a bad lifestyle at all, if you can accept it's silly to try to win a game that's designed to make you lose.
Except that seems like one is still playing the same game that enables the status quo, like you state in your example, is where most people end up anyways… who then will still worry if their large mega corp will be the next to lay off the next 40k workers…
I don't even know what elite jobs this article is talking about. High paying professional jobs are open to anyone. Lawyer, doctor, and I guess maybe now programmer. What are the elite jobs not open to us normal people?
> open to anyone. Lawyer, doctor, and I guess maybe now programmer.
The elite (or the highest paying, most prestigious) of those jobs are open to those who know the right people. The basics of those jobs are open to anyone who has the money to go to school for them.
The path to the elite of anything is 'who you know.'
I'd identify it as high finance, big consultancies, and upper management for large corps. Of those you listed, only a small subset of attorneys might qualify, and they're just as closely bound to class as any of the real elite jobs.
Doctors, lawyers, and programmers count solidly in the middle class, and I agree they're relatively accessible.
If you're going to count finance & consultancies, you might as well count big tech, too. It is entirely unreasonable how many silicon valley non-programmers (and a few programmers) have gotten here via both of those channels.
Moreover, I have directly heard from more than a handful of people out here that they only went to business school because they had no idea what they wanted to do when they left their investment bank / consulting firm, so it seemed the best idea at the time.
Honestly, I think upper management for large corps is far more rarified air than the others. There is not only an extremely restricted population, but a lot of these leaders are selected via a revolving door. The average CxO only spends something like 3yrs at any given company, then gets hired by a different one -- rinse and repeat. You can consider only two pipelines for this role: 1) folks who successfully managed and grew smaller companies and are hired into those roles from outside, or 2) folks who spent a whole career at the company.
The book's Amazon blurb defines elite jobs as "top-tier investment banks, consulting firms, and law firms" which are "the nation's highest-paying entry-level jobs."
Not to say the above isn't true, but just want to mention that all of the above and more are standard for Asians getting jobs with Asian companies in Asia.
If you want to get at the top of Keiretsu, Chaebol, etcc., you'll have not only a degree from a prestigious local school but a degree form _some_ north American or UK higher Ed institution.
So, Asians in America are brought up by parents who grew up in Asia instilling education above all else and that has certainly fit nicely into the ivy leave pipeline (or if you were in France the sciences Po or grandes ecoles).
That's to say, their culture of stressing education is reinforced by the American labor market.
If you were to meet any Asian exchange students in North America, you'd notice not only did they all go to cram schools after normal classes but also took music classes and English classes -all of which are expected prerequisites for jobs back home.
And, to get a lowly government job, you typically need to go to a cram school and prepare for the ministry of examination exam which is necessary to qualify for a gov't job.
Yep. For the most part the elite will find a way to remain the elite, generation after generation after generation, unless there's a revolution. That won't change until human nature changes. Consequently, the rest of us with three choices.
(1) Start planning a real revolution, with all that entails. Good luck with that.
(2) Compete to be one of the very few who get invited to join the elite. Marrying in's the most reliable method, but that option's only available to half the population (approximately). Other than that, settle in for a brutal fight.
(3) Settle for being one of the nouveau riche. You might even be as rich as the elite in dollar terms, but you still won't really be part of the club and neither will your children. More likely you'll be in the economic tier just below the elite, which is a perfectly wonderful place to be.
Note that "change the game through legislation" and "whine about it" aren't on the list. Sorry. This is about the real world, and I'm trying to give practical advice.
I've had three bosses in the last year. I would not have traded places with any of them. Not for any amount of money.
There's not a sum of money you would pay me to be a professional ass-kisser. Oh don't get me wrong, I'd take the money. I just wouldn't kiss any ass. Then you'd fire me, and I'd consider that a fair trade.
I realize publicizing winners keeps casinos in business, but how do B. Clinton and B. Obama fit with this, in contrast to the Bushes? They studied hard AND played the social game. But I guess President isn't really an elite job, since they're beholden to the real elites who didn't have to study for inherited power and influence. I'm not trying to make the case the game isn't rigged, only that it can be hacked.
The President is "elite" by any reasonable definition . amd Barack Obama went to Harvard Law, which is OPs textbook example of an elite position.
The key is that Obama and Clinton were selfmade, while Jeb Bush plowhorsed through life doing what he was told and riding the Bush family name train. (GWB actually worked a bit harder -- at politics -- to be the leading Bush of his generation)
I wonder if there's a market for a Pygmalion- type service to help lower middle class kids learn the kinds of values and behaviours that will let them fit in a bit better with those higher on the food chain.
You say that like upper class people want to exclude lower class people just because. Instead I think they're just happier hanging around with people they can relate to.
No, they want their kids to stay in the elite. Because elites, by definition, are small, they need to keep out everyone else. The goalposts are there just so that there is an illusion you or I can get in. And, on rare occasion we might - you'd better be super pretty/handsome so you can marry in.
Another way to become part of the elite is through entrepreneurial success. I am surprised noone brought it up, given it is HN.
Having said all that, why would one obsess about joining the elites. I am perfectly fine being (upper) middle class.
I found it really insightful, especially the part where he tried to take care of people but they all ended up hating him regardless. Makes me wonder if a lot of rich people actually did care at one point but were typecast as villians no matter what they did and they eventually just give up.
I don't remember the exact numbers, but they got something like 300K or, so, he got 2.5 billion. They didn't think it was fair as they put a lot of work into it ( perfectly legal, though, he owned it)
If I worked at a start-up that got sold and I walk away with even "just" 100K I'd be very happy. I wouldn't worry myself about the billions someone else got; especially when those people were part of the original founders carrying the core risk. Fun tech jobs, six figure salaries, flexible schedules, and at least in the San Francisco Bay Area working at a start-up is barely a risk if you're developing skills & connections for the next job.
And then they complain they didn't get more than 300K when the company sold..... people need to broaden their perspective.
The same general principle applies to organizations.
For example, employees who spend most of their time doing a good job will by definition have less free time to promote themselves politically within the company. If management is not of sufficient quality to resist it, the perverse endgame for this dynamic is for the hardest working individuals to be mismanaged by their less knowledgeable peers, who spent more time working the system (and were thereby promoted).
We plebs are fully aware that the odds are stacked against us. I don't expect it to change soon, if ever. And if anything, it just makes us harder than our marshmallow-like upper-class counterparts.
Yeah, I want to be successful and make "fuck you" money; but that's not the only reason I study hard.
Rich kids have to constantly compete with each other for status, this is very much like water polo. It's pretty nice and eye pleasing above the surface, but the stuff underwater, that's not so nice. Yet that's something you have to be adept at too to win.
So, in less metaphorical terms, rich kids learn soft power (social) skills. They are little politicians, backstabbing scummy princesses. This comes very hand for them later in life.
I think a big part of it is that the expectation is that college/university is training you for your career. It's not. University especially, is learning for learning's sake. Why do companies care about a degree then? They want you to show you can learn.
In the same way, extra-curricular activities show that you care, and that you're motivated. Same with dressing well, and learning how to interact with people. If all you have are technical skills, you're this centuries' version of a factory worker. You can be a cog in the wheel (maybe even a moderately well paid one), but nothing more.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 159 ms ] threadBecause they don't have rich dads who'll get their rich friends to give them the jobs ..
And so we find it.
Students from a poor background (like me back in the day) may still be better of studying because they haven't been taught the networking skills to profit from socialising more. Conversely maybe they should try.
I am just lucky that at least university is heavily subsidised in Australia. Coming from a poor background puts you one step behind but at least I am one step behind, not ten steps behind.
So did I. They were virtually all from ideological supporters. I don't remember an opponent ever saying it.
> The media looks for gaffes for ratings, but gaffs have no bearing on intelligence.
Most gaffes actually went unreported. He made them nearly constantly if he wasn't following a script. At some point his handlers cottoned on to this and after that you very rarely saw him speak in public without a script.
And yes, it demonstrates a very real lack of intelligence. Bush was not a smart man.
Listen, smart people don't go to Latin America and wonder if people there speak Latin. And smart people do NOT make so many terrible decisions.
Sharp as a tack - moved like a pro athlete.
It's probably human nature to think someone who doesn't agree with your politics is stupid.
If you follow anyone around with a microphone 24/7 you're going to come up with some pretty dumb stuff.
I don't know the author of this article, http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/, but it echoes many of the things I've heard from others.
Also, given that the school system in part exists to screen out working class kids from elite jobs, if these kids actually started getting great grades and captaining the crew team or whatever then colleges and companies would just start selecting for other things.
That would mean they have to be people worth listening to, and that this has to be for reasons other than scientific competence.
So I'm thinking that having the "right" social background probably would be an important factor in job performance (as would being highly paid). But only if it's not made explicit, since political incorrectness is also important for image.
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Also, focusing on the very few "best" jobs seems a bit silly. Why not look at what's in the top quarter or third, and how to make those more accessible?
The only reason it has anything to do with the rest of us is that the guys on the college beer-drinking team, including the one who barfed in the laundry machine I was using in the cellar of the college dorm, went on to get one of those so-called power jobs. In case there's any misunderstanding, this was Yale.
I like my job. Software's been good to me. I just washed those clothes again. They can schmooze each other all they want; it keeps them busy.
If lower class kids started excelling at the sort of social activities and extracurricular activities which help one get ahead, the criteria will wind up changing. Again, not out of malice or spite. Its simply a function of human nature to form groups and favor those from your group.
The fact is that these elite jobs, while demanding, don't require particularly unusual talents. Many people can perform them. The supply is far greater than demand, which you can see, for example, in the number of people who apply for entry level positions at large financial firms, where many of the elite jobs are. It's similar at the elite universities, which could all easily fill their classes with valedictorians if that's what they wanted.
But yeah, it's pretty much what you said above. People like those who are like themselves and there are only so many spots available, so naturally they're going to pick people from similar backgrounds unless the candidate is lucky, charismatic, or significantly better than everyone else (which is unlikely when you're already choosing from an elite population).
The Economist has had a couple of articles on how social mobility in the US is waay lower than it used to be and is now lower than in many European countries...
Long story short - most colleges are about quotas these days, not pure meritocracies. But at least there is an egalitarian thought behind minority/diversity quotas.
There is nothing egalitarian about "legacies".
However, I understand a little better why racial quota have been implemented in the US.
I'd maybe quibble about whether this falls under "malice" or not, seems to be pretty malicious to even have the fake meritocracy in the first place, never mind to continually alter it as people overcome the obstacles placed in their way.
In every single "meritocracy" I've ever seen, more of the latter. Whatever the system is, people will game it. Most especially, people at the top will redefine the metrics to favor those they've already decided should join them. That's the way it works in these elite jobs, but we in tech are hardly any better. Big companies, big foundations, etc. all exhibit the exact same behavior.
It's illustrative to consider an example: working and middle class Asians. It's almost a truism at this point that, while they're good at getting good educations and jobs, they almost inevitably end up hitting a wall ("the bamboo ceiling"). And it's almost as if it's by design. Society told Asian kids that they have to study and get good grades to get ahead, so they did. Too well! So the rules changed, and then they had to have extracurriculars. And they did that too! Piano, Academic Decathlon, tutoring, tennis, violin... they aimed for what were seemingly all the good extracurriculars and excelled in them. But then certain gate keepers were like, "whoah, way too many Asians are getting in. Gotta change the rules again!" And so that kid with a perfect GPA, great test scores, even some research experience, and on top of that does pretty well in both cross country and piano (albeit not nationally ranked) gets kicked to the curb because he's too "cookie cutter." The new criteria are "extracurriculars, but make sure to do something that makes you stand out and be super unique!"
So now that's the new publicly-stated resume to optimize for. The right activity to do, as it turns out, is "do whatever only the already-elite have the resources to do." Elite gatekeepers have a set of signifiers for entrance into the upper class for one and one reason only: to keep out riff-raff like you. Any entry criteria that would change the cultural and literal complexion of the upper class too much is, ipso facto, a bad criteria for entry.
And consider the best case scenario: you do get in. But even then, you're still an outsider. Hell, you didn't even go to Andover or Exeter! And you didn't even travel internationally for the first time until you went to college? Back to the fields with you, peasant!
For most people, aiming for professional, middle-class jobs seems the most realistic goal to aim for. Ain't a bad lifestyle at all, if you can accept it's silly to try to win a game that's designed to make you lose.
Edit: also, the elite themselves are punished by the way things work. The number of truly elite jobs is small and the competition is very strong. For every kid whose parents bought his/her way through the system there were a number of others whose parents tried, but failed, to do the same thing.
But we don't have to look at top jobs to see this dynamic at play. Good looking people of both sexes get better jobs than the rest of us, as do people with more energy.
It's not like blue collar graduates/bosses who started businesses are going to decide, you know what, I'll give all my key jobs to those guys and gals who didn't bother going to school. I'm going to go ahead and hire all those underachievers I used to know back in highschool.
Of course. People at the top generally aren't those who do as they're told. It can't really be any other way.
Given the same resources and information, a large number of kids of all classes would do the same type of things that elite gatekeepers like to see from elite applicants.
Suppose student A has talent 100, and student B has talent 90. Student A puts in a normal level of effort, and scores 100. Student B dedicates all of his time to studying, goes to cram school, etc., and also scores 100. Now they look the same, but A's higher talent of 100 is still going to give them an edge on the job. If you're trying to figure out the candidate's talent, what do you do? You have to look beyond test scores.
Basically, at some point putting too much effort into it is a way of gaming the system, since you're optimizing a proxy instead of what people are really looking for; and changing or expanding the proxy actually makes selection more accurate.
My point would be that there will inevitably be proxy metrics for entry into the elite, and they will tend to be flawed in a way that advantages current spawn of the elite. Once a sufficient mass of people possessing "true" merit knows to chase after those proxies, they will change again to maintain the current composition of the upper class.
Though you should note, SAT prep has a negligible effect on scores. Intelligence, sadly, is mostly the result of genetics and non-shared environment, with an emphases on genetics. Our inability to admit this would be hilarious if its results weren't so tragic.
Raising the ceiling would also help with the Ivy-league's insane penchant for passing on some of the most able students. Scott Aaronson had perfect SAT scores at 15 - this was back when the SAT was much harder. In his words:
I admit that my views on this matter might be colored by my strange (though as I’ve learned, not at all unique) experience, of getting rejected from almost every “top” college in the United States, and then, ten years later, getting recruited for faculty jobs by the very same institutions that had rejected me as a teenager [...] I was a narrow, linear, A-to-B thinker who lacked depth and emotional intelligence: the exact opposite of what Harvard and Princeton were looking for in every way.
With a higher ceiling, sufficiently high scores are impressive enough on their own. I don't care about those institutions, it's Princeton and Harvard's loss. And Cornell's gain! But it's an insane way to do admissions and it has a real cost on kids. I have nightmares about promising programmers and mathematicians being forced to practice piano instead of doing what they love.
Except that seems like one is still playing the same game that enables the status quo, like you state in your example, is where most people end up anyways… who then will still worry if their large mega corp will be the next to lay off the next 40k workers…
I'm not sure they aren't just a bogey man.
The elite (or the highest paying, most prestigious) of those jobs are open to those who know the right people. The basics of those jobs are open to anyone who has the money to go to school for them.
The path to the elite of anything is 'who you know.'
Doctors, lawyers, and programmers count solidly in the middle class, and I agree they're relatively accessible.
Moreover, I have directly heard from more than a handful of people out here that they only went to business school because they had no idea what they wanted to do when they left their investment bank / consulting firm, so it seemed the best idea at the time.
Honestly, I think upper management for large corps is far more rarified air than the others. There is not only an extremely restricted population, but a lot of these leaders are selected via a revolving door. The average CxO only spends something like 3yrs at any given company, then gets hired by a different one -- rinse and repeat. You can consider only two pipelines for this role: 1) folks who successfully managed and grew smaller companies and are hired into those roles from outside, or 2) folks who spent a whole career at the company.
If you want to get at the top of Keiretsu, Chaebol, etcc., you'll have not only a degree from a prestigious local school but a degree form _some_ north American or UK higher Ed institution.
So, Asians in America are brought up by parents who grew up in Asia instilling education above all else and that has certainly fit nicely into the ivy leave pipeline (or if you were in France the sciences Po or grandes ecoles).
That's to say, their culture of stressing education is reinforced by the American labor market.
If you were to meet any Asian exchange students in North America, you'd notice not only did they all go to cram schools after normal classes but also took music classes and English classes -all of which are expected prerequisites for jobs back home.
And, to get a lowly government job, you typically need to go to a cram school and prepare for the ministry of examination exam which is necessary to qualify for a gov't job.
(1) Start planning a real revolution, with all that entails. Good luck with that.
(2) Compete to be one of the very few who get invited to join the elite. Marrying in's the most reliable method, but that option's only available to half the population (approximately). Other than that, settle in for a brutal fight.
(3) Settle for being one of the nouveau riche. You might even be as rich as the elite in dollar terms, but you still won't really be part of the club and neither will your children. More likely you'll be in the economic tier just below the elite, which is a perfectly wonderful place to be.
Note that "change the game through legislation" and "whine about it" aren't on the list. Sorry. This is about the real world, and I'm trying to give practical advice.
I've had three bosses in the last year. I would not have traded places with any of them. Not for any amount of money.
There's not a sum of money you would pay me to be a professional ass-kisser. Oh don't get me wrong, I'd take the money. I just wouldn't kiss any ass. Then you'd fire me, and I'd consider that a fair trade.
one cannot underestimate the power of these social connections
The key is that Obama and Clinton were selfmade, while Jeb Bush plowhorsed through life doing what he was told and riding the Bush family name train. (GWB actually worked a bit harder -- at politics -- to be the leading Bush of his generation)
The elite jobs do not interest me at all. Maybe that's my working class mindset.
Another way to become part of the elite is through entrepreneurial success. I am surprised noone brought it up, given it is HN.
Having said all that, why would one obsess about joining the elites. I am perfectly fine being (upper) middle class.
Indeed, and Notch pretty much confirms what I already believe it to be like way up at the top:
http://recode.net/2015/08/29/minecraft-billionaire-markus-pe...
I found it really insightful, especially the part where he tried to take care of people but they all ended up hating him regardless. Makes me wonder if a lot of rich people actually did care at one point but were typecast as villians no matter what they did and they eventually just give up.
And then they complain they didn't get more than 300K when the company sold..... people need to broaden their perspective.
For example, employees who spend most of their time doing a good job will by definition have less free time to promote themselves politically within the company. If management is not of sufficient quality to resist it, the perverse endgame for this dynamic is for the hardest working individuals to be mismanaged by their less knowledgeable peers, who spent more time working the system (and were thereby promoted).
But it's possible for someone to spend the working day self promoting and their nights working. This kills the social life
Yeah, I want to be successful and make "fuck you" money; but that's not the only reason I study hard.
Pleb power.
So, in less metaphorical terms, rich kids learn soft power (social) skills. They are little politicians, backstabbing scummy princesses. This comes very hand for them later in life.
In the same way, extra-curricular activities show that you care, and that you're motivated. Same with dressing well, and learning how to interact with people. If all you have are technical skills, you're this centuries' version of a factory worker. You can be a cog in the wheel (maybe even a moderately well paid one), but nothing more.