Ask HN: If you're so smart how come you're not rich?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23395689

by SMAAART • 6 years ago

78 79 6 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Does anyone else feel this way?

I don't know about you, but I am smart. I know I'm smart, I am told that I am smart, I do smart things but . . . I am also old, and all my life I have worked (mostly) for people who were not smart as me, and somehow they:

* were my boss

* had a better/faster career

* or .... they owned the company

I am old now, but I can still kick some ass, and that's what my intention is.

When I was younger I was:

* insecure: some of that shit still lingers.

* anxious: yeah, this is related to the shit above, but I wanted to highlight it. And while I am over it, some of that shit still lingers

* more smarterer #LOL

* more courageous, in a way. Now that I am less anxious and more secure, I seem to have lost the hump!

Any tips for me how to overcome the snart-complex, kick my own ass, and start making money?

tirrellp2• 6 years ago

Depending on your financial situation, you could Buy an old line company and digitize it.

In the US, If you can get 500k from friends and family, you can buy a $5m company with a strong balance sheet and strong cash flow. It will give you a live Petri dish to test your ideas on how to do things better.

raarts• 6 years ago

get 500k from friends and family

You do realize this does not apply to 99.9% of the population right?

anm892• 6 years ago

How would you go about finding that and financing it?

tirrellp2• 6 years ago

There are business brokers who play that role, as well as microcap sell-side investment banks. The SBA will loan up to $5m if you can come up with 10% down payment.

quickthrower22• 6 years ago

So no business or leadership experience just buy a company, will all go well?

askafriend2• 6 years ago

It's so easy a caveman can do it!

elliekelly• 6 years ago

It’s almost as if there isn’t any correlation at all between wealth and intelligence...

SMAAART2• 6 years ago

This is what I found by Googling around:

If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance.

The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms. Taking that into account can maximize return on many kinds of investment.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/03/01/144958/if-youre-...

biolurker13• 6 years ago

But none of the self made billionaires is low in IQ. So this is a given and you need luck too. People dismissing success with luck are wrong.

burntoutfire• 6 years ago

Assuming "smart" means 90th percentile of intelligence, there are 700 million smart people, way more that rich people. It shows that obviously wealth creation requires much more than intelligence.

giantg2• 6 years ago

Because I'm really not THAT smart, nor are most people (IQ standard distribution).

I think there have been studies and books done about successful people (can't remember the authors). The book basically said that luck is the main influence. There are plenty of smart people who aren't rich and certainly some average people who are. I want to say the experts consider luck to be less than 10% of the success formula.

lmiller1990• 6 years ago

A lot of people will say “it is just luck” but I think this is just one factor.

The real question is what moves have you made to get rich? Have you started making a product? You cannot ride (perceived) intelligent to riches.

leff_f• 6 years ago

I can feel your pain, feeling of not getting what you deserve is a tough feeling to keep inside.

By identifying ourselves as being smart we are getting into the trap of being hostages of this label. Lot of scenarios in our life require us to make mistakes. Mistake is something a smart person cannot afford and deliberately avoids.

We are awarding ourselves with an achievement award of being smart without actually doing the work (doesn't it feel great to be smart?). Being smart is a capacity to think logically, not something we achieved in life. It is given, but to feel fulfilled we need to do something with it.

By declaring myself smart I set the scale of measurement for myself, and then I suffer when somebody smarter than me is around. Understanding that even my intellect is not something that defines me is a crucial piece of this puzzle. Intellect is one of the MANY tools available to each one of us. Exploring those tools requires some .... testing and learning, and intellect is a very lousy helper here.

And if you really want to focus on the money in your life - look at the people around you. Money come from the relationship with the people around us not from the ideas, thoughts, reasoning. Knowing you strength and focusing on helping people - producing much better outcome long term than focusing on a great idea.

So as you said - time to kick your own ass! ;)

Hope this was useful.

AndyBK• 6 years ago

Ticks all of the right boxes!!

billconan• 6 years ago

what I learned is that successful people know how to leverage resources to achieve their goals.

smart people focus only on polishing their own skills, but that doesn't scale.

tluyben23• 6 years ago

Yep, it is what I still have to fight against; ‘this is going too slow, let me do it!’. If you cannot do it yourself, you won’t even attempt, which seems much more relaxed in many ways.

robocat• 6 years ago

My tip: partner up with someone who wants money, and that you know has the skills to make it, and has the ethics to share profits with you. Steve Wozniak might be an example of someone who did that.

The smart people I know that are not rich because of one of two prime reasons:

1. They are not wealthy because they are not driven to make money. The scientist, the stereotypicial engineer, the altruist. The majority of self-made wealth I have seen is due to a real desire to make money, and work hard at it with little regard to other concerns like how enjoyable or prestigious the work is.

2. They are smart in particular areas, but really let themselves down in others. Maybe they can’t work well with others, maybe they intellectually can’t do sales, maybe they don’t keep motivation to work on a winning thing, maybe they gamble or drink, maybe they have psych issues.

Note that there are plenty of exceptions to the above (gain wealth despite the above, or lose it even with the above).

Finally plenty of smart people just don’t value money that highly - they are smart enough to have different goals in life. My guess is you want money for the social status but that you don’t actually care much about money - if so maybe accept that and choose your own path.

ptmcc4• 6 years ago

Define rich?

By most metrics I am rich, just not private jet 0.1% rich.

I work at a big tech company and make >200k/yr. I have few financial worries.

At this point I’m not primarily motivated by more money. Sure I’ll take it, but at this point I’d sooner spend my time and energy on other more important things. Family, friends, hobbies, etc. The financial security to focus on those things makes me feel pretty rich.

Am I not smart for being satisfied working for someone else and rarely working more than 40hrs/wk?

federicosan• 6 years ago

For me, rich is someone who does not need to work. Someone who can retire at any given moment.

ptmcc4• 6 years ago

The irony being many people get to that position by being workaholics that can’t stop.

I could conceivably retire if I moved to a low cost area, but I enjoy my lifestyle so will keep at it a bit longer.

mfalcon4• 6 years ago

When I was in my twenties, I used to think about getting enough money in order to retire young. Then I realized that I actually enjoy working and I don't see myself sitting on my ass doing nothing.

What I want is enough money to say no to work I don't really like, enough money for allowing me to choose what to do with more liberty.

muzani2• 6 years ago

Honestly I never saw the appeal in this.

I call it the Disney princess effect - most of them are rich enough to not work, but they end up lost and drafted into things that are bigger than themselves. They end up working harder than anyone.

Maybe a rich person is someone who has enough that their priority is not personal wealth.

Also under that definition, developing nations are richer than developed nations, as developed nations have earlier retirement ages, shorter working hours, less debt, and more financial security.

throws55432• 6 years ago

In that case, a monk, a survivalist, or even a homeless person are rich.

_qulr• 6 years ago

The reason you're not rich is probably because you didn't single-mindedly pursue riches. Which is smart, because riches are not intellectually interesting. Some money is necessary for living, but the pursuit of wealth above all else is, frankly, dumb. Don't envy people who are addicted to money; it's a sickness.

comeondude• 6 years ago

Start loving yourself.

Have you ever fell in love to the point where you’d do anything for that person and that person can do no wrong in your eyes?

Make that person yourself.

Takes practice!

QuixoticQuibit• 6 years ago

This provided some much needed perspective. Thank you.

UK-Al05• 6 years ago

Smarts gets you to be upper middle class.

Taking on a lot of risk, pushing yourself to the limit gets you to be rich.

rramadass• 6 years ago

Well said!

Also add in a whole lot of luck.

brmgb• 6 years ago

Realistically being born rich get you to be rich.

But I agree that the main thing separating an employee from a founder is that one actually started a business. I disagree about the whole pushing yourself to the limit thing however. If you found a business or try to build a career, you are in it for the long haul. Sustained effort is what you need.

Generally when I see people complain about things they haven't achieved, I see two problems: posture and outlook. Posture is simple: if you want things to happen, you have to stop waiting for them to happen and actually take step to make them happen.

In my opinion, outlook is generally the main problem however. Just stop casting a bad light on what you have already done and put forward the good the part instead. Enjoy what you have achieved and start working on what you want to do next. What's done is done anyway. Also it's easier to convince people to do things with you when you have a positive outlook.

Anyway, if you are pondering why something didn't happen to you, unless you are looking for the reasons you failed in order to improve, you are most likely asking the wrong question. Start looking forward rather than backward.

gadders• 6 years ago

>Realistically being born rich get you to be rich.

I think this is true, but not in the obvious "Your parents will give you money" or "Your social network will help you" but for (having grown up poor and now doing OK) it's the implicit safety net that allows you to take risks that allow you win (or lose!) big.

noxer• 6 years ago

Realistically being born rich get you to be rich.

I rather think being born rich gives you a different risk tolerance and that raises your chance of becoming rich(er).

meiraleal• 6 years ago

I started too poor to be too rich, but from a very poor family and no support and background I currently belong to the 5% people making more money in my country, so although I'm not rich as private jet rich, I bootstrapped myself from poverty to a high quality standard of life.

nunez• 6 years ago

Because I'm not feeling risky enough to try for it...yet. I'm not feeling risky enough because our life is pretty good as it is. Our life is pretty good as is because we don't have to worry about finances, as my job pays incredibly well.

kleer001• 6 years ago

Intelligence isn't the limiting factor to economic success. One can be smart and lazy.

Conscientiousness is the limiting factor to economic success.

One doesn't need to be very smart, just lucky enough to get the opportunities, smart enough to recognize them, and hard enough working to follow through.

m463• 6 years ago

The world average median income seems to be about $10,000.

biolurker13• 6 years ago

Doesn't matter if you live in HCOL

imhoguy2• 6 years ago

You mean yearly or lifetime?

rapjr9• 6 years ago

Fear of patents and lawsuits has often prevented me from pursuing an idea. It's difficult to find related work in patents, and anybody can start a lawsuit. Many patents are vague and way too general and can be used against you even if you think they're about something totally unrelated to what you're doing. I've made several attempts to start a business and it's scary exposing yourself to the public in that way. Marketing is also really difficult, you are literally competing with millions of other voices trying to get yours heard. Getting rich also often seems to require a willingness to climb on the backs of other people, to use them to their disadvantage to advantage yourself which I found I didn't want to do. Part of being a climber is pulling other people down, and that seems like a bad way to live. There are exceptions to all these, but many of them are typically encountered when starting a business. To get really rich it seems to me that you either have to inherit, be lucky, or be really mean and dirty.

gassiss• 6 years ago

I used to feel this way as well. Until I realized that my way of living would be no different being multi millionaire vs how much I make now, except with bigger numbers in the screen of my bank account(s).

Making millions takes a lot of hard work. I'd rather work on my hobbies.

theonemind• 6 years ago

Smart doesn't really get you that much. I compare it to height for a basketball player. Realistically, you're not gonna make NBA if you're not over 6' tall, but that's just the buy in. After that, it's just grueling hard work, and everyone else is 6'+ as well.

So, as a first step, count intelligence as nothing more than a (very) rough constraint on what you might possibly accomplish, but nothing more. It covers the ante, but not the hand.

murm• 6 years ago

This is a good comparison. Just because you were born with genes that make you 6' tall does not mean that the world should somehow automatically lay itself out in front of you. You can try to make it in the NBA, but you're still going to work like hell because you're competing against all the other people who also happened to be born with those tall genes. Ditto for intelligence.

muzani2• 6 years ago

I say it's luck. Marc Andreessen wrote a nice blog on this: https://pmarchive.com/luck_and_the_entrepreneur.html

People think a lot about the luck they can't control but there are plenty of ways to harvest luck.

Smart will let you do harder things with less effort. Smart lets you question yourself and what you're doing wrong.

Motion gives you luck. Meet new people, try new things. Don't just optimize for most income, but use your smartness to move faster and further than everyone else. Build 10,000 prototypes. Try new hobbies. Read bigger and thicker books. Reread the same books you have.

Being prepared gives you more luck. Some of the best discoveries were organized messes. Edison discovered the light bulb experimenting with everything - animal hair, 6000 vegetable growths, and finally got it with tungsten. Smart people tend to give up earlier and be neater.

And the last type of luck just happens to you. A friend just offers you a great job. Your first freelancing contract. Getting a hot date to ask you out first. A friend of mine made music as a full time job and worked on 3D game engines as a hobby, and got a dream job doing music for the game industry. This all seems like luck, because it's an unplanned result, but it's the overflow of hard work.

Smart people are a little obsessed with trying to link results directly to an action. To really succeed, you have to keep putting energy and focus into something, even when progress plateaus.

anm892• 6 years ago

I mean are you aggressively focused on pointing your intelligence in the direction of accumulating wealth?

If you are and it's not working then you probably aren't as smart as you think you are.

If that's not what you are optimizing for, be that lifestyle, or pursuit of interests, then there is no reason to expect the two to be correlated.

biolurker13• 6 years ago

That's quite simplistic view on a super complex network

alexmingoia• 6 years ago

First decide what you want and then commit to achieving it.

If you don’t want to work for a boss, then you have to start your own business or work for yourself.

If you want to make more money then you have to decide how much and change your job to accommodate that.

nullgeo• 6 years ago

I think I am smart but I am lazy, and I have this unquenchable thirst for knowledge. I rabbit-hole into things and never completely finish a project that I start. I have so many abandoned GitHub repos that might have panned out if I had put focus and effort into them. So I think my lack of motivation and interest could be a factor in me not getting rich.

But I am happy with my 9-5 job that provides enough to take care of the people I love.

ineedausername• 6 years ago

Cause I'm risk-averse and lazy.

Raed667• 6 years ago

Luck, connections and social environment and opportunities. Most of the above average people that I know and that have it really-well had a lot of bootstrap family money and safety nets that allowed them to be "courageous".

brookshalladay• 6 years ago

First, being smart has little relation to riches. It can be a liability. Why? Because there are dozens of other factors that are way more important. Other people have listed many of them. By framing this the way you did, says a lot. I have been there too though so don't feel bad. Getting rich is a bit of a mystery and an art.

Here's some qualities or skills that can be key based on my experience: emotional intelligence, team building, strategy, understanding people, networking, solving real human problems, marketing, desire and determination, risk taking, timing, luck, commitment, likability, confidence, purpose, leadership, finance, understanding markets and trends, design, branding, execution (endless work and crazy hours), speed, connections to people with money... it goes on and on. You can't really have all of these so in the end, you have to work with people that do and figure out which you need to develop.

We all have ego. Ego tells us how smart and great we are to ourselves. It discounts other people, their qualities, blinds us to where we really need to improve, etc. It is the enemy of progress 80% of the time. We all really know a lot less than we think. The world is complex, changes, and moves fast. Starting out with average intelligence, but a commitment to learning aggressively and meeting people and treating them well is 1000X better place to start. Doors open for that person.

There are multiple ways to get rich. But most revolve around business. Businesses are almost never run or created by smart engineers or super technical people. It just so happens that most of us are in technology so it seems like it. But in reality, there's millions of businesses out there that make unbelievable money that have nothing to do with tech. Even tech companies need a lot of people with different qualities other than engineering or simply smart people.

Other ways to at least do well while working a regular job: investing, real estate, side hustles, saving money, etc. In the past 20 years, if I put more aside into stocks and real estate I would easily have $1.5M to $2M. Hitting base hits consistently is often the way to go.

I always have wanted to get rich to solve the money problem. It won't happen until I focus on adding real value to other people. It can't be about me. Which also means it can't really be about getting rich. That can only be one underlying motivating factor but primarily it has to shift into focusing on others.

askafriend2• 6 years ago

You don't make money by being smart. You make money by taking on risk, being smart, executing well, and getting lucky among 100 other things.

If you think intelligence alone can get you there, you're about to be in a world of pain down the road.

imhoguy2• 6 years ago

I am smart. I know I'm smart, I am told that I am smart, I do smart things...

and I guess you are risk-averse and try to behave predictable the entire life to not loose that smartness badge in some crazy venture. Following the safest path won't let you step on the edge to reach something unknown.

SMAAART2• 6 years ago

and I guess you are risk-averse and try to behave predictable the entire life to not loose that smartness badge in some crazy venture. Following the safest path won't let you step on the edge to reach something unknown.

You nailed it!

docflabby• 6 years ago

The simple answer is you are not as smart as you think you are. If you were you would already have worked out the answer to this question.

Most people overestimate their own intelligence. The majority of people think they are smarter than average.

WheelsAtLarge• 6 years ago

Getting rich when you have nothing often takes patience and long term planning.

Look around you all the self-made titans have built their wealth over decades. They decided where they could best make an impact and they made a plan and followed through relentlessly. We see the result but we don't see the sleepless days, the never-ending meetings, the ability to stay focused and on and on, not just for days or weeks but for years. Also, you need to lead many people to the same goal. Do you that successfully and you'll be rewarded with lots of money.

Most people burn out early, even if they are motivated, or can't get others to follow.

Smarts is only a small part of the solution.

Example: Let's say you come up with the greatest solution to a problem but if you are the only one that knows it then it has no value to anyone. You have to let people know through the creation of an organization. And you have to convince them that it really is a great solution that they need to use.

klambda• 6 years ago

PG commented recently "if you do creative work, try to avoid situations where people with less ability than you can tell you what to do, or edit your work". It expands to getting rich.

5ociety• 6 years ago

Well the game is rigged. If you're so smart why are you in prison. You have to get crazy because yeah they're dumber but they are playing a different game. You forget you are smarter than idk 70, 80, 90, 95% of people. Once I started thinking that way things started making more sense and I stopped caring what people think while I'm on my path. Take some risks. Who cares what they think. You won't get there playing by their rules. The purpose of their rules is to turn you into a tool.

thedevindevops• 6 years ago

There is no gene for fate - Gattaca (1997)

runjake• 6 years ago

No, because smart does not equate to rich[1].

I could be rich. I know what is required, but I actively choose not to put in that work and make those sacrifices.

Why not? Because I'm choosing other things like family and peace of mind. I reckon if I could keep those, I'd move forward.

Regarding your fear and insecurity: you're going to die sooner rather than later. You have virtually nothing to lose and a lot to regret.

1. In reality I make low six figures and am privileged to be "richer" than I ever thought I'd be.

austincheney• 6 years ago

Does anyone else feel this way?

No.

Once you have spent time in a third works country you can see crisp divides in reality and expectations. There are some amazingly smart people in the world living without running water, food security, or basic sanitation. Intelligence alone will not transform that poverty into excess wealth.

Once you have worked for a major government or committed yourself to science/academics you will understand that there is amazing genius intelligence that is not earning stupendous wealth. Peter Thiel has commented before about his complete inability to understand that which says more about Peter than anything else.

Honestly, according to numerous data sources most wealth comes from only two places: inheritance and narcissism. There are company founders/athletes/entertainers who are incredibly successful that are not primarily self-serving whether by favorable market conditions or their own ingenuity but they are a minority data sample after accounting for distribution of wealth by headcount quantity.

That said, a better question is: Why are you still wealthy?

hejja• 6 years ago

to answer this question we have to ask what smart even means.

if it means you can "figure stuff out at work" congrats, you can follow instructions in a structured, specialist environment.

to become legitimately "rich", however, in most cases you have to own part of a business.

and in the world of entrepreneurship, you have to be much more of a generalist, as there are 10 different factors (sales, product, timing, pricing) you must all get right.

I can virtually guarantee you the best person at math in the world is not rich, because they have gone full specialist to get to that point, and therefore cannot succeed outside of an extremely structured environment.

"Range, Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World" by David Epstein is a great book on this topic.

fullStackOasis• 6 years ago

How much money do you want to make?

Sometimes, I do wonder why I'm not rich, even though I'm smart in many ways. But I really know the answer. I haven't actually tried to get rich, because I don't value that very much. I try to maximize my time for things that make me happy. So it's not really a mystery that I'm not "rich" (a relative term).

Ask HN: If you're so smart how come you're not rich?

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