
68% of the Sons of the 1% Work at Their Dad's Company - pullo
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/11/68-sons-1-work-their-dads-company/45115/
======
mc32
How is that not common sense?

If someone's dad had a company, it would be very strange if at least one of
their offspring didn't join the entreprise at some point.

I don't think most companies formed by the 1% are public, so it's more or less
logical someone in the family would be groomed to run part of it or take over.

Look at Asia where lots and lots of family run business are run this way too.
It's more or less "normal".

~~~
corin_
And it's not just common sense for the 1%. Plenty of sons will go into their
father's company, for example mechanics, whatever. It's just that a higher
proportio of company owners in the 1% than the 99%.

------
fleitz
It's also not a bad idea to follow in your father's footsteps if what he did
was amazingly successful. Also, keep in mind that if getting that new Mercedes
or the size of your trust fund depends on following what your dad says it
could be a significant point of leverage.

------
goo
The included graph is an excellent example of graph distortion. One of the fun
things about graphs is that they can be incredibly deceptive. This is one of
those examples -- "Hey, let's make the bottom of the graph the normal percent,
whatever that is, and then stretch it out so the top of the graph is the
percent we're trying to highlight as abnormal"

Furthermore, mc32 nails it on the head by mentioning the disproportion of the
self-employed in the 1%. I think a more revealing statistic would be, among
those who run companies, which percentage of their children work with them at
some point. With that filter in place, effect of wealth on that would be far
more interesting, and I think the effect will be much much less, and perhaps
even negatively correlated.

~~~
mokin
If the axes are labelled, it ain't deceptive IMHO. Setting a graph like that
gives you more detail where it's needed.

------
endtime
This is a little misleading (the headline is a lot misleading). FTA:

>The researchers found that 68 percent of the sons of top-percentile income
earners have at some point by the time they're age 33 taken a job at a firm
[at which] their father also worked. That's significantly higher than the 55
percent rate for the sons of the second-highest percentile of earners and the
40 percent average for all income levels.

There are fewer industries (and fewer total companies) that compensate someone
at the 99th percentile than there are that do so at lower income levels. So by
something similar to the pigeonhole principle, you're going to have more high
earners with overlapping career paths, including when said high earners happen
to be father and son.

I've had internships at various places - a startup, AMD, Goldman Sachs,
Microsoft, and NASA. I started a company in grad school and now work for
Google. My dad happened to work for Goldman for much of his career, so
technically I contribute to this statistic (I'm not in the 1%, but my dad is).
But my dad's being at Goldman had absolutely nothing to do with my internship
there (I applied initially without his knowledge, got through the interviews
like anyone else, worked in a different division, etc.). There was no nepotism
involved; it's almost coincidental that one of the many companies I've worked
for happened to be one of the ones my dad also worked for.

------
neilc
The HN title is inaccurate. The article's claim is:

 _The researchers found that 68 percent of the sons of top-percentile income
earners have at some point by the time they're age 33 taken a job at a firm
their father also worked._

The statistic is whether sons have _ever_ worked at _any_ firm that their
father has ever worked for. Not the same as "68% of sons work at their dad's
company."

~~~
pullo
I apologize for any perceived distortion, I just copied the article's original
title.

------
dedward
If I'm a high income earning father, that means I'm successful and I'm going
to want to pass that on to my kids, and whether i Own the company or jus thane
lots of pull there, getting my id in there for a while is certainly something
I would try to do.

I'm not in the top 1%, but I certainly hope to educate my son and should the
opportunity ever arise for me to give him a good job, I would, as would any
parent. This is how it SHOULD be.

------
danielamitay
This conclusion of nepotism assumes that the propensity for a son to follow in
their father’s footsteps is independent of industry.

Aside from being an assumption that shouldn’t be made, it can’t possibly be
true.

The industry of the top 1% and the skill sets required are completely
different from those of the other 99%.

------
zephyrfalcon
The article explicitly talks about "sons". What about the daughters?

