> You are really ignoring that I put smart before hard.
chuckle. Well, I'm sure that will cheer up the kiddies: "I guess you just don't deserve a house, because you aren't smart enough."
> I am kinda surprised someone could have been in tech for > 10 years and not have significant savings,
That'll cheer up the kiddies too :-) "Wow, what's wrong with you; I can't believe you don't have anything to show for your 4 years in college and 20 years working for the man....how is that even possible? I guess you just didn't have what it takes..."
After such words of encouragement, I'm feeling better already :-) chuckle I don't want to pillory you, but I hope you might consider the possibility that canceling Tik-Tok isn't going to be some magic bullet to cheer up the youth.
I've had my fair share of success and failure--its just that the successes were sooooo much easier than the failures. If the team is right, the product-market fit is right, and its an idea whose time has come, the whole universe seems to be pulling for you. Yes, you are humping, but it's because you are like a kid on an easter egg hunt, and want to pick up as many easter eggs as you can!
But what if there're no easter eggs in the field? I.e. if the economy is down, they laid off all the people who actually know how the code works, the ones who are left introduce 5 bugs for every 1 bug they fix..
...it's like trying to paddle a boat upstream vs downstream. Yes, some factors are in your control, and you should make sure those are taken care of.
But by far the lion's share of success comes from things entirely out of your control:
* What country were you born in?
* Did you have teachers who cared?
* Could your parents pay for college, or did you start off $100k in debt?
* Did you avoid coming down with multiple sclerosis, or having a drunk driver plow into you, etc so you never had any long-term health problems?
* Did the president of the united state just spend $3 trillion of your dollars on an oil war which gave us absolutely nothing in return?
* Did those jerks on wall street detonate the economy again?
* Did the president cut taxes for everybody else but you, and finance it literally by printing money, bloating the money supply, and inevitably resulting in increasing the debt by $8.5 trillion and sparking the worst inflation we've seen since the OPEC crisis?
* And is he just going to get away with trying to steal your vote, so what little say you still have have will also be taken away?
The kids have a legitimate beef. You are not going to "work smarter, and harder" your way out of this.
The idea that “working hard and smart leads to success” is “toxic” in so. Any ways one of which you’ve explained. The other is how it leads successful people to (often falsely) believe that their success is mainly attributable to their hard work and intellect, and assume moral superiority over other less successful people.
Somehow it eludes people that while “hard” work and “being smart” is generally a virtue, there’s often situations in life where one can’t consciously control the outcome.
Instead of (implicitly?) measuring the virtue (or even “worth”) of people by how successful they are, perhaps society as a whole should start recognizing that most people probably already gave their best regardless of eventual outcome, and while some might be more “lucky” than others by some metrics, in the end we are all human beings and everyone deserves the same level of respect.
chuckle. Well, I'm sure that will cheer up the kiddies: "I guess you just don't deserve a house, because you aren't smart enough."
> I am kinda surprised someone could have been in tech for > 10 years and not have significant savings,
That'll cheer up the kiddies too :-) "Wow, what's wrong with you; I can't believe you don't have anything to show for your 4 years in college and 20 years working for the man....how is that even possible? I guess you just didn't have what it takes..."
After such words of encouragement, I'm feeling better already :-) chuckle I don't want to pillory you, but I hope you might consider the possibility that canceling Tik-Tok isn't going to be some magic bullet to cheer up the youth.
I've had my fair share of success and failure--its just that the successes were sooooo much easier than the failures. If the team is right, the product-market fit is right, and its an idea whose time has come, the whole universe seems to be pulling for you. Yes, you are humping, but it's because you are like a kid on an easter egg hunt, and want to pick up as many easter eggs as you can!
But what if there're no easter eggs in the field? I.e. if the economy is down, they laid off all the people who actually know how the code works, the ones who are left introduce 5 bugs for every 1 bug they fix..
...it's like trying to paddle a boat upstream vs downstream. Yes, some factors are in your control, and you should make sure those are taken care of.
But by far the lion's share of success comes from things entirely out of your control:
* What country were you born in?
* Did you have teachers who cared?
* Could your parents pay for college, or did you start off $100k in debt?
* Did you avoid coming down with multiple sclerosis, or having a drunk driver plow into you, etc so you never had any long-term health problems?
* Did the president of the united state just spend $3 trillion of your dollars on an oil war which gave us absolutely nothing in return?
* Did those jerks on wall street detonate the economy again?
* Did the president cut taxes for everybody else but you, and finance it literally by printing money, bloating the money supply, and inevitably resulting in increasing the debt by $8.5 trillion and sparking the worst inflation we've seen since the OPEC crisis?
* And is he just going to get away with trying to steal your vote, so what little say you still have have will also be taken away?
The kids have a legitimate beef. You are not going to "work smarter, and harder" your way out of this.