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Wednesday, December 4. 2019

"A students work for B students at companies founded by D students that are run by C students."

Thanks to reader for reminding me of that old semi-truth. It does apply to me. I know that I am no genius, but I'm smart enough to hire very bright people who can make da business go good.

It's related to this one: "If you're so rich, how come you ain't smart?"

Posted by The Barrister in Quotidian Quotable Quote (QQQ) at 16:08 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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I think that - assuming average or better intelligence:

A students are often too focused on grades and rules at the expense of other things

B students want to be A students but can't quite get there.

C students have interests other than studying. They develop "social skills" and are good people people.

D students are often ADD - and ADD can make for good entrepreneurs. They are not the best to run a company day to day - but are great "idea" people

Just my observation over many years.

#1 jg123 on 2019-12-04 16:27 (Reply)

Reminds me of an old saying in media.
Dad owned a newspaper, and gave it to his oldest son - well educated, well established.
Dad also owned a radio station, as it had come into vogue after the established newspaper became successful, and gave it to his second son, also well-established and well educated.
Dad stumbled into TV toward the end of his life, it was an add-on from radio. He didn't know what to do with it, and gave it to his 3rd son, the playboy layabout. He figured 3rd son wouldn't be able to ruin something which wasn't going to amount to much, anyway.

Problem is, TV station took off and 3rd son wound up wealthier than sons 1 and 2, and now idiot 3rd son is deeply embedded in the internet as well (this being a story I'd hear around 2000), where a bunch of kids are spending his money willy-nilly, living like he did but 'creating' tons of cool stuff. He's basically reliving his youth through them.

It's an oversimplification, but there's also a surprising amount of truth to it, especially if you wandered around some of the incubators back in the late 90's, early 2000s.
Interestingly enough, "Silicon Valley" (if you haven't seen it, I recommend) is kind've a play on this concept. It's a hilarious show if you have the time to watch it.

But a long time ago, I had a good friend who invented a program for the internet - one of the first browsers and one of the first content aggregation services. He sold it for a boatload of money, and has been an incubator ever since. When we'd go out (being single at the time) girls would ask me "is he really smart or something?" I used to say "no, he's actually not that smart at all. He just knows how to make things work and he's a really great guy, so it's easy to see why people want to work with him."

Intelligence rarely equates to wealth. One of the smartest guys I know has a PhD in Philosophy. He's my dad's plumber. Well, I guess he has more wealth than most of us...

#2 Bulldog on 2019-12-04 16:33 (Reply)

It's kind of like the High school athlete. He gets the girls, the attention, is the big shot in school. Goes to college and flunks out. Goes back to his hometown and sells shoes for a living. The A students in high school are treated with kid gloves. If they screw up a test the teacher gives them something that they can do for extra credit. None of the teachers dare fail them or give them a grade that would keep them off the honor roll. Life is easy, everything is easy until they get to real life. Compare with the regular student. Not in the right clique in school, not quite the best student. Someone has to get C's in class so the "honor roll" kids can get A's and not destroy the class average so the regular kids never get the high grades no matter the quality of their work. No scholarships for them, nothing but hard work and no breaks. Makes them tough and determined. Many of these kids through hard work and toughness make something for themselves while the classmates who were handed so much never developed the work ethic and toughness.

#3 OneGuy on 2019-12-04 17:34 (Reply)

Robert Nozick once posed the question, "Why do intellectuals oppose capitalism?" And then wrote an essay giving his explanation. (What follows is an oversimplification of his argument.)

Long story short, the people who become intellectuals are mostly the ones who paid attention in school, did their homework carefully and well, excelled at school-directed tasks, and bathed frequently in oceans of teacher approval.

However, the post-school commercial world has a different standard for rewarding workers. And while intellectuals are often rewarded pretty well, they don't get showered with oceans of cash as large and deep as the teacher approval of yesteryear.

So they develop a pout, and instead of appreciating what they do receive — and recognizing that the world isn't the classroom — they childishly take out their disappointment on the entire world of commerce, i.e. capitalism.

https://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/why-do-intellectuals-oppose-capitalism

(Remember I warned that I was oversimplying.)

#4 PubliusII on 2019-12-04 22:09 (Reply)

This is part of the dynamic behind Trump Derangement Syndrome among those who jumped through the credentialing loops of government bureaucracy.

#5 Ben David on 2019-12-05 04:58 (Reply)

Trump and the popular forces that elected him directly threaten the Deep State's iron rice bowl. This will be a fight to the death with no-quarter-given.

#5.1 PubliusII on 2019-12-05 09:13 (Reply)

This is just a more complicated statement of a truism: good business people hire people who are smarter than them.

#6 Ken in NH on 2019-12-05 11:18 (Reply)

If the A students are so smart, why aren't they rich?

Because the A students are smart enough to realize that the D students who started the company have ulcers, and headaches and no time off.

Mean while the D students are paying for the A students vacations to the Carib.

And the A students are making good investments, and will retire comfortably rich.

#7 Bill Adams on 2019-12-05 11:26 (Reply)

That's not what I've seen.
There is a sweet spot of small-to-medium businesses whose owners have a lot more satisfaction and seem more genuine and unaffected, and in our generation are often more connected to a real community.

OTOH I know a lot of neurotic academics, alienated programmers, and workaholic lawyers. Many highly educated people caught up in virtual rather than actual living - the modern curse.

#7.1 Ben David on 2019-12-06 02:32 (Reply)

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