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Study Concludes that Luck, not Talent or Smarts, Results in Wealth

posted by janrinok on Saturday March 03 2018, @11:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-my-luck dept.

Robotron writes:

MIT Tech Review reports on a new study which used computer model to analyze wealth distribution in society. It concludes that the majority of riches do not result from talent, intelligence or hard work - but luck. Those who succeed most in modern society are born well and experience several 'lucky events' which they exploit, but are of mediocre talent. The study's abstract states that the model has potential for encouraging investment in the genuinely gifted, and summarizes:

"...if it is true that some degree of talent is necessary to be successful in life, almost never the most talented people reach the highest peaks of success, being overtaken by mediocre but sensibly luckier individuals. As to our knowledge, this counterintuitive result - although implicitly suggested between the lines in a vast literature - is quantified here for the first time."

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:40AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:40AM (#647477)

    There are many who win more than a million dollars in the lottery and end up broke. Maybe that is because lottery players tend to have bad judgement, but it does give some support to the point that many could have had Trump's head start and ended up with less instead of more.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:14PM (#647606)

    Lottery winners get broke because they are an anomaly in their original social circle, they don't have support network in their new social stratum (as dictated by their new "net worth"), so they just fall off quickly. It's just that they are targeted by everyone.