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Hard work is requisite, not satisfactory. You can dig ditches in your own yard for 14 hours a day and you aren't going to be successful. Similarly, you can start a business with your $1 million inherited wealth, but it has an extremely high probability of failing without hard work.

>Tell that to the kid making iPhones in the Foxconn facility.

I'm not even sure what your point is. GP was pointing out that competition at every level is fierce. Not sure what that has to do with the Foxconn employee. Are they known for not being competitive?



>Hard work is requisite, not satisfactory.

If you're one of the Rich Kids of Instagram, hard work doesn't seem to play much of a role in their lives.

The point about Foxconn is obvious. How many Foxconn employees have a realistic chance of topping the rich list?

Hard work, like the idea of being a self-made person, is largely a self-serving mythology.

Real hard work is doing the same shitty job for 10-12 hours a day six or seven days a week and earning barely enough to pay the rent.

That's the reality of hard work for much of the population. Fetishising the hard work of the already-rich discounts that ground truth.


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" Real success was family money, and marrying right. He didn't work very hard."

Great point.

There is a good historical example you can see this in the of the current BBC adaption of Winston Grahams series, Poldark. [0] Contrasting aristocratic families surviving by Name (old money and scheming) or by Wit (entrepreneurial graft and hard work) in the 18th century UK, Cornwall.

[0] BFI Q&A with writer Debbie Horsfield and director Ed Bazalgette discussing adaption and research. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsCKYX9-ntw




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