In 2004 I was in Brazil, walking down the hill in Lapa to get some lunch. I was with a friend who I had met in the hostel I was staying – his name was Ofer. We were having a discussion about intelligence, and what role it plays in success.
Then out of the side of the road stepped a man. He was holding a knife in one hand and a bottle in the other hand. He spoke to us in fast portugese, clearly asking us to hand over the things we held. I stood there, not very sure what to do. Ofer started speaking quickly to the man, telling the man not to rob us. What you have to know about Ofer is that he had been an Israeli soldier. He hated violence of any form, but he knew how to be violent. The man threw the bottle on the floor and it broke into pieces, he picked up the bottle and lunged at us. I ran a short distance off, and Ofer stood there and dodged the man, all the while talking to him. The man attacked several times, and each time Ofer just moved aside. Then finally, Ofer kicked the weapons out of the guys hands, punched him, and he fell. He then told me to run, and we ran down the hill to the restaurant. We sat there and he continued what we had spoken about. He said: That demonstrates what I mean. The man with the knife did not know how to use that knife. If he had been as trained in knife fighting as I was in hand combat, he would have been able to destroy me. But he had a tool that he felt gave him an advantage, but it’s nothing compared to a person who has no tool, but has worked to develop what he has. Intelligence is like a knife. If you are intelligent, you are at a clear advantage against people who are not intelligent. But if you are intelligent, and another person is not as intelligent, but the other person is willing to train harder than you, the other person will very quickly overtake you in ability. How your intelligence will destroy youPeople who are born intelligent start off life with everything easy for them. They don’t have to work hard to get good grades, they never really have to do much to get ahead. The major challenge of early life is school – and school is designed for average people. So intelligent people just breeze through. But there is a point where every intelligent person faces something that requires more than intelligence. It requires hard work, it requires the ability to fail, it requires being able to do tough tasks, boring tasks. For the first time in their life, in spite of their intelligence, these intelligent people are challenged, and they start failing. Like when they first attempt to create a startup. And that’s where most of them retreat. They focus on things they can’t fail on, and ignore the other important things. They start to blame other things (like the school system). They procrastinate. They refuse to face new problems because they know they will not be able to handle them, and this does not fit into their worldview that they are invincible. Let me tell another story. In 2007, I had dinner with the father of my girlfriend in Paris. He is currently a vice president at one of the top 5 consulting companies in the world. He is a jewish french immigrant from Morroco – he came in the 70s to France with no money and no connections, and he made it up to become Vice President, even though he studied to be an engineer. I asked him: How did you do it? How did you start from being an immigrant to become executive material? He told me: I got this far because I’m intelligent. He continued: But there were many many people as intelligent as I am who graduated together with me. They are still engineers right now. The difference between me and them is that when I arrived, I knew that I did not have family here in france, I did not have connections. And I knew there were a lot of other people as intelligent as I was, and who had all these advantages. The only way to be successful then would be to gain a slight advantage over them – I had to work and train harder than they did, I had to get to know more people than they did, I had to learn more about more things that they did. We started off equals, but at some point all the effort I put in started to pay off, and where they stopped improving themselves, I continued, and I got better and better. Where they were afraid to try new things because they would fail, I tried and I got better and knew more, till I was good enough for the job I hold now. How this relates to you
Being intelligent is like having a knife. If you train every day in using the knife, you will be invincible. If you think that just having a knife will make you win any battle you fight, then you will fail. This believe in your own inherent ability is what will kill your startup. Success comes from the work and ability you put in becoming better than the others, and not from some brilliance you feel you may have within you.
So don’t believe that the brilliance of your idea is what will make you successful. What will make you successful is when you are out there every day, doing something new, challenging yourself, trying new methods, studying new ways, having a lot of small failures, then getting better every day.
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Thanks, I like your article very much, reading from Hacker News.
Very well put. Also reading from HN.
Great article, and it really rings true! It’s always 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration. A great example of this is Micheal Hansen, the Danish founder of DubLi.
“…but it’s nothing compared to a person who has no tool, but has worked to develop what he has.” – You say all in this phrase. Inteligence and talents are important, but when it are allied with efforts in everything that we do, are better.
Very interesting, hard work, attitude and focus will always pay off maybe notin the short time but it will come in the end.
I’m verry sorry, but if you think school is easy for intelligent children, you aren’t very intelligent. If a startup is a lot of boring and repetitive stuff (which I think we agree on), than intelligent people are very prepared for that at the time they leave school. They might stop doing the startup because they hoped to find more challenge though… those types are probably better of as a professor somewhere.
Very engaging intro to a great message. Excellent article!
Your article and stories are well-written, easy to read, and interesting.
Very insightful and a different perspective than you usually see offered.
Kind of shines a more sinister light on all those cliche stories like “Teacher discovers if he pretends the class is gifted, they really become gifted”
@pj you lost your credibility when you used “than” instead of then “then”
Refusing to hand over your money when threatened at knifepoint in Brazil is definitely not an example of intelligence…
True. Hard work is the equalizer.
Interesting read. I see this every day in many of the people I work with. (I came from Popurls.)
No, Jason Comely, hard work is not the equalizer. Think about the startup people who believe they are intelligent, and spend all their time on technical problems and split-testing. They may be working hard all the time, but on the wrong things.The guts to examine what you’re working on, determine if it’s the most effective thing, to admit to yourself whether you’re just playing it safe or not, and *then* working hard on those conclusions, is the equalizer.Max, fantastic essay. I’ve been trying to find a way to express this very idea and you hit it on the head.
By the way, it’s been my experience that people who are totally convinced of their own intelligence are the easiest to trick and lead with simple persuasion tactics. They are also best at fooling themselves. Because they are sure that, since they are so smart, if they think it, it must be true.
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” – Thomas Edison
I agree that it is necessary to train your intelligence, great article reminding us all of that.I just wanted to point out that from a neurology standpoint people are not “born” intelligent. Intelligence is elusive and not explicitly coded into the DNA. Intelligence is made, most likely by intelligent parents/mentors/peers.
Amy, you just made my point. Thanks. Nice to meet you
You are missing one great parameter in this equation. Laziness. See, for the past 20 years I have been balancing between the (semi)intelligent and the (semi)skilled. And the factor which greatly influenced my success (as well as my failure, sometimes!) was the laziness. Here is why: I am lazy, and I don’t like to work hard. This is a fact. But in the same time I love to get things done, and I like even more to get credit. So, what I trained myself to do is to work hard for a short period of time in order to find a shortcut or some good way to get things done in half of the time with one hand.
In general, I do believe that laziness is what drives the mankind forward. If people weren’t lazy they wouldn’t have even invented the wheel yet.
That reasoning wasn’t very intelligent. So you should be safe.
Great article with a very good point. Thank you.I noticed this when I got involved in a small school, and concluded that intelligent kids needed help learning what it’s like to struggle if they aren’t to fail completely the first time they encounter something in the real world which isn’t susceptible to intelligence. Insisting they take physical or practical classes, and take them seriously, does a lot of good. That also helps them learn what it’s like not to be best in the class, which is a good thing socially.
Thank you for writing this. I spent most of my childhood being told that I was smart but not as smart as my siblings. As an adult I have an advanced degree and a good job while they are all still struggling with college (one dropped out of high school). I feel a bit more justified in my determination that hard work was more important than any biological edge they had.
A corollary to this is that intelligence many times begets ego. People who have had easy success before often believe they *should* be good at everything. Oftentimes it’s not only work, but the humility to understand what you’re _not_ good at, to either work harder on that, or delegate that function to someone more qualified.
“By the way, it’s been my experience that people who are totally convinced of their own intelligence are the easiest to trick and lead with simple persuasion tactics. They are also best at fooling themselves. Because they are sure that, since they are so smart, if they think it, it must be true.”One look at the political scene in the US today shows the fatuity of this statement…methinks the writer is hoisted by their own petard?
Not at all, Cousin. The people you’re referring to are not convinced that they are intelligent the way *you’d* say it, but I’m quite positive if you investigated, you’d find that they believe that they “know it when they see it” and “know what’s right” and so on. They are sure that if something resonates with them, that it is right.Same exact effect. The definition of “intelligence” is splitting hairs. It’s the surety of self-regard that is at issue.
CousinFromAnotherPlanet, there is a class of very smart people who are bad at social things and a class of very egotistical people who think they’re very smart for whom that statement is relatively valid. Not all very smart people are terrible at being social though. That’s a nasty stereotype.
As much as I’d like this story to inspire me, I think what you describe a positive but exceptional examples. By and large, I think that if you start on top you end up on top. The odds are simply against you, and the exceptions only confirm the rules. Look at the economic background of the most successful people, successful in whichever way you wish to define success, and you will see that most of them come if not from affluent families than at least from several generations of middle-class life. It’s not just the ability and perseverance, it’s also the things and status you inherit.
wonderful, worth reading…
Isn’t the point that most people think they’re smart (or smarter than they are)…we humans have a proven tendency to exaggerate our abilities. I personally think the article is absurdly simplistic although the take-away point – success = hard work – is valid. For instance one might argue that the more intelligent one is the more one’s aware of the need to work had..the correlation between finding school easy and therefore finding life tough is moronic.
I think intelligence needs to be nurtured just like anything else… but i still consider an advantage, not disadvantage.
What if I got an AK-47 instead of the knife? Do I still need to train hard? Just kidding
‘meta discussion’? are you fucking kidding me?
So how many of those engineers actually wanted to go into management? Are you using the right metrics in the first place?Olivier, you could just shoot first and rob afterwards. That would have been the most intelligent thing to do.
don’t play that game…who is making the rules to be intelligent?
I agree with Ibagrak. I like your article, but I think the supposed lesser performance of intelligent – as in educated – people in start-ups is just wishful thinking from people who didn’t succeed at school. The reality is that if you’re really intelligent then you know you should work hard to succeed. Else, well maybe you weren’t that intelligent. So intelligent people by nature tend to be more successful than others.Now, education and intelligence are 2 different things, and it’s not because you are highly educated that you are highly intelligent. But the reverse is not true either, and there tends to be a positive correlation. What I see a lot having gone to do my MBA at stanford is some sort of a complex of inferiority by many entrepreneurs who then make it a point to prove they are smarter and will be more successful than educated folks. Those guys can’t really work with educated folks as a result (I’ve had my share of MBA bashing from morons) and that can create a self-fulfilling prophecy, since a lot of the older guys e.g. angels etc are much less educated than most younger folks. I see lots of that in Canada where i live, as the general education level among entrepreneurs is lower than in the US. There is an implicit barrier to entry to MBA-educated people here that I don’t find in in the US.
Father’s story is very true. That is why US has been very successful for a long time, that is why new immigrant with focus on success can achieve everything. But generation after generation is loosing that edge. I wish I can give it in my grandchildren and teach them to give it to theirs.
I don’t know if you allow links, but this is strongly related to what you are talking about, so may be of interest: http://aplawrence.com/Opinion/wicked-smaht.html
This is a great article. A lot of things that go with startups need to be necessitated through life skills before putting it into action.
Impressed… so true.
Great article! I found it very personal (real to myself) and inspiring.
Great Article…will go through your other stuff..
The comments on here remind how hard it is to get your point across, interpretations differ so wildly. What I got from this article is: don’t let your assumptions ruin your startup by making mistakes because you think you know it all because you are smart. Also, when you fail, don’t let that experience ruin your motivation, accept that you can’t ever be perfect and learn from failure as well as success. Thank you, please write more thought -provoking articles.
Interesting story, but your conclusions are not perfect.Intelligence, hard work, skill, judgement, intuition, determination, wisdom, experience, different thinking, ability to focus.. all those are factors that need to be boosted in order to succeed. Of course, intelligence alone is not sufficient. But that doesn’t mean it is harmful and will kill your startup. In the situation with the knife, it is experience and judgement that matters most. This is a surprising and extreme situation, where you don’t have time to think deeply. You must react quickly and adequately, and experience will help you.
very solid writeup in an exotic locale: well decent.
Thanks. You article was inspiring. It put into words a problem I experience personally. I think often about the situation but couldn’t really express what happened. I like the analogy and it really sums up a common problem. I’ll probably use the analogy when discussing similar problems with other people.
You made that knife story up. Just like you make up half of the stuff on this blog. You left out how bullshitting is a very useful skill in making a successful business.
Thanks for the article. Was an eye opener for me. Made me realize why I feel under utilized at work, under achieved career wise, etc.
Great points well made.I found this article after following a link posted by Derek Sivers, so there’s recommendation enough for a start.But yeah, this is full of wisdom and sage advice. I guess the point is to never stop growing and to know that you always could benefit from improving and learning more. It’s what we’re here for.
The problem of getting into a popular page like popurls is that you get many rude people. As my family would say, “the lack of culture!”But I think you make a good point. I struggle with school mostly because it’s so easy I feel I don’t have to do the extra work. But I know it’s wrong—in any case, it doesn’t help. You need to know when to work hard, specially if you are chasing a dream. I dream to go to a research university, either next year, or three years from now (after community college). What has held me back has been my contempt at hard work. Working on that.For a few people, I don’t think he actually meant that being smart will kill your startup. It’s an exaggeration. Just saying.
Intelligence is always earned through work. It is not a knife; it is extra training. People who accuse others of being naturally intelligent don’t understand the work that goes into acquiring intelligence. They don’t practice that type of work themselves, so they don’t recognize it as work. They are mystified that such a lazy person could be so smart, so they say they were born that way.
Of course, what you fail to mention is that any startup is almost certain to have to sell its product to people who are less intelligent than the startup founder(s). That means the process involves a certain amount of con artistry as well as intelligence. Intelligent people are not ideal producers of necessities – food (farmers), shelter (carpenters), clothing (seamstresses). Intelligent people produce clever novelties that less intelligent people have to be artfully persuaded to buy. Sometimes intelligent people resort to sheer criminal trickery – like buying impossible to pay mortgages and hiding them in complex deals then selling them to someone else with a wink. So while you sharpen your intelligence knife, be careful it doesn’t slice off the hand that wields it.
I’m from Brazil and it’s a pity that we all don’t have Israeli soldiers with us all the time
Here in Brazil (mainly at school), I have the impression that your achievments have more value the less the effort you put on them. If you got an A in a test cheating, you are considered the best. On the other hand if you hard work studing for it, you are considered a sucker. It’s sad, but it’s true.
Your story rings true. In fact, research about kids and schools indicate it gets at a fundamental truth. Current research shows that kids who are encouraged to ‘work hard’ eventually significantly outperform kids who are told that they are ‘very intelligent.’ What happens seems to be that the ‘very intelligent’ groups on average are easily discouraged when they face challenging work. A great book on intelligence and schooling is “Losing our Minds” by Deborah Ruf. She makes a point that I think is consonant with your post: school, for intelligent children (let’s talk about 3+ SD over norm here) is usually unhelpful. Being smart i.e. being able to learn things 4x faster than your peers means you have a lot of dead time at school while you’re waiting for your classmates to catch up. What a young student decides to do with this extra time can have a lot to do with their future success in life. Success, whether it’s as a VP in France, or a startup CEO, requires a huge amount of work, consistency, discipline, and willingness to learn new and difficult skills. It is very rare that a high intelligence child acquires consistency, discipline, and a love of ‘hard tasks’ in school. In fact, high intelligence children more typically learn to act out, zone out, pretend to be less smart, or be perfectionists. None of those skills make for good business / life success, although it does make for good dropouts and engineers, two career choices that seem plagued with high-IQ types.This negative correlation between high-IQ types and worldly ‘success’ is widely known, and first became an area of interest when longitudinal studies of high-IQ Californian kids demonstrated that they did not outperform their normative peers.I have experienced some of those school dynamics myself, but also saw the truth of this when I was a CEO in the Boston area. Almost none of my work peer group (<$10m/rev startup CEOs) had an MBA. Almost none went to a ‘top tier school.’ All of them worked incredibly hard. Even if they were ‘coasting’ at their job, they still put in 80 hour weeks at something. Compared to my social / neighborhood peer groups, the difference was striking. It’s hard not to hit an Ivy grad if you throw a stone in Boston. There are lots of them, working away, having great and satisfying lives. But these traditionally ‘top performing’ types seemed distinctly underrepresented in a profession that called for risk-taking, hard work, long hours and a constant merry-go-round of new skills development.
Just like a knife, intelligence is a tool more than it is a weapon. I’ve found that if you have the tools you are expected to produce more. I’m sure that knife wielding would be thief felt a lot of embarrassment at not being able to accomplish his mission.
Very true. I think that somehow school plays a great hand in making intelligent people lazy.
I don’t fully agree with the title. If you have a high IQ and you work hard then you have a much greater chance to succeed!
I also see many other business owners having mote success than I am, but they are doing things wrong or they are stupid. Of course those are my opinions only, the truth is they are doing something correctly because they are making money at it, while I sit here thinking I know better and plan everything before I make a move and then find out nobody else thinks the same as I do, and therefore they won’t buy my idea because they don’t understand it. So that is how my intelligence gets in the way and ruins my startup.
I’m lazy and I consider myself very intelligent. I don’t want to work really hard all my life. What for? To be rich when I’m in my mid-age? Will that save me from cancer or prevent car accident? Help to find love or true friends? Will that give my life a meaning? I don’t think so and it’s very possible that it will make this things even harder to get.So – to conclude – many intelligent people see there is no reason to put a lot of effort in things other people consider very important (namely: money) and rather spend their intelligence on things they personally find interesting.
Very true.. i have seen many of such examples where these intelligent people who succeed in school days and then fail out of it… a very good though article.. thanks…
dpc is right. It may be that some were never taught to work hard as vessenes suggests, but some of us just looked at “success” as the majority defines it and decided it wasn’t anything we wanted. I know that the two things that have always turned me away from the pursuit of money is first that enough is enough and second that I don’t like hurting other people. I don’t need millions of dollars to be happy (and have seen far too many wealthy people who are miserable) and I absolutely could not live with myself if my money came from the suffering of others (and wealth almost always involves pushing someone else down, to a larger or smaller degree).I consider myself very “successful” because I have had a long and very happy life NOT pursuing wealth. YMMV.
My high IQ is why I wouldn’t start a startup
The real problem is the school-system, which is unable to demand effort of those who are more gifted then others. It is built to support meriocrity. If high iq children would be compelled to actually work, we would be able to unlock a big potential for our society.I call for a system, that is able to require effort from, those children who, properly educated, have the biggest potential to aid society.
I found this article quite interesting myself, as I am pretty much exactly what you described in the “intelligent” section. Sure, i use my common sense and i have my own sense of intelligence. But at the same time, I am not hard working, yet i receive good grades.Your article made me understand, that even though i’m “oh so smart” i still need to work hard in order to be intelligent and successful in life.I am currently in my second year of high school and i completely agree with your article.I will either “start” or “continue” to strive hard towards success, with my intelligence. Or something.Thank youu .
Wow, that is brilliant! Well said and a good lesson.Frappwww.fbi-logging.at.tc
That was exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you.
@ Shawn:Edison was a hack and a thief. (Do some research on Edison / Telsa)”“If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.”
Amen!I remember the days when I would just slack off because I could afford to. This only returned later on to bite me. And it hurt.Now, I strongly advocate learning something new, everyday.And it’s both rewarding and sad to see people I went to high school with drive me home in a cab.Never think you’re an expert. You just might get lazy.
“I made my own luck.” — Napoleon Bonaparte.
Both the example people in this post seems to be jews. The author thinks that jewish start ups succeed because jews work hard, but from observation it is the control of money supply in USA and Europe that allow mediocre Jewish start ups to succeed, remove the money supply control from jews and they will become like any other minority group. Now that this secret is exposed, jews will lose their control over money supply in USA and Europe in < 5 years then see what happens many of the so called invincible Jewish owned mega corporations will start failing….
Nice writing. However, I’m going to stick with my approach of finding incredibly intelligent *and* hardworking people to work with on startups. As you said—if the man had trained to use a knife, he would have destroyed your friend.
An excellent little piece of writing on something I struggle with myself and constantly acknowledge. School has always been easy for me and it’s gotten to the point where I almost make a game of seeing how much I can procrastinate and how little work I can do while still achieving grades I’m satisfied with. It’s as though rather than learning the material for most of my classes I am learning how little I can do to still get by and make it seem like I know the material. It’s strange and I’m always aware I’m doing it, but at the same time I feel like a lot of life is similar to this anyway- doing your best to make it seem like you know what you’re doing even when you don’t.
JPublic, are you German by any chance?
Adam, don't confuse procrastinating and doing little work with sprezzatura.Sometimes, things are just easier for the more talented.
“People who are born intelligent” Stopped reading there.
“A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.” – Rabindranath Tagore
Seein as how the author seems to think it relevant I presume the mugger in Brazilwas neither of Moroccan Jewish descent nor a peace loving Israeli soldier
isnt this a new take on the tale of the rabbit vs. the turtle?
I think there is a lot of truth in this article, and I think it starts out with a valuable analogy, but I think the conclusion overemphasizes hard work and misses the key point. I think the key to success is more than just dedication and hard work. It’s working intelligently, working on the right things, and prioritizing effectively.In a startup, or in any kind of a business for that matter, but especially in new and innovative businesses, there’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty. Entrepreneurs are often faced with a staggering amount of options and at any given point have dozens of things that seem important that they could be working on; by nature, startups are very open-ended. The key to success lies in knowing which efforts to focus on, how to prioritize one’s work, how to identify which efforts or endeavors are fruitful and which ones are wasting time and resources. It also lies in flexibility–one might make up a roadmap of how to get from point A to point B, but within 3 months one might realize that that path simply won’t work and some sort of radical adjustment is necessary.Similarly, when networking, it doesn’t matter how many people you know, it matters who you know, and what kind of relationship you forge with them. Quality is much more important than quantity.I’ve found that the #1 problem entrepreneurs, especially young entrepreneurs, fall into is thinking that they can brute force their way through the process of starting or growing a business. Just being smart and working as hard as possible will work in some cases, but it’s not the best approach. Work hard but put a cap on the number of hours you work. Spend time with your friends, hobbies, exercising, reading about unrelated things, etc. Keep a balanced life. The irony is that these other parts of life will be a source of creativity, insight, and perspective. Often, you don’t solve business problems by looking in the places you’d think–because if it were this straightforward someone would have already done it before you. You solve them by doing other seemingly unrelated things. Ultimately, these things will help you make the key realizations that lead to the success of your business.
This is too true. I am one of the recovering smart people. It’s no fun to have to do the mundane and tedious. Add in the fact that I only have myself to support makes just going to work every day the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced. It would actually be easier if I had a family to support.
The reason your intelligence will destroy your startup is not because you’re lazy (though it sounds like you are). It’s because you’re likely to design the software in such a way that it’s only valuable to intelligent people and the majority of users are not as intelligent.
I enjoyed this essay and it was easy to see evidence of what it suggests in my past.I think that the fundamental message is that self-reflection is essential to continued growth. Your tools are only as valuable as your ability to use them. This ability can come just as easily from early ‘intelligence’ or hard training. As the spectrum of tools and challenges grows, those who are unwilling to look critically upon their abilities will be outpaced by those who recognize weaknesses and take initiative to improve thereupon.I do not think that the essay suggests that ‘smart’ people have it easier throughout early schooling. Instead, the author gives this real-world occurrence as an example to argue a more broad point. The author does not suggest confronting knife-wielding Brazilians either; instead it is suggested that it is important to reflect upon the combined value of your tools and your ability to use them.
very good article…keep it up!
Very interesting article and very inspirational! Affiliate program 50% commissions + $25 bonus for joining + $.01 for each unique visitor you sendhttp://www.buyabusiness.com/affiliates.php
moral of the story. don’t fuck with the jews.
I was walking in the business district; I wore all of my silk. I got this silk from my pantry.An old merchant asked me the secret to my success.I asked: “Old man, what do you put into your pantry?”He replied, “That is not my custom.”I looked askance at his little frame, “and your tribe: Is it noble?”He smiled a big gap-toothed grin. Almost human. “I come from a very noble tribe” He beamed. “We know nothing of woodwork. I barely even recall how I became familiar with the concept.”This, to me, was acceptable. Even desirable. I smiled at the little elder, and he mugged at me amiably as if to say, “Well, here we are, both of us!” I wrapped the merchant in a plague blanket and he shined my shoes. It was the highlight of my day.Later that night I was really giving it to my wife. Really letting her have it. She said to me, “This is something I didn’t expect! Why is this happening?,” and then slyly, “Happening downstairs?”It pleased me that she should notice, and directly I answered, during the act. “Today I killed a man.”
“It requires hard work, it requires the ability to fail, it requires being able to do tough tasks, boring tasks. For the first time in their life, in spite of their intelligence, these intelligent people are challenged, and they start failing.”this is one reason i am so willing to share exactly how i succeed in several different channels…because most people won’t take action on what i say for the fear of failure. those who do take action deserve to succeed for the most part.
YES. I started out smart in grammar school and didn’t need to study. Then when I did need to study, I didn’t know how to do it and flailed. Keep working, keep driven, keep learning new disciplines and have a good time doing it so you continually like learning new things and doing new projects.Complacency kills.
Bear with me.When I was 18, I had it easy at school. In our class, I was considered one of the best, never studied for an exam, etc. Like me, there were 4 other really smart guys/gals. Our grades were normally 18/19 out of 20. Exams were so easy and short term memory was so good that after a physics/chemistry exam I would write down the contents of the exam, with all the right figures, the calculations and the results down to the required 4 decimal places. A rather normal guy on everything else, friends, sports, just really had it easy when it came down to studying.Then, came university. It got progressively harder, just attending classes wasn’t enough. First “10″ I got was devastating. I still got 18/19 on the classes I liked, but got 9/10 on everything else. Did I get dumber? I don’t think so… I realized I just had never learned how to study. It took me quite some time to catch up. Eventually managed to finish my career, with a rather standard “15″ as course average. Not bad, but in no way as outstanding as I set out to do.10 years later, out of those 5 “promise kids”, only 2 finished the career, and it took us 4 extra years, on top of the regular 5. The other 3 “smart kids” gave up somewhere along the way.I am constantly humbled when I meet my early age friends/colleagues, those who used to get grades of 13/14 finished their course in due time, got a job, moved on with life. Nowadays, I really, really praise the kind of intelligence that allows you to enforce self-discipline, organization and life planning. I’ve had to work really really hard to gain those kinds of skills. Sure, you still need problem-solving, and all other “kinds” of intelligence. But pure IQ alone will get you nowhere. Intelligence without willpower and perseverance is just a fancy way to be stupid.
Those people that manage to bring together a high IQ, good social/empathy skills and willpower, those are the winners, who apparently succeed in most things they put themselves in. If you have to choose between intelligence and willpower, the later is far more relevant on a daily basis. 
Wouldn’t people who really are intelligent simply be able to realize that succeeding WILL require them to work hard? If they fail to realize this, are they really intelligent?
For me this rang very true to my own experience. School was always fairly easy for me until my Upper Division years at college and graduate school. At which time I started to struggle because I wasn’t used to pouring in hours of study and hard work to learn things.Eventually, in school and at work I learned how to work harder but I don’t think I will ever have the work ethic of someone who has had to work their ass off at every stage of their life.I now believe that the ability to work very hard for long periods of time is a form of ability similar to intelligence that is part genetic but can also be nurtured by parents. That being said when you start talking about start-ups and extreme examples of success I think luck and connections play a significant part in whether someone will reach the highest pinnacle of success.You can only do your best to maximize the probability of success and working hard is one component of this.
I think there’s a missing thing here: IQ != good grades. Depending on the school system, those with high IQ could be great at doing few things that require their brain power, while they could be very bad at things that require more social skills, physical coordination, or maybe artistic. If the school is designed to measure grades on multiple aspects of intelligence, this person with high IQ may not have good grades in overall. They will get bored with the mundane tasks of school, and wander around with other things outside school. This kind of people are usually very great at few things, but very bad at other things.When they’re in college, they will face similar issue. They will only focus on courses that they felt is aligned to their way of thinking, and ignore or being lazy with the rest.At work, they could have the potential to be bad at teamwork, because they may have less tolerance for different way of thinking. They will choose to work alone, to eliminate those “interruptions”.But, what I agree with is, those who could get away easily with good grades at school tend to be underperforming, when they’re outside. Very few of them will choose engineering as a career. Because engineering requires hard work, and cheating doesn’t always work.
Wouldn’t the smart person have ran and not argued with the man with the knife?
That is why I carry a gun. : )
@Alex : I beat you to it… see my comment above
“People who are born intelligent start off life with everything easy for them. They don’t have to work hard to get good grades, they never really have to do much to get ahead. The major challenge of early life is school – and school is designed for average people. So intelligent people just breeze through.”For me, those school years were also spent trying to deal with two parents who were both professional thieves and intravenous-drug addicts, that ended up abandoning me. You apparently don’t realize yet that no one gets off easy in this life, and only a fool makes a series of bad assumptions and generalizations, then tortures a couple of stories into fitting into his narrative in an effort to prove a point, as you’ve done here.As a Mensa member, I can tell you both from my own experience and from the experience of others, that for most of us, school for the intelligent is not at all what you envision it to be for us. Research has shown that intelligent kids are bullied much more than other kids, frustrated much more at being held back intellectually specifically because school is “designed for average people”, and often have a much harder time socially; the major challenge of early life is not school so much as it is socialization, and this continues throughout life. I’ve known many intelligent people that would trade in a little intelligence to escape the loneliness and isolation that many of us feel, as we spend our lives actually hiding our intelligence, which is one of the reasons so many people join Mensa, so they can socialize with others without having to hide who they are. It has also been shown there is a definite relationship between intelligence and depression.”Being intelligent is like having a knife. If you train every day in using the knife, you will be invincible.” Bullshit.
This puts into words what I’ve been trying to for a while. Easily the most important thing I’ve read this year
Does anyone see how absurdly disconnected to the idea of starts-up this article is. The thread that follows doesn’t help get the point across either! I’m sorry for the knife fightin’ words, but I have to ask about the intentions of this entry? Something as dense as The Art of Warfare is way more clear and useful to business minded folks, than this oversimplified, diluted opinion piece.
The reason your startup will fail because of your intelligence is because intelligent people tackle hard problems, like space elevators, while stupid people tackle easy money making problems, like recyclable chewing gum.Intelligence is not an asset, it is a liability. Intelligent people constantly overestimate the intelligence of other people, leading to intelligent people making rational arguments only intelligent people can understand, while their stupid “competitors” make more powerful emotive arguments.
Your points are well made in a recent and great book called Mindset, by Carol Dweck
I think the points of the article are pretty clear and well-founded: (1) Intelligence is important, but (2) that’s only a partial set of skills you need to be successful. You need to work smart and work hard, more so than ever in startup land (where competition and the market are more cut-throat than in almost any other context).
Sounds like you made a big discovery. I would say that you’re about 30?
IQ matters where capacity for abstraction and logic is of the essence. There really aren’t many jobs or client projects for firms that require a high IQ.’Success in this and that’ mostly depends on determination.Decide what’s important to you, and go for that. As an example, if you wish to solve difficult mathematical problems on the job, becoming a truck driver or bar bouncer (if you have the physique) are both good choices.
Find out your IQ Score: http://www.fast-iq-test.com
This reminds me of an article about giving approval to children. (sorry can’t seem to find the link). The article was about some psychological studies of children who were either given positive feedback referring to their intelligence (eg “excellent work on the test. you are really intelligent”) vs positive feedback referring to their effort (eg “excellent work on the test. you must have worked really hard”). In the study, the two groups were randomly chosen and both had similar averages in results. Then they were asked to do another test. The group that had been told they were intelligent (ie they didn’t have to make any effort to do well in the test) did a lot worse in the second test. The children who had had their efforts valued and affirmed did a lot better in the second test.
This is a pretty cool article. Sharpen your sword. Just because you have one doesnt mean you are as good as the next guy if you don’t sharpen. Hard work and Practice will pay off eventually:-)
this is the most intelligent thing I ever read. I was one of those people who could just skate by. Even pretty much through a Master’s Degree from a tough school in CS/Physics. It wasn’t until my last semester that I had one week with two major exams, two major projects due, AND my Masters Oral’s all in the same week that I was really pushed. After that I knew I could do anything I really tried to do, and since then I have not stopped trying.I’m sending this article to my kids, they’re like me.
very true indeed. using your brain and making it work better will only get you to top and not bragging about your grades and such. Some practical experience like the one you described is the best in this aspect.
And if you ran into a guy with a gun, both of you would be dead now, and you would win a price for a fist dead man writing a blog.
whilst reading a parenting blog, I ran across a related article that put forth the idea that parents of “gifted” children need to praise effort, not that kids are being “smart”. The rationale being that the label of “smart” is something they can be at risk of losing when they step out and try something new. Is it effective at fostering the “can do” spirit? I’ll get back to you in 10-15 years…
Um. No. Since schools do, as you point out, teach to the average, it is the average students who get all the positive feedback. Two or three standard deviations from the average, in either direction (dumb, one way, or smart, the other) are, more often than not lost in a sea of continually self-reinforcing negative feedback. All the traits you ascribe to high-intelligence, such as ‘breezing through school’ or ‘not having to do much to get ahead’ are, in fact, found in the average: they are the ‘high-achievers’, since the schools are designed to get the average to achieve… Super intelligent people often develop behavioral problems precisely and directly as a result of this dynamic. You’re point about not relying on the sheer brilliance of your idea carrying you through to success is quite spot on… but it is not, however, underpinned by the logic you present before it. Mostly because, if it is a truly brilliant idea, most people to whom you would pitch it, wouldn’t get it. At one point, pre-sliced bread was a brilliant idea…
People who love this article are probably mediocre who coudln’t become high achievers. The real high achievers find their own way to challenge themselves, such as skipping grade, taking college classes at high school etc. For many engineers, the vice president is a failure who couldn’t achieve high in his major. Some people have an illusion that politicians are high achievers and probably those people admire GWB who for me is a failure.
Great article. Very intelligent people tend to go into more technical fields. They learn that their technology is the answer to the business problems, and see it as the means to the end. Meanwhile, other skills, such as communications with the non-techies, understanding of how a business operates, sales are not developed. Remember, just because you can bake a pie doesn’t mean you are qualified to run the pie store (or could even sell 1 pie to a hungry person).As regards intelligence as the factor, yes, I can see it. I’ve read other articles that point out the same correlation.
This was a thought provoking article for me… not so much as far as starting a startup – but just about life in general. Thanks for that.
This analogy works until you replace the knife in the story with a gun. :\
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What an awesome article,thanks for sharing…
Thanks a lot for this article, it changed my life quite a bit.
You confused inteligent with good remembering things… nd definetly is not the same. A dog can remember or discover the way to come back home and thats not make them inteligent… So i thnk you want to mean “believe to be inteligent” not to be inteligent will make you fail. You can be inteligent and not be successful becasue you are not constant (like me). The trick is being constant, the inteligence is only a help.
WoW, It might sound cheezy, but you really did open my eyes. Illustrating to me that it doesn’t take entire books on success, and lengthy workshops to understanding things in life. Just a simple blog post can be enough
Was lokking 4 just dis.. was confused.
I guess that this might work. But it doesn’t really work out when you’re looking to make any meaningful relationships in your life. I agree that it’s a cut-throat wold and everyone needs to get ahead somehow or the other, but creating the perfect facade will get back at you someday.Ultimately, you want to be recognised for the person you are. The work you do and the stature you gain is important, but after a while you need to set some balance, in terms of priority, between your personal and work goals. If you don’t allow for your personality to have any play in your work life, you might suffer in terms of your own principles, if you have any.Saul… not a nice person; really.
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Extremely true and inspiring! After reading this I felt like I had an “Aha!” moment, nothing short of when I’m reading Camus or Dostoevsky. Thank you for some perspective and a life lesson.
Thanks for sharing this anecdote. Chutzpah!
What is success? What if all this “unconscious” thought and discussion is just a tiny piece of our existence and “consciousness”? Maybe success, intelligence, hard work, etc, etc. are only forms of our egoic mind at work. Maybe we should think less and just be?
I think one of the problems with the school system in most countries is that they try to pigeon-hole everyone into their definitions of success. One of the things that many who “failed” at school find frustrating is that they weren’t encouraged to develop their skills at the things they were naturally good at. Many schools in england where i live have tried to stop competitive sports because it hurts children’s self-esteem if they are not good at it. But what about kids who might have trouble with reading and writing such as dyslexia who have no choice but learn shakespeare in english classes? i dont see many jobs asking for a knowledge of shakespeare.
So true….not all gifted with intelligence win the fight, but those who have the guts to hone themselves,
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Great article! Very inspiring!