The Key to Get Rich is to Get Stupid... WTF?

During a recent press conference, The President of The United States suggested that people inject bleach to ward off the coronavirus. He is arguably the most powerful person in America, and a multi-billionaire.

Elon Musk named his son X AE A-Xii. He also tweeted that there would be no new coronavirus cases by May. He is a billionaire, and runs Tesla.

Jeff Bezos left a stable job to start a company in his garage. He is now the richest person in the world and owns one of the most influential companies on the planet.

Ben Carson supposedly doesn't believe in evolution. He is also one of the world's greatest neurosurgeons.

Grant Cardone spent his early twenties addicted to drugs. He is now the owner of the world's leading sales training platform and over $1,000,000,000 worth of real estate.

Most people on this website graduated from prestigious ivy-league schools, spent years memorizing technicals, crafting their "story," building a network, and planning their careers, and never break $1MM a year.

Do you guys ever think it's weird that some of the most wealthy, powerful, and influential people in this world are some of the biggest dumbasses that ever lived?

7 Comments
 

Agree with some of these but I don't know why you think that leaving a stable job to start your own company is stupid. Many people do this, and granted some of them fail, but no company would exis if someone didn't start it at some point ??? If anything it shows some sort of skill to pull that off.

 

ben carson is a bit of a red herring, no idea how wealthy he is. but the other billionaires have only one thing in common - they work for themselves. the difference is they hung up their own shingle (or in trumps case, inherited a lot of it) rather than renting their time out to others.

also if you think (in your elon example) that making a bad prediction means you are stupid, then just about every politician, economist, meteorologist, climatologist, macro investor, columnist, and public health expert is stupid. I find that hard to believe. it's just incredibly hard to predict, so while I think it's intellectually dishonest and lacking in humility to make predictions that people make policy decisions off of, I don't think that makes all of those people stupid. harmful and proud maybe, but not stupid.

 
Most Helpful

Bezos graduated from Princeton near the top of his class; the same can be said for Musk and Penn/Wharton. Trump's father probably bought him a seat, but we now have empirical evidence that it still happens today (or up until a couple years ago). Bezos was also crushing it at DE Shaw before he went off on his own, and he was somewhat of a child prodigy. So, saying he's an idiot says more about your understanding of the world than it does his.

I think thebrofessor got it right in that really smart people often make really stupid predictions -- or predictions that seem really stupid in retrospect. Every macroeconomist is basically worse than a weatherman; it doesn't matter if their degree is from MIT or from Princeton. So, saying these people are some of the biggest dumbasses that ever lived is really weird. It's more likely that most people are really really dumb, and these folks are just less dumb. But that's nothing new--wer're all pretty dumb when you think about it.

 

These people are all smart enough to understand the risks of going out on their own. I would say the "smart" people you refer to here are risk-averse and potentially smart enough to understand their limits. That is, not willing to risk looking dumb if they fail.

 

Libero nemo et odit amet sequi neque. Voluptas dolore deleniti iste et voluptatem labore amet. Ut dolore incidunt eos ipsam. Delectus quis nihil molestiae repellat est. Sed recusandae ipsa maiores. Consectetur rerum qui ut occaecati consequatur ducimus qui. Perferendis nihil sed nostrum saepe.

Iusto nobis eligendi deleniti. Vel nemo iste nobis voluptatibus. Numquam aut aliquam omnis. Recusandae quo repellendus animi sunt dolorum. Neque doloribus neque et dolorem voluptatibus rerum vitae.

Praesentium praesentium vitae eum commodi. Non iste omnis eius non nulla vero molestias. Distinctio atque voluptas quisquam voluptatem assumenda molestias inventore.

Omnis deserunt quia quam est. Quis qui iusto ut omnis mollitia molestiae officia laborum. Inventore ipsa illo et non qui. Quisquam totam nemo quae illo. Id nam sit quis non voluptatem quo pariatur.

Career Advancement Opportunities

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Evercore 01 99.4%
  • Moelis & Company 01 98.8%
  • JPMorgan 01 98.2%
  • Guggenheim Partners 01 97.7%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.4%
  • Morgan Stanley 01 98.8%
  • Evercore 01 98.2%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.6%
  • Banco Santander 01 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.4%
  • Evercore No 98.8%
  • Morgan Stanley 05 98.2%
  • JPMorgan No 97.7%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Vice President (14) $434
  • Associates (43) $259
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (8) $210
  • 2nd Year Analyst (22) $179
  • Intern/Summer Associate (13) $156
  • 1st Year Analyst (75) $151
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (65) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
3
kanon's picture
kanon
99.0
4
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
5
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
6
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
7
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
8
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
9
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
98.9
10
numi's picture
numi
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”