Uncomfortable truth: non-partiers wind up working for the partiers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - I challenge you to name one self-made billionaire who is a so-called “partier”. Zero.

Not OP but Mark Cuban seems to fit this description.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, if you want to become the top salesman at the used car lot someday, learning how to chat up unsuspecting customers definitely helps.

You sure have a simplistic view of what it takes to thrive at large corporations.

Having good EQ and social skills isn't simply about sales. No matter what kind of team you lead at a company, collaborating with other department heads or fellow C-suiters, building consensus, etc. is usually the only path to promotion (or even keeping your job).

Good EQ and social skills are important, but thankfully those can always be learned/improved throughout life. However, once you've missed your chance to get into a good grad/professional school because you pi**ed away your grades doing keg stands at the frat house, those doors are closed forever. And for better or worse, many of the most interesting jobs (curing cancer, etc.) do require highly specialized advanced degrees.

But the doors aren't "closed forever" for someone who didn't attend a good grad/professional school. Most of the CEOs and CFOs that I've worked with or encountered didn't, and they make more money than many of us with double Ivy-type degrees who are merely VPs/non-rainmaker Big Law partners/middle management.

Just because there are a few former party bros who managed to turn their life around and become the CEO of the biggest regional bottling supply company, that doesn't mean it's good advice for the vast majority of college kids to just blow of academics and be drunk for 4 years straight.

[Anonymous]

I am a lawyer. The highly compensated lawyers in biglaw were not partners. Spouse is a doctor. Same thing. Nerds win in those two professions. By a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a lawyer. The highly compensated lawyers in biglaw were not *partiers*. Spouse is a doctor. Same thing. Nerds win in those two professions. By a lot.

[Anonymous]

I didn't read all the responses, but I think the kids who really make a good living off their social skills are the football, lacrosse, and hockey bros at good colleges. Our oldest got a lot of professional mileage out of a different college sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol, no y'all are working for the athletes.

What kinds of athletes were Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates, Pichai, Jensen Huang, Jobs, etc. etc.?

95% of Fortune 500 CEOs played college sports. Former Whole Foods CEO Walter Robb was the captain of the Stanford Soccer Team. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan played rugby at Brown University. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was captain of his high school fencing team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, if you want to become the top salesman at the used car lot someday, learning how to chat up unsuspecting customers definitely helps.

You sure have a simplistic view of what it takes to thrive at large corporations.

Having good EQ and social skills isn't simply about sales. No matter what kind of team you lead at a company, collaborating with other department heads or fellow C-suiters, building consensus, etc. is usually the only path to promotion (or even keeping your job).

Good EQ and social skills are important, but thankfully those can always be learned/improved throughout life. However, once you've missed your chance to get into a good grad/professional school because you pi**ed away your grades doing keg stands at the frat house, those doors are closed forever. And for better or worse, many of the most interesting jobs (curing cancer, etc.) do require highly specialized advanced degrees.

But the doors aren't "closed forever" for someone who didn't attend a good grad/professional school. Most of the CEOs and CFOs that I've worked with or encountered didn't, and they make more money than many of us with double Ivy-type degrees who are merely VPs/non-rainmaker Big Law partners/middle management.

Compare the number of CEO/CFOs to salespeople or mid-tier managers. Only a handful make it big at the top. There are about 200,000 CEOs (and that includes CEOs of failing start ups and small businesses).

[Anonymous]

OP, it's not the truth. It's just your wishful thinking. You're simply trying to validate your raising a worthless a*hole.

[Anonymous]

These are the reasons parents should prefer non greek schools. Any decent and well informed young person wouldn't want to join this system anyways. If they are going crazy for it, they are shallow to begin with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naive students and parents, usually middle class and below, disdain the Greek system and talk about how they don't want to participate. They claim they're more serious students and aren't into that scene.

What these people don't understand is that the Greek social scene actually trains you to operate in the business world. You learn the importance of socializing, sizing people up at a glance, social drinking, and how to present yourself so that you're accepted and click with the executive class. Most importantly, you learn that you need to be extroverted and to cultivate connections to succeed in your career.

The nose to the grindstone "strivers" don't learn these things. They think the real world is like the classroom, when in fact it's much like a fraternity social. They dress the wrong way, say the wrong things, and clumsily offer opinions that might be true but are socially awkward. So they get pigeonholed as drones. They don't get the promotions, and they don't get the hot spouses.

I've advised my kids to scout out the best Greek orgs, and they've turned out great. They're not brilliant intellectuals, but their superstars socially and interpersonally. They know how to size up a crowd and maximize the benefit to themselves, to capitalize on opportunities to engage with people who can help them. They also know how to avoid people who will damage their reputations, and they don't hold one ounce of guilt for being what some would say is "mean". They know you can't please everyone, so connect with the important people and be the one who others try to please.

Define “turned out great”.

OP here. One is a very successful pharma rep and engaged to a surgeon she met on one of her stops. The other is in a management trainee program at a Fortune 100 company. To reply to another poster, I had been referring to strivers in the classroom, the brown-nose types. But yes they are strivers where it counts, in climbing the latter and engaging people.

You don't have to go to college at all to learn how to have sex with a man for money.

Yes, just get married and then you'll have the money without having to provide the sex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol, no y'all are working for the athletes.

What kinds of athletes were Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates, Pichai, Jensen Huang, Jobs, etc. etc.?

95% of Fortune 500 CEOs played college sports. Former Whole Foods CEO Walter Robb was the captain of the Stanford Soccer Team. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan played rugby at Brown University. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was captain of his high school fencing team.

Things are changing and would be very different in 10-20 years, just like companies not limiting top leadership to privileged tall white males and blond women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so stupid. There is a vast middle ground where most people find themselves. Not everyone is an extreme cliche.

Yes, but truths like that do not lead to vicious insults.

[Anonymous]

Who would've thought of so many Indians with leadership positions in fortune 500 corporations and UK, US, Canadian governmens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol, no y'all are working for the athletes.

What kinds of athletes were Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates, Pichai, Jensen Huang, Jobs, etc. etc.?

95% of Fortune 500 CEOs played college sports. Former Whole Foods CEO Walter Robb was the captain of the Stanford Soccer Team. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan played rugby at Brown University. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was captain of his high school fencing team.

'college sports'?
Nope, that was very misleading stupid article.
Show real sources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Naive students and parents, usually middle class and below, disdain the Greek system and talk about how they don't want to participate. They claim they're more serious students and aren't into that scene.

What these people don't understand is that the Greek social scene actually trains you to operate in the business world. You learn the importance of socializing, sizing people up at a glance, social drinking, and how to present yourself so that you're accepted and click with the executive class. Most importantly, you learn that you need to be extroverted and to cultivate connections to succeed in your career.

The nose to the grindstone "strivers" don't learn these things. They think the real world is like the classroom, when in fact it's much like a fraternity social. They dress the wrong way, say the wrong things, and clumsily offer opinions that might be true but are socially awkward. So they get pigeonholed as drones. They don't get the promotions, and they don't get the hot spouses.

I've advised my kids to scout out the best Greek orgs, and they've turned out great. They're not brilliant intellectuals, but their superstars socially and interpersonally. They know how to size up a crowd and maximize the benefit to themselves, to capitalize on opportunities to engage with people who can help them. They also know how to avoid people who will damage their reputations, and they don't hold one ounce of guilt for being what some would say is "mean". They know you can't please everyone, so connect with the important people and be the one who others try to please.

My mama tried to tell me all of this when I was a kid. I was too much of a nerd to understand, but looking back, you are correct, OP.