Anonymous wrote:Blue collar, the Marine Corps, and Yale Law School is the foundation for a good resume. Add an ability to write - beginning in the Marines Corps and going on to Hillbilly Elegy. Add critical mentors in Amy Chua and Peter Thiel. A good partnership with his smart and accomplished wife. Money. An ability to speak and read the room - high emotional IQ. And some luck with timing.

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Anonymous wrote:JD Vance was professionally adopted by celebrity Amy Chua, who with her husband runs a weird little coven at Yale LAw School. He broke into the pseudo intellectual celebrity circuit, which got him a fake job at a VC.

These people have no skills except hobnobbing.

They also set him up with his first girlfriend who became his wife. Apparently zero dating history before age 27. Totally normal.

No girlfriend till 27??? What??

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I read the Hillbilly Elegy book in about 2018, and found it really compelling. I was struck by how bad of a childhood a person could have in America (Kentucky and Cincinatti, OH), as I truly did not realize things could be that bad. (I grew up in a nice midwestern city and had a very nice childhood, and figured everyone else had a similar childhood.)

JD Vance was smart to apply to Yale Law School. I know that law schools had been somewhat criticized for not taking enough veterans, and Vance had 4 years in the Marines. And also, I think JD Vance has a high aptitude (made it through college in 3 years and then did well on the LSAT). So I think that Yale Law School took a chance on him. It's very hard to get admitted there, and he managed to do it. That was a huge crucial milestone in his trajectory.

Typically, YLS graduates (only 200 each year) can get jobs in top law firms. (I went to a similar law school, and pretty much all graduates are able to get good jobs.) I was surprised that he went the VC route, as I did not see that in my law school, but I'm also 10 years older than Vance, and maybe VC is a thing now with law school graduates at top schools.

If you watched TV interviews that he did after the book was published, Vance seemed a bit shy and not confident. He seemed kind of surprised by the attention his book was getting.

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Venture Capital.

He had a fake VC job given to him by Peter Thiel. He was kind of a DEI pick. He never did any work and was never in the office, according to those who actually did and were.

Source: I made it up lol

Anonymous wrote:I’m very similar to Vance; grew up lower middle class with a dysfunctional family besotted with mental health and addiction issues (but it sounds like a LOT less violence or drama, mine was more low key alcoholism)

I ended up going to an elite school, but in science because I loved the subject, and my career so far has been pretty limited (some government labs after earning my MS). I would have loved to get into tech, but never cracked that code

Vance however transitioned into VC pretty easily right out of law school, before his rise to prominence with Hillbelly Elergy presented as a rubric to understanding Trumps ascendency. I can’t figure out if he had some legal skills or accomplishments that were groundwork for that VC pivot, but I feel our similar backgrounds would hold some lessons?

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Anonymous wrote:JD Vance was professionally adopted by celebrity Amy Chua, who with her husband runs a weird little coven at Yale LAw School. He broke into the pseudo intellectual celebrity circuit, which got him a fake job at a VC.

These people have no skills except hobnobbing.

Socializing effectively is a sign of high interpersonal intelligence.

E.Q. is more important for career success past a certain base level of smarts.

Interesting, I am a very personable and have always made friends easily, but I’m not conventionally attractive (basically by buddies say I belong in the lab since I look like Igor — I mean not deformed, but short with exaggerated features). Vance is super tall, which always helps having presence, but I am not sure how good looking? His wife is beautiful so I have to think that speaks a bit to his looks.

I guess finding a mentor was a crucial bit of sounds like; I think I always felt like I didn’t belong so was somewhat shy around authority — maybe that was his skill, he carried the confidence to be noticed by Chua?

Vance is at least an average looking clean-cut guy which is good enough, I would say he's actually pretty smart (and sometimes comes across as seekingly intellectual), he was in the military, and he managed to make something out of himself. All big positives compared to wrinkly geriatric born-rich guys of various flavors. The bar is low.

I would say that Vance probably has excellent social skills. Most prominent politicians do, even if you don't like them or their ideas at all. It's certainly not all Amy Chua's doing. In fact, she and her husband got kind of cancelled at Yale recently due to personal scandals.

I think Donald Trump recognized Vance as a young "comer". Maybe he miscalculated about the political benefits, but Donald Trump is also good at reading people.

Even though I would never vote for Trump, I felt better when Vance got put on the ticket. Because he reads and thinks and I feel like he could read a CIA briefing and not turn around and share it with a golf buddy over cocktails. Trump told last go-around's VP candidates that they could run everything behind the scenes. What nervy young man wouldn't sign up to be defacto POTUS?

So the career guidance I need to work on social skills and building mentor relationships.

Anonymous wrote:The difference is that he understood the social trend. If you grow up poor, when did you become aware of what’s causing the poor to stay poor, what do you think contributed to that? What is our foreign policy and trade partner’ role in this? Why did we choose to “outsource” manufacturing in the 1980s?

Anonymous wrote:I actually had pretty much the same trajectory as Vance - I grew up really poor, single mom, kind of crazy household. I joined the Army right out of high school, spent 4 years in, got out, went to college, then a great graduate program - and a crummy government job. The only difference was I didn't go to law school so I think Vance, at least there, was smarter than me. I'm just shocked at how right wing he has become because I thought he'd land on the side of helping the poor rather than screwing the poor.

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Anonymous wrote:JD Vance was professionally adopted by celebrity Amy Chua, who with her husband runs a weird little coven at Yale LAw School. He broke into the pseudo intellectual celebrity circuit, which got him a fake job at a VC.

These people have no skills except hobnobbing.

Socializing effectively is a sign of high interpersonal intelligence.

E.Q. is more important for career success past a certain base level of smarts.

Interesting, I am a very personable and have always made friends easily, but I’m not conventionally attractive (basically by buddies say I belong in the lab since I look like Igor — I mean not deformed, but short with exaggerated features). Vance is super tall, which always helps having presence, but I am not sure how good looking? His wife is beautiful so I have to think that speaks a bit to his looks.

I guess finding a mentor was a crucial bit of sounds like; I think I always felt like I didn’t belong so was somewhat shy around authority — maybe that was his skill, he carried the confidence to be noticed by Chua?

He didn't "find a mentor" - he allowed himself to be bought by Thiel. Vance understood that he was being given time and space to write a memoir that would entitle him to run for public office, and the trade off was that when he ran he would belong to Thiel. Thiel has bought himself the Vice Presidency, and, he hopes, the Presidency.

Chua didn't notice his skill - Chua noticed that he had a story that could be sold politically - kid from the wrong side of the tracks goes into the military and used the GI Bill to go to college. smart kid, so he gets into a good law school where he falls in live with a person of a different ethnicity and faith. There he is - a patriotic war hero who is living the American dream and values.... which he then sold out, changing his politics (previous dislike of Trump) and faith to be a more attractive political candidate.

That's not what I call skill:it's what I call the con. He is exactly the kind of inauthentic politician everyone says they hate.

War hero? He was placed on desk duty during a hot war, a spot where intel puts kids they’re grooming. And he just coincidentally moonlighted while on desk duty writing for a neocon rag. Then he goes to Ohio State, interns for Republicans on the hill and links up with think tanks, and somehow graduates in two years. Nothing about this doofus is organic.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JD Vance was professionally adopted by celebrity Amy Chua, who with her husband runs a weird little coven at Yale LAw School. He broke into the pseudo intellectual celebrity circuit, which got him a fake job at a VC.

These people have no skills except hobnobbing.

Socializing effectively is a sign of high interpersonal intelligence.

E.Q. is more important for career success past a certain base level of smarts.

Interesting, I am a very personable and have always made friends easily, but I’m not conventionally attractive (basically by buddies say I belong in the lab since I look like Igor — I mean not deformed, but short with exaggerated features). Vance is super tall, which always helps having presence, but I am not sure how good looking? His wife is beautiful so I have to think that speaks a bit to his looks.

I guess finding a mentor was a crucial bit of sounds like; I think I always felt like I didn’t belong so was somewhat shy around authority — maybe that was his skill, he carried the confidence to be noticed by Chua?

He didn't "find a mentor" - he allowed himself to be bought by Thiel. Vance understood that he was being given time and space to write a memoir that would entitle him to run for public office, and the trade off was that when he ran he would belong to Thiel. Thiel has bought himself the Vice Presidency, and, he hopes, the Presidency.

Chua didn't notice his skill - Chua noticed that he had a story that could be sold politically - kid from the wrong side of the tracks goes into the military and used the GI Bill to go to college. smart kid, so he gets into a good law school where he falls in live with a person of a different ethnicity and faith. There he is - a patriotic war hero who is living the American dream and values.... which he then sold out, changing his politics (previous dislike of Trump) and faith to be a more attractive political candidate.

That's not what I call skill:it's what I call the con. He is exactly the kind of inauthentic politician everyone says they hate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JD Vance was professionally adopted by celebrity Amy Chua, who with her husband runs a weird little coven at Yale LAw School. He broke into the pseudo intellectual celebrity circuit, which got him a fake job at a VC.

These people have no skills except hobnobbing.

Socializing effectively is a sign of high interpersonal intelligence.

E.Q. is more important for career success past a certain base level of smarts.

Interesting, I am a very personable and have always made friends easily, but I’m not conventionally attractive (basically by buddies say I belong in the lab since I look like Igor — I mean not deformed, but short with exaggerated features). Vance is super tall, which always helps having presence, but I am not sure how good looking? His wife is beautiful so I have to think that speaks a bit to his looks.

I guess finding a mentor was a crucial bit of sounds like; I think I always felt like I didn’t belong so was somewhat shy around authority — maybe that was his skill, he carried the confidence to be noticed by Chua?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JD Vance was professionally adopted by celebrity Amy Chua, who with her husband runs a weird little coven at Yale LAw School. He broke into the pseudo intellectual celebrity circuit, which got him a fake job at a VC.

These people have no skills except hobnobbing.

They also set him up with his first girlfriend who became his wife. Apparently zero dating history before age 27. Totally normal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JD Vance was professionally adopted by celebrity Amy Chua, who with her husband runs a weird little coven at Yale LAw School. He broke into the pseudo intellectual celebrity circuit, which got him a fake job at a VC.

These people have no skills except hobnobbing.

Socializing effectively is a sign of high interpersonal intelligence.

E.Q. is more important for career success past a certain base level of smarts.

Interesting, I am a very personable and have always made friends easily, but I’m not conventionally attractive (basically by buddies say I belong in the lab since I look like Igor — I mean not deformed, but short with exaggerated features). Vance is super tall, which always helps having presence, but I am not sure how good looking? His wife is beautiful so I have to think that speaks a bit to his looks.

I guess finding a mentor was a crucial bit of sounds like; I think I always felt like I didn’t belong so was somewhat shy around authority — maybe that was his skill, he carried the confidence to be noticed by Chua?

Vance is at least an average looking clean-cut guy which is good enough, I would say he's actually pretty smart (and sometimes comes across as seekingly intellectual), he was in the military, and he managed to make something out of himself. All big positives compared to wrinkly geriatric born-rich guys of various flavors. The bar is low.

I would say that Vance probably has excellent social skills. Most prominent politicians do, even if you don't like them or their ideas at all. It's certainly not all Amy Chua's doing. In fact, she and her husband got kind of cancelled at Yale recently due to personal scandals.

I think Donald Trump recognized Vance as a young "comer". Maybe he miscalculated about the political benefits, but Donald Trump is also good at reading people.

Even though I would never vote for Trump, I felt better when Vance got put on the ticket. Because he reads and thinks and I feel like he could read a CIA briefing and not turn around and share it with a golf buddy over cocktails. Trump told last go-around's VP candidates that they could run everything behind the scenes. What nervy young man wouldn't sign up to be defacto POTUS?

So the career guidance I need to work on social skills and building mentor relationships.

Yes. How old are you (decade-wise)?

The older I get, the more I see the impacts of personal relationships on careers.

Vance makes no secret of the fact that his wife trained him in etiquette/social niceties.

As a woman, I can say that it's a very profound experience to help someone close to you develop and succeed. This instinct often expresses in the form of mothering but can also be something found in a young couple's relationship. It doesn't always work out well in marriages but can be very bonding.

Vance may also give off confidence. That's a winning trait. However, my guess is that it is his intellectual side and his appreciation that won him the wife that he has. He was much more of a nobody when she met him.

So...TL; DR for you...do you show appropriate, engaging confidence? And do you have a bright partner who teaches you things, fosters your success, and is wise counsel for your ambitions?

Hmm, interesting take. I guess my mis step was marrying someone with my same background — we are both strivers from poor families and ended up as govt scientists. Neither of us knew how to navigate these social waters; we hoped to advance from hard work and smarts, but clearly the wrong kind of smarts.

If you’re looking to model yourself after JD Vance, clearly you have the wrong type of smarts. He’s a patsy for Trump and Musk, and Theil. He’s also blatantly self-interested and has gone against everything he must have learned about the law at Yale in embracing MAGA. I am first gen, from educated immigrant parents, and had the finest education money can buy. I chose to work in do-gooder jobs. I’ve had some time in the sun, but mostly I’ve worked under less bright bureaucrats who were not very good at their jobs. Most people just have blah careers. It’s hard enough to keep a steady job, but it’s not hard to avoid being an evildoer. Ask yourself why you admire JD— are you a fascist?