68% of the Sons of the 1% Work at Their Dad's Company(theatlanticwire.com)
theatlanticwire.com
68% of the Sons of the 1% Work at Their Dad's Company
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/11/68-sons-1-work-their-dads-company/45115/
13 comments
It's also not a bad idea to follow in your father's footsteps if what he did was amazingly successful. Also, keep in mind that if getting that new Mercedes or the size of your trust fund depends on following what your dad says it could be a significant point of leverage.
The included graph is an excellent example of graph distortion. One of the fun things about graphs is that they can be incredibly deceptive. This is one of those examples -- "Hey, let's make the bottom of the graph the normal percent, whatever that is, and then stretch it out so the top of the graph is the percent we're trying to highlight as abnormal"
Furthermore, mc32 nails it on the head by mentioning the disproportion of the self-employed in the 1%. I think a more revealing statistic would be, among those who run companies, which percentage of their children work with them at some point. With that filter in place, effect of wealth on that would be far more interesting, and I think the effect will be much much less, and perhaps even negatively correlated.
Furthermore, mc32 nails it on the head by mentioning the disproportion of the self-employed in the 1%. I think a more revealing statistic would be, among those who run companies, which percentage of their children work with them at some point. With that filter in place, effect of wealth on that would be far more interesting, and I think the effect will be much much less, and perhaps even negatively correlated.
If the axes are labelled, it ain't deceptive IMHO. Setting a graph like that gives you more detail where it's needed.
This is a little misleading (the headline is a lot misleading). FTA:
>The researchers found that 68 percent of the sons of top-percentile income earners have at some point by the time they're age 33 taken a job at a firm [at which] their father also worked. That's significantly higher than the 55 percent rate for the sons of the second-highest percentile of earners and the 40 percent average for all income levels.
There are fewer industries (and fewer total companies) that compensate someone at the 99th percentile than there are that do so at lower income levels. So by something similar to the pigeonhole principle, you're going to have more high earners with overlapping career paths, including when said high earners happen to be father and son.
I've had internships at various places - a startup, AMD, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and NASA. I started a company in grad school and now work for Google. My dad happened to work for Goldman for much of his career, so technically I contribute to this statistic (I'm not in the 1%, but my dad is). But my dad's being at Goldman had absolutely nothing to do with my internship there (I applied initially without his knowledge, got through the interviews like anyone else, worked in a different division, etc.). There was no nepotism involved; it's almost coincidental that one of the many companies I've worked for happened to be one of the ones my dad also worked for.
>The researchers found that 68 percent of the sons of top-percentile income earners have at some point by the time they're age 33 taken a job at a firm [at which] their father also worked. That's significantly higher than the 55 percent rate for the sons of the second-highest percentile of earners and the 40 percent average for all income levels.
There are fewer industries (and fewer total companies) that compensate someone at the 99th percentile than there are that do so at lower income levels. So by something similar to the pigeonhole principle, you're going to have more high earners with overlapping career paths, including when said high earners happen to be father and son.
I've had internships at various places - a startup, AMD, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and NASA. I started a company in grad school and now work for Google. My dad happened to work for Goldman for much of his career, so technically I contribute to this statistic (I'm not in the 1%, but my dad is). But my dad's being at Goldman had absolutely nothing to do with my internship there (I applied initially without his knowledge, got through the interviews like anyone else, worked in a different division, etc.). There was no nepotism involved; it's almost coincidental that one of the many companies I've worked for happened to be one of the ones my dad also worked for.
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The HN title is inaccurate. The article's claim is:
The researchers found that 68 percent of the sons of top-percentile income earners have at some point by the time they're age 33 taken a job at a firm their father also worked.
The statistic is whether sons have ever worked at any firm that their father has ever worked for. Not the same as "68% of sons work at their dad's company."
The researchers found that 68 percent of the sons of top-percentile income earners have at some point by the time they're age 33 taken a job at a firm their father also worked.
The statistic is whether sons have ever worked at any firm that their father has ever worked for. Not the same as "68% of sons work at their dad's company."
If I'm a high income earning father, that means I'm successful and I'm going to want to pass that on to my kids, and whether i Own the company or jus thane lots of pull there, getting my id in there for a while is certainly something I would try to do.
I'm not in the top 1%, but I certainly hope to educate my son and should the opportunity ever arise for me to give him a good job, I would, as would any parent. This is how it SHOULD be.
I'm not in the top 1%, but I certainly hope to educate my son and should the opportunity ever arise for me to give him a good job, I would, as would any parent. This is how it SHOULD be.
This conclusion of nepotism assumes that the propensity for a son to follow in their father’s footsteps is independent of industry.
Aside from being an assumption that shouldn’t be made, it can’t possibly be true.
The industry of the top 1% and the skill sets required are completely different from those of the other 99%.
Aside from being an assumption that shouldn’t be made, it can’t possibly be true.
The industry of the top 1% and the skill sets required are completely different from those of the other 99%.
The article explicitly talks about "sons". What about the daughters?
If someone's dad had a company, it would be very strange if at least one of their offspring didn't join the entreprise at some point.
I don't think most companies formed by the 1% are public, so it's more or less logical someone in the family would be groomed to run part of it or take over.
Look at Asia where lots and lots of family run business are run this way too. It's more or less "normal".