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gunnervi t1_j2031ro wrote

There have always been highly intelligent people who fall to be upwardly mobile. People who just never had the opportunities, or whose courses in life were derailed by tragedy or bigotry.

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ThrowbackPie t1_j21cxie wrote

From my own experience (assuming the many people in my life calling me smart are correct), I think decision-making is a huge part of it too. I have poor decision-making skills despite my possible intelligence.

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enigmaroboto t1_j20aj7w wrote

A students work for B students at companies founded by C students

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Cognitive_Dissonant t1_j20f1vr wrote

While I'm sure this happens, statistically GPA is predictive of future income, so the reverse hierarchy is probably more likely. See here for example:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/eej.2014.22

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gunnervi t1_j214jhd wrote

It could easily be that B and C students are overrepresented amongst "the elites" but grades are still a good predictor of future income. Like, there just aren't that many billionaires, even if like half of them were C students I doubt it would meaningfully affect the median income of C students nationwide.

In fact I would very much expect the grades vs income distribution to be much flatter for the upper classes simply because their income is largely based on "already being rich, powerful, and connected" rather than succeeding in a pseudo-meritocratic competition.

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