<story><title>The days are long but the decades are short (2015)</title><url>https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-are-short</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>atleastoptimal</author><text>Should a prerequisite to every successful tech person advice list include &amp;quot;Be 99th percentile IQ or higher&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;All these people go to schools and work environments where they exclusively interact with incredibly intelligent people. Do they really know just how mediocre the average person is? Or is the average person implicitly written off with respect to any sort of prodigious success.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dragonwriter</author><text>95th percentile wealth and 90th percentile IQ is probable better than the reverse or 99th percentile IQ alone, if you want to succeed in any business, including tech.</text></comment>
<story><title>The days are long but the decades are short (2015)</title><url>https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-are-short</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>atleastoptimal</author><text>Should a prerequisite to every successful tech person advice list include &amp;quot;Be 99th percentile IQ or higher&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;All these people go to schools and work environments where they exclusively interact with incredibly intelligent people. Do they really know just how mediocre the average person is? Or is the average person implicitly written off with respect to any sort of prodigious success.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ZephyrBlu</author><text>Eh, 95th percentile is probably more reasonable. You don&amp;#x27;t have to be super smart to be successful. In tech you probably have to be &lt;i&gt;pretty&lt;/i&gt; smart, but I think being from a well-off family is more important in most cases.</text></comment>