[FirmwareBurner]

The wiki does a bad job of clarifying what the relationship is (wth does "first cousin once removed" even mean?). Here's a family tree:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/jensen-huang-and-lisa-su-f...

Still, I always loved how immigrants to the US always ended up in high level positions, starting or leading top US companies, something that never/rarely happens here in Europe where maintaining the status quo and the "natural order" gets priority at all cost.

[throwawayadvsec]

The US are a younger country and it's full of immigrants/children of immigrants.

Most of the money here is old money. There are dozens of implicit rules. In France having a teacher as a parent is a better indicator of whether you'll get into a top school than being rich. Because you have to know all the tricks in the book to get anywhere. From my POV getting into Ivy League seems as simple as getting a high SAT, applying, getting approved for a loan. In France, most immigrants kids don't even know the possible paths to get into a top school.

Also yes, salary plays a big role, if you're part of the top 1% of your country intellectual elite, I'd bet you'd rather cross an ocean for 6 figures than for 2000 euros a month and free healthcare.

[mlinhares]

That's 100% NOT how to enter an Ivy League college, there's a lot of preparation, planning and "tips and tricks" you get by hiring people specialized in "college applications" to get there. The odds you'll get to an Ivy League college without help from college admission consultants and careful planning is pretty close to 0.

[AbrahamParangi]

Yeah that’s just not true. You can just get good scores and grades, with the caveat here that “good” means atleast 99.5th percentile.

Under those conditions I’d estimate your odds of getting into at least one Ivy (or equivalently good school) at around 50%, which might seem low but remember 99.6% of college students do not attend an ivy.

[hot_gril]

I know an unusually high number of people who went to Ivy Leagues, and none of them had just good grades, in fact some of their grades weren't great at all. They had some special factor. On the other side, the people I knew with absolutely perfect grades and 2400 SAT (this was before the 1600 scale) and no other angles didn't get into a single Ivy League, but still got into very good schools.

[AbrahamParangi]

Yeah I mean, there is a range of outcomes. That said, if you are in the top 99.5% or higher numerically you have quite a good shot.

[hot_gril]

I just wouldn't say 50%, more like 10%. Again for actual Ivy Leagues only, not top non-Ivy schools like CMU or Berkeley.

[true_religion]

I got into an Ivy League just by getting a high GPA and SAT. I was also in a bunch of clubs but after school activities were pretty popular at my school so that didn't stand out.

[dublinben]

That may be the case for undistinguished applicants with no particular outstanding qualities who need to set themselves apart from the rest of the crowd. Everyone I know who attended an Ivy came from an underrepresented background of one kind or another, and got in simply on their credentials.

[hot_gril]

If you're from the right background then sure. Asian or Mid Eastern (so like the entire largest continent) isn't going to help you, though.

[hot_gril]

Yeah. The high scores alone can get you into some top universities like Berkeley, but not Ivy League or certain others like Stanford.

[dragonwriter]

> From my POV getting into Ivy League seems as simple as getting a high SAT, applying, getting approved for a loan.

Your POV is simply, factually, wrong; more people get high SATs and apply to the Ivy League schools than they can admit by a wide margin, and there are a lot of tricks (many of which leverage accidents of birth, wealth, and social circle) beyond that which go to getting to the top of the list.

The bigger ones involve the hyper rich buying buildings, and the merely very rich engaging in bribery which is higher risk when discovered, but legacies, padding applications with extracurrriculars for which opportunities are very much not equal, etc., all play a role.

[HWR_14]

For the hyperrich, setting aside 10 or 20 admissions for "idiots who bring new science buildings with them" seems to benefit literally everyone at the school.

[patmorgan23]

The Ivy's all have multi-billion dollar endowments. They should go without a single donor dollar for a generation and be fine And even expand.

[true_religion]

Sure but why stop a practice that is working so well already? It's just 10 slots out of 100s.

[MagnumOpus]

It's over 200 out of about 2000 at Harvard, plus another 200 for athletes... Though of course the bigger issue is that Harvard only has 2000 places for undergrad despite a $50bn endowment, in order to create some artificial scarcity.

[hot_gril]

> The bigger ones involve the hyper rich buying buildings, and the merely very rich engaging in bribery which is higher risk when discovered, but legacies, padding applications with extracurrriculars for which opportunities are very much not equal, etc., all play a role.

Legacy and extracurricular are the big ones. Very, very few people are buying buildings or bribing.

[dragonwriter]

By “big” I meant showy, not common or broadly used.

[brainfish]

A high SAT score is table stakes for Ivy application, not in any way a free pass. Successful applicants generally need impeccable grades, documented community service + extracurricular activities, stellar recommendations, etc. Or alternatively, be a "legacy", meaning your ancestors attended that school, which is more often than not a proxy for "be rich."

I don't doubt your characterization of the situation in France at all, and there are certainly a plethora of great universities in the U.S. that have reasonably accessible admissions, but the "top" schools (Ivys, MIT/Caltech, etc.) are certainly beyond the reach of many, and favor those who know how to play their game.

[freeopinion]

I do not know if your POV is that of somebody who actually attended an Ivy League school. If so, it is understandable that you see through your lens. You got a high SAT and got in. If not, it is still an understandable view. Everyone you've heard of that got in had a high SAT.

Here's a different view. More than 2 million people take the SAT each year. The top 1% score between 1550 and 1600. They number more than 20000 people each year. You can have straight As K-12, achieve a 1570 on the SAT, be president/captain of three clubs/teams, play two musical instruments, be a National Merit Scholar, serve on the board of some national organization, win 12 state championships, and still not get accepted to an Ivy League school. Or you can have a B here and there, score a 1500 SAT and get accepted.

My point is that it is not as simple as getting a high SAT, applying, and getting approved for a loan.

[ttoinou]

   In France having a teacher as a parent is a better indicator of whether you'll get into a top school than being rich.

They believe more in the education system so they push their kids more into higher education. Most of the high education school in france have a somewhat fair competitive exam to filter the candidates

[throwawayadvsec]

>They believe more in the education system so they push their kids more into higher education.

No, not really, most people seems to still believe it.

>Most of the high education school in France have a somewhat fair competitive exam to filter the candidates

Yet preparatory schools are still disproportionately full of rich white kids.

[ttoinou]

Ive been in scientific preparatory schools, you only stay there if you're genuinely good. Causation != Correlation

[vladvasiliu]

> In France, most immigrants kids don't even know the possible paths to get into a top school.

What do you mean? As an immigrant to France when I was in 3rd grade [0], I knew in a couple of months that I had to go to a good high-school, to get into a good prep school, to get into a good grande école. Everybody knows this. And everybody knows how to get there: be good at math, and have good grades in general.

[0] In France, school grades are "reversed". Grades 6 to 3 are "collège" / middle school / junior high. Grades 2, 1, "terminal" are high-school.

[fuklief]

I personally did not know about classes prépa before the last year of high school. I will forever be thankful for my maths teacher who told me about it that year, since I would have probably slacked off at university.

[throwawayadvsec]

I know people from the suburbs who didn't even know what a prep school was until they were adults.

[mytailorisrich]

Blame their parents and their own lack of interest.

[dustincoates]

As an immigrant to France who wants my kids to succeed… how do I learn these paths?

[FirmwareBurner]

Have 2 hour lunch breaks and a strike, or just emigrate to french speaking part of Switzerland? /s

[vladvasiliu]

Make sure they're good at math, and have good grades in high-school so they can get selected to a good "prépa". Make sure they don't slack off in prépa.

[prmoustache]

Make them move abroad. [1]

I kind of slacked off when I was in post secondary school, I didn't go to "classe prépa" but did a DUT because I was bored of studies, still ended up afterwards in an engineering school after my DUT because my parents kind of pushed me to contest for an entry. I ended up even more bored, fell in love with a girl I met that was living in another country, dropped from the engineering school after the first year, moved abroad to join her, applied there for a job, got it at first interview. Being motivated in a work environment (compared to a more meaningless to me educationnal one), I quickly climbed the echelons to be considered an "engineer" in the industry meaning, without having an actual engineering degree. I did so during the few years it takes someone to finish engineering/grandes écoles and find an actual job in France.

I learned that in many places outside of France having a few years more work experience and verifiable credentials is actually more valuable than a nice degree when applying for a job being 25 and that at 35 nobody cares anymore what degree you got in the first place.

[1] I am taking the assumption that your kids will or have already obtained french nationality and a european passport.

[fuklief]

- Make them good at science, i.e., Maths and Physics.

- Get them into a decent high school, e.g., Henri 4 or Louis Le Grand in Paris.

- Hope they have good grades and manage to get into a good preparatory class [1], e.g., Henri 4, Louis Le Grand in Paris, or Hoche and Sainte-Geneniève in Versailles.

- Make sure they don't slack off, and hope they get into a good engineer school, e.g., Ecole Polytechnique, Ecole des Mines, Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussés, CentraleSupelec.

(Lists are not exhaustive)

If they manage to get into one of these schools, they will most likely end up not have any difficulty to find a somewhat well-paid job in France.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classe_pr%C3%A9paratoire_aux_g...

[yaantc]

You can find some guides on the topic, for example: https://www.letudiant.fr/etudes/classes-prepa.html.

Very often, when a kid is good enough its school main teacher will mention the possibility of going to a prépa: it's good for a school reputation when they can send kids to prépas.

For sure it's better when the parents are already in the known, but it wasn't the case for me and it was not a show stopper. There's plenty of public information and the importance of "grandes écoles" in France is not a secret.

[throwawayadvsec]

When I talk about these paths, I mostly mean prepas and grande écoles, but that doesn't mean I recommend them.

Yeah you're set for life if you succeed there, but the student suicide rate in those schools is also astonishingly high because of the pressure/competition.

If I were you, I'd just teach my kids to code, learn, build stuff, sell stuff, and use AI correctly. IMO school is an outdated concept, in any country.

[ant6n]

Move to Quebec.

[eldaisfish]

Terrible idea if you are not white, do not have a French surname or are visibly muslim.

[ant6n]

Worse than France? Doubt it. In Quebec You mostly need to speak properly.

Plus, if you have French citizenship, u get cheap access to some pretty good universities.

[mytailorisrich]

> In France, most immigrants kids don't even know the possible paths to get into a top school.

Not true.

What happens, and not only in France (it's like that in the UK as well), is that primary and secondary schools that are in not very good areas are not ambitious for their pupils. They'll say average is fine, going to a technical college is very good, etc. so in the end those pupils do not think of taking the "high road" because they've been convinced it is not for them.

On the other hand, if your parents are highly educated and you go to one of the top secondary schools you'll be pushed and told that you should work hard and that you can get into a top university.

[throwawayadvsec]

>is that primary and secondary schools that are in not very good areas are not ambitious for their pupils.

And where do you think the vast majority of immigrants live? In Boulogne Billancourt?

[mytailorisrich]

I am sure you understand that not taking a path is not the same as not knowing the path...

[htrp]

> From my POV getting into Ivy League seems as simple as getting a high SAT, applying, getting approved for a loan

It's more like the teacher in France example, except you also have to be rich.

[bakuninsbart]

I think a major difference, at least to my country, Germany, is that in the US the university you graduate from has an outsized influence on your career potential, especially when it comes to senior positions at large companies. On the contrary, here in Germany these positions are usually filled through either familial connections or company-internal mentorships. Board members and C-suite often have been with the company for at least 20 years.

One other difference is that all the major companies in Germany are very old, and around half of them are either privately owned, or state companies. BionTech, the last company to really rise to the major players was actually founded and is being led by immigrants.

[agloe_dreams]

A key element in the US is that VC is a poison. With growth at all costs as a priority, many US companies are focused on getting whomever is willing to push sales over all else, this generally requires a name with a history of success so most internal hires are out. Also, most of these companies won't exist in 20 years to have someone whom has been there for 20 years.

[mustafa_pasi]

But the US is still performing better on all metrics:

1. more innovation 2. high economic growth 3. better salaries

Whatever you are doing works.

[polygamous_bat]

> 1. more innovation

How do we quantify it? And how do we know that it is not the result of metric-hacking, as the GP commented, and is actually true "innovation"?

> 2. high economic growth

Same as above.

> 3. better salaries

Only for a small slice of the population. Income inequality is growing across the country, and it is not an obviously good thing if a small fraction of the country is getting boundlessly richer while the rest of the country/world suffers.

[kla-s]

That is a very special set of metrics and one could argue the opposite using e.g. social and environmental externalities (social safety net/ energy consumption pP...).

The other thing is, is there more real innovation going on or is this just some local hyper optimization of making the numbers go up?

I don`t claim to be the judge/arbiter on this matter, guess i`m glad we can compare both on this world

[ilikehurdles]

I think you’re half right. In the US, the university you graduate from has not that much influence in most career paths. For jobs expecting post-graduate education, then it starts to matter a whole lot. Matching into specific medical schools and law schools can have an immense impact on the respective careers. Tech jobs don’t fall into those buckets.

You are right about this being different:

> On the contrary, here in Germany these positions are usually filled through either familial connections or company-internal mentorships.

Some government jobs are notoriously products of nepotism and inbreeding, but private industry is, in my experience, invested in recruiting the best candidates available to them.

It’s hard to explain in a comment, and it’s easy for locals to take it for granted, but private industry in the US incentivizes speculation (risk-taking). It feeds into how we start companies, how and when we invest, where we live, our liquid financial markets, and I think we idealize hiring not from academic titles or genes but from merit. This idea that we settle on the same things for the 30 years is somewhat antithetical to that.

[FirmwareBurner]

>but private industry is, in my experience, invested in recruiting the best candidates available to them.

Not in Germany. All management positions I saw at big auto makers there were filled based on connections instead of competence. Who you rub shoulders there is very important for your career progression.

I know it because I've seen a long delayed project of a hybrid sports car be even more delayed thanks to the project manager being replaced 3 times because he was an incompetent moron being given a golden parachute to be replaced by an equally incompetent moron, 3 times in a row.

[roland35]

I haven't seen this trend in US tech at least. Most other engineers I've worked with have gone to good state schools but very few have gone to top ivy or similar (eg MIT/Stanford).

I bet you're correct with other industries such as investment banking or finance though.

[aeyes]

The poster isn't talking about engineers but about C-level and board members. In Germany you don't even need to go to university to work in tech, you can enter through the apprenticeship career route.

[princeb]

> immigrants to the US always ended up in high level positions

this is a myth. even if you just look at asian immigrant groups alone, many groups do very poorly economically - the burmese, hmongs, nepalis etc are all poorer than the average american. in fact, i think the only asian ethnicity that is over-represented in business leadership are not the chinese nor the japanese but the indians, and i don't even think that's true specifically for first-generation or even second-generation americans of indian origin.

[pfannkuchen]

That doesn’t make it a myth, it just means that not every immigrant group has an equal chance. Do you think there is some super granular discrimination going on though? Seems more correlated with how developed the country of origin is.

[hnhamdani2]

I think, it's more like, it's not pure meritocracy as well. It's kind of a mix between meritocracy, community role model and a sprinkle of nepotisms.

While it's ingrained in the culture, to be the best you can be for certain communities, having tons of people with the same ethnicity/community/caste benefit you as well. People don't go climbing up the higher echelons on pure meritocracy.

There is a reason Indians are over-represented among other Asian ethnicities and that is not pure meritocracy.

[Jenk]

> wth does "first cousin once removed" even mean?

It is using a very well established (i.e., has been used for a long time) terminology to describe familial relationships.

The "first" refers to how many horizontal genealogy lines are crossed (self -> sibling -> first cousin -> second cousin -> etc.) the "once" refers to the vertical, so the "first cousin once removed" refers to either your cousin's parent or child, and as we refer to our cousin's parents as aunt or uncle, we usually conclude that your "first cousin once remove" is your aunt/uncle's grandchild, ergo your [first] cousin's child.

[riffic]

I was going to reply with a similar explanation but then upon a reread it seemed like a flippant remark that didn't seem like an earnest inquiry.

do people just not know how to Google things these days?

[doytch]

Language probably plays a non-insignificant role. I'd hazard a guess that more Indians and Chinese (the nationalities that are fairly well-represented in US leadership positions) are learning English than German, Polish or Slovak.

[whimsicalism]

Europe also largely just has a less pluralistic and diverse society than the coastal US.

Difficult to get the exact stats because it is illegal to measure demographic breakdowns in many European countries.

[FirmwareBurner]

>because it is illegal to measure demographic breakdowns in many European countries

It really isn't illegal to measure, where did you come up with that?

[eldaisfish]

It is literally illegal to gather race or ethnicity based data in Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/16/france-and-ger...

[FirmwareBurner]

Where in that article does it say it's illegal to gather ethnical data in the EU? You're talking nonsense, I lived in 2 EU countries and government had ethnical data on citizens.

From where I read the article, it it says the contrary, Germany has racism and discrimination on the labor and housing market, but it can't be proven because it gathers no data.

So having no data actually makes the problem worse since racism and discrimination will continue to exist in practice (humans gonna be tribal) but you can't prove it because you have no data because you don't wanna be seen as racist.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy. You're just turning a blind eye on racism while touting yourself as a crusader against racism.

[eldaisfish]

I wouldn’t claim so boldly that my claims are nonsense. In many European countries affected by the Holocaust, gathering ethnic data is illegal. The article even mentions the example of Germany and i know it is illegal in France too.

If anything, your claims are unsubstantiated.

Edit: here is a good source, see page 16 https://one.oecd.org/document/SDD/DOC(2018)9/en/pdf

My original wording was clumsy. Most EU countries do not collect race or ethnicity data. Those that do are all in Eastern europe and the UK, Ireland are the only Western exceptions.

[whimsicalism]

It says that efforts to collect discrimination data in France are viewed as unconstitutional, verbatim in the article. Clearly, at minimum, collecting this data is not easy in many european countries.

> I lived in 2 EU countries and government had ethnical data on citizens.

Could you provide that data for France? I never said it was true of all EU countries.

e: Actually, reading your comment I am left a little confused - aren’t your latter paragraphs the exact point I am making?

[hot_gril]

Every time I view so-called ethnic stats in Europe, it's just nation of origin or something else that's not the same as race in the US. I don't see stats like number of people of X descent (which is not the same as being born there).

[epolanski]

Yeah, seems racist, why do it?

Never understood the fixation in US of breaking every stat by ethnicity or skin color.

[whimsicalism]

Because to identify discrimination, you need to measure it.

Without taking these stats, the Jim Crow South suddenly looks like an even-handed application of voting tests.

e: I will say, the number of comments I get from European commentators favoring the “putting your hands in front of your eyes” approach when it comes to racism in Europe does make it completely unsurprising how non-diverse their C-suite is as well as why they have difficulty attracting high-skilled immigrant talent.

[hot_gril]

We Americans do it for "reverse discrimination," and yes it's racist.

[gryn]

it's the case at least in france

https://www.insee.fr/en/information/2388586

[FirmwareBurner]

>Language probably plays a non-insignificant role.

Maybe so, but even Sony and Nissan had non-Japanese speaking CEOs for a while and Japan is not really know for its openness and progressiveness to foreigners.

Also, we're talking about global tech companies which reap profits from the global economy, so fluency of the local language that's only spoken by 5% of the world's population shouldn't matter that much, when those mega-corps hire teams of cultural and language experts for each market anyway.

I'd say it's more culture, mentality and protectionism of the status quo, than the language itself.

[whimsicalism]

Which Sony CEO are you referring to?

I think the Nissan case is a bit of an exception and if anything demonstrates how reluctant the Japanese are to have major Japanese multinationals run by someone not Japanese.

[FirmwareBurner]

Howard Stringer and Andrew House were head honchos at Sony.

[tapoxi]

House was Sony Computer Entertainment (PlayStation) which is based in San Mateo.

[gambiting]

Literally everyone under 30 years old in Poland or Germany will speak English(with a varying degree of proficiency, but English lessons are mandatory at school from the age of 7 until 18). No idea about Slovakia but I can only assume it's similar.

[RugnirViking]

I believe the parent was insinuating that it's harder for immigrants TO poland or germany to rise to high positions in buisness because they start learning german/polish later. Of course they will be able to communicate in english, but it's not a substitute when it comes to leading people and culture/charisma (I have personal experience with this sort of thing, living in a country but not speaking the language well)

[gambiting]

Ah. Then yes, sorry I misunderstood.

[lm28469]

It's mandatory in the EU, so also in Slovakia, to pick up a second language from relatively early in the scholarship, it can theoretically be French, German or English but in the vast majority of cases it's english.

https://www.eursc.eu/BasicTexts/2019-01-D-35-en-4.pdf

[wddkcs]

This could be changing, ai translation knocking down communication barriers.

[frfl]

Maybe the Wikipedia page was just updated, following this post, but it's fairly clear right now. It says fairly clearly in the infobox, "Jensen Huang (表舅 or first cousin once removed)"

[FirmwareBurner]

> It says fairly clearly in the infobox, "Jensen Huang (表舅 or first cousin once removed)"

It was already there, but depending where you're from, "first cousin once removed" might not mean anything to you, especially if English is not your mother tongue. Seeing a family tree makes it clear for everyone regardless of language or culture what the relationship is.

[umanwizard]

I would be willing to bet that 95% of native English speakers can't confidently define "first cousin once removed" (though most of them will have heard the term).

[oh_sigh]

Except it doesn't! In fact, first cousin once removed(FCOR) can mean both: your parent's sibling's grandchild, OR your grandparent's sibling's child. These are usually two very different relationships(if they exist) - the former FCOR is usually much younger than you, like a niece/nephew, and the latter FCOR is usually much older than you, and more like an aunt/uncle

I wager most native English speakers understand the concept of cousin, but not first/second/etc cousins, nor once/twice/etc removed.

[Kiro]

"once removed" is not clear at all. To me, it reads like nonsense.

[OJFord]

It's a standard term. I'll assume you're familiar with 'cousin' (in the strict English/western sense), aka (rarely, only really in contradistinction) 'first cousin'.

1. Your parents' [first] cousins' children are your 'second cousins';

2. Your parents' second cousins' children are your 'third cousins' (and so on);

3. Your parents' [first] cousins are your '[first] cousins once removed';

4. Your parents' second cousins are your 'second cousins once removed' (and so on);

5. Your parents' [first] cousins once removed are your '[first] cousins twice removed' (and so on).

[Kiro]

"once removed" is such a strange term to me. It reads like they become first cousins only once something unspecified was removed. Like "once the tumor was removed the patient survived".

I'm obviously not a native English speaker.

[OJFord]

'Removed' is (also) used like degrees of separation, if you're familiar with Bacon or Erdos numbers for example. 'I took the leap into management, but my current role still isn't that far removed from programming'.

The 'once' here means 'one time', not 'when it has happened that'. cf. my 'twice removed' example above.

[nashashmi]

It's descriptively clear.

[zarkov99]

I do not see it that way. I was born in Europe and immigrated to the US. In my mind the differences is that the US attracts more ambitious and talented people than Europe.

[epolanski]

Don't forget friendlier business conditions both in taxes and bureaucracy.

Few of my friends that launched startups, despite being based in Europe, working from Europe, and everyone being European, incorporated in Delaware anyway.

US is simply friendlier to ambitious and greedy people. You can be so anywhere in the world but you won't get the same benefits you get in the United States.

[martinald]

Not sure this is true for all of Europe. The UK has remarkably little bureaucracy for companies. Costs about $15 to incorporate a company, which takes ~minutes, and then you just need to file corporation taxes + a balance sheet once a year, which is all possible to do via APIs and a (inexpensive) accounting package in a few clicks.

VAT needs to be done over around $100k/year turnover 4 times a year, but again that is possible to do in a couple of clicks via APIs and accounting packages.

And finally payroll taxes are pretty simple too, again can be done via accounting packages.

From what I know this is much less hassle than most/all US states. But some EU countries (germany especially) are horrendous, so it's not a clear picture.

[epolanski]

US' advantage isn't only bureaucracy, it's also legal and last but not least access to capital and a giant market (US is much less dependent on export than EU).

It's a deadly combination for entrepreneurs UK can't offer.

[hot_gril]

My Middle Eastern family members always say the word around their nations of origin is, move to the US if you want to work hard and succeed, move to Germany or France if you want to chill and get free money.

[eldaisfish]

Immigration is a choice and this acts as a filter. Second - the USA and many new world societies are not built around ethnicity. This means that hard work has a decent return on investment. In the old world, who you are and whom you know are often more important than your skills.

European society is constructed around sharply defined ethnic groups, often identified by name and appearance. Ethnicity cannot be changed.

Curiously, Indians and Chinese nationals tend to do well in the USA because their motherlands are poor. This means that only the most well off can even contemplate moving to the USA. Obviously, these folks do well relative to poorer immigrants. Europe's other problem is that it attracts mostly low skilled, older immigrants.

[dahart]

> wth does “first cousin once removed” even mean?

First cousin means they share a grandparent, second cousin means they share a great-grandparent, etc. Once removed means they’re offset by 1 generation, so one person’s grandparent is the other’s great-grandparent. There is a directionality; the person who is “once removed” is the one whose parent is first cousins with other other person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin

[jxramos]

I think there's a lot packed into that at all cost phrase at the end. I'm realizing that with development of technology or the pursuit of truth, anything that detracts from some main objective comes at some cost. When political angling arises, or maintaining the status quo, or whatever extra objective is added and overlayed onto a project which is not directly aligned with the outcome of the project you expose your development to getting lost in the weeds of suboptimality. How deep can those weeds get? Who knows, but trying to maintain face or balance a lot of other accessory details can occupy a lot of time and attention.

This kind of harkens to the optimality surrounding meritocracy based systems.

[TMWNN]

>Still, I always loved how immigrants to the US always ended up in high level positions, starting or leading top US companies, something that never/rarely happens here in Europe where maintaining the status quo and the "natural order" gets priority at all cost.

I read an interesting point recently: Austria's 100 wealthiest families have two thirds of the country's wealth, and zero have earned their money from technology; they've all inherited it.

How different would the same list be for Germany? One, perhaps two families earned their fortunes from tech?

[jsiepkes]

> something that never/rarely happens here in Europe where maintaining the status quo and the "natural order" gets priority at all cost.

That's not a thing unique to Europe. Same goes for almost every Asian company with Korean, Taiwanese, etc. roots.

It even goes further then the Asian continent. For example the president of Samsung Benelux is June Young Park.

[FredPret]

Ambitious, capitalistic emigrants are going to choose the US over anywhere else.

In addition, for immigrants from Europe/Asia/Africa, the US has almost complete power to pick and choose candidates whereas Europe is physically attached.

One last factor I noticed as an immigrant is that newer societies, like the US and Canada, are easier to fit into. For older ones like in Europe, it's just harder to change your identity and gain acceptance. This isn't a fault on Europe's part, it's probably just natural progression.

[shaism]

Fully agree. Even as second generation immigrant, meaning being born in the EU, I feel less accepted in the EU than when I lived in the US for two years.

I felt that doing things “differently” or having unique background is more often perceived positively in the US than in the EU. In the EU, the norms force you to fit in, whereas in the US, you are allowed to pave your own way, whether that means success or failure.

[FirmwareBurner]

>This isn't a fault on Europe's part, it's probably just natural progression.

I'd say it is, considering they/we have decades of data on what makes immigrants successful and what not.

[FredPret]

I wouldn't say that a society has a moral duty to even accept immigrants. I am one and am eternally grateful that I get to live in Canada.

But take a country like Japan - they have near zero immigrants and they seem to like that.

If you have an open society with a flexible identity like the US, Canada, Australia, and maybe others, then you get the benefit of ambitious immigrants coming to grow your economy. But this isn't doable by or desirable to every other nation.

[adra]

The enterprising Indian and Chinese citizen should know that it could be basically decades to immigrate to the US, so they're choosing anywhere else as a better substitute (or finding loopholes like gaining citizenship in other nations that don't have as long a waiting list?). Based on the current economic regime, it could be decades before candidates are granted permanent citizenship.

[eldaisfish]

that is a bureaucratic hurdle that has little to do with the actual desirability of the USA as an immigration destination. The fact that so many Indians and Chinese nationals continue to move to the USA despite the immigration challenge is testament to this.

[lm28469]

> how immigrants to the US always ended up in high level positions

What's your definition of "always" ?

[purpleblue]

First cousins once removed is the relationship between yourself and your cousin's children.

You and your children are first cousins. Your children and your cousin's children are 2nd cousins. Your children and your cousin's children's children and 2nd cousins once-removed.

[automatic6131]

>something that never/rarely happens here in Europe

The English PM is the son of Indian immigrants though

[soligern]

66 of the top 500 unicorns in the US have Indian founders. I don’t think you would see that in Europe.

[eldaisfish]

Yes, the UK is the exception in Europe. The ethnic diversity of the European Parliament dropped significantly after Brexit.

[avgcorrection]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/first_cousin_once_removed

[epolanski]

> something that never/rarely happens here in Europe

It's a young country built on the premise of immigration and kicking out the natives, that might be part of it.

[foogazi]

> Still, I always loved how immigrants to the US always ended up in high level positions, starting or leading top US companies

Yea, we are all tech CEOs over here

[tazjin]

This happens in European tech companies, there just aren't many (that aren't American anyways).

[pastacacioepepe]

Way to spin it!

Completely ignore the family cartel thingy and focus on the American dream.

[HWR_14]

> never/rarely happens here in Europe where maintaining the status quo and the "natural order" gets priority at all cost.

The US lets people rise to higher heights, but income mobility is better in many parts of Europe. That is, the odds of moving from low or lower-middle class parents to the upper-middle class are higher in most major European countries (e.g. UK, France, Germany, Scandinavian). For that matter, it is also better in Japan, Australia and Canada. [0]

Or maybe what I saw is flawed and biased. I haven't spent a lot of time confirming it. I definitely have seen the claim pop up from time to time. It makes intuitive sense that society could prioritize either goal but that policies that help one hurt the other.

[0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-social-mobility-...

[david38]

I assure you it’s not “always.”

[yieldcrv]

> here in Europe

got it. so here in the US, the overachieving immigrant stereotype is an assumption that is waning in popularity, specifically because it further marginalizes all the immigrants that are not overachievers and do not have the cultural or socioeconomic support system, while other residents assume those immigrants don't need support simply by factor of looking similar to another immigrant.

the phrasing is important. its fine to admire that there is a frequency of visible acceptance and elevation into high level positions. your words say you don't realize how rare that is.

[atyppo]

I agree that it appears externally that immigrants to the US tend to succeed more than those to Europe, but what's the cause? Higher wages and a stronger economy certainly play a role, but I suspect there's more at play here. A more selective visa program? It's one I would argue is overly selective especially when considering that one can be born here to illegal immigrants and be a US citizen.