[300bps]

Yet there are some people that work 60 hours per week and some that choose to not work at all. The people in the first camp are typically more successful than people in the second camp. Articles like the OP discount their efforts and accomplishments completely.

[seren]

I certainly does not work as hard as the cleaning lady getting up at 5 am to clean my desk. I just sit there typing lightly on my ergonomic keyboard, in my air-conditioned office and in the end, I will probably end better off, even though she might have crossed a deadly desert to come here and won't see her relatives for a long time. I just have the chance of being born around.

Hard work == success, is probably a variation of the just world bias [0]. It provides a reassuring and motivating narrative, but in the end, it is quite simplistic. I am not saying that hard work is not a necessary condition, but it is far from being sufficient.

Another example : with all the discussions about European debt, it has been reported multiple times that on average Greeks were working much longer that Germans. It does not do them much good.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

[rayiner]

> I certainly does not work as hard as the cleaning lady getting up at 5 am to clean my desk

No kidding. I was in the office at 10 pm the other night, and the cleaning guy came around to empty the trash cans. He's like "man, still here at 10?" And I'm thinking "well so are you."

[newppc]

Hopefully he didn't start till 6pm though :)

[jmclean]

I think part of the reason this conversation is valuable, though, is that the inverse omission is far more dominant in the cultural conversation right now. It's certainly mostly true that hard work plays an important part in fantastic success. But it's equally true that even in those cases, the majority enjoyed advantages that are often invisible even to them.

So to be sure, the opposite extreme is just as ridiculous as suggesting that every person exists in a bubble where their effort correlates exactly with outcome. But when the awareness of systemic advantage is absent (as it certainly is), I see staking out a far extreme opinion like this as a challenge to find a more reasonable center.

[TheOtherHobbes]

The work ethic narrative is immensely useful to employers, but in too many situations it's almost totally disconnected from real opportunity and reward.

Ultimately it's a political problem - but not necessarily in the obvious sense.

The most successful and fun cultures reward inventiveness and positive social contributions, and include some element of challenge and competition.

But using money and markets to make decisions about the kinds of activities that are rewarded turns out to be an inefficient, short-sighted and often surreal way to manage what does and doesn't get valued.

[TheOtherHobbes]

And I'd appreciate it if downvoters justified their downvotes.

I'm quite happy with the idea that an economy where it's possible to raise $1 million in funding for an app like Yo! while the many apps that do something with longer term benefits struggle for commercial support has some issues with rational resource allocation.

Not to mention the outrageous bubbles and the epic acquisition disasters that litter the Internet ruins.

If you believe otherwise I'd like to see you argue why.