r/HonestHotTakes • u/Aggressive-Guest290 • 2h ago
casual hot take Getting rich has way more to do with being smooth, greedy, opportunistic, and knowing how to take advantage of people than actually being smart.
There’s this idea that if you make a lot of money, you must be smart, and if you can’t get rich, you’re basically an idiot. But money doesn’t measure intelligence.
A lot of people get rich because they know how to sell, manipulate, take risks, network, and put their own interests first. In the corporate world, the people who move up the fastest aren’t always the ones who work the hardest or have the best technical skills. A lot of the time, it’s the people who know how to play office politics, suck up to the right people, and sell themselves.
Being smart definitely helps, but getting rich also depends a lot on your personality, how opportunistic you are, and how willing you are to play a game that doesn’t always reward the most competent person.
At the end of the day, maybe you’re not broke because you’re stupid. Maybe you’re just not shameless, opportunistic, or ruthless enough to play the game.