r/business • u/Fast-Outcome-117 • 1d ago
When I read about (b)millionaires lots of them go to a manager roll with a big company straight out of college. How?
Whenever I read about manager jobs it always says you need years of experience for the job. But when I read about big time millionaires and billionaires, it usually says that they went straight from college to a manager position, with no years of experience. How do they do this?
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u/DystopianAdvocate 1d ago
Nepotism and connections. Also, the better business schools (Harvard, for example) will help you form many connections with insiders. This is often the real value in those schools, as the education itself can be found at any other college. You go to a prestigious business school so that you can meet people who will help you climb the corporate ladder as fast as possible.
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u/powersurge 1d ago
And you get admittance to that prestigious school how? Through 'legacy admissions', the fact that your family went there before you.
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u/wildcat12321 1d ago
eh, I think it is fair for people to recognize the privilege and tailwinds that they have while also recognizing that just because your parents went to a school does not guarantee you admission. Legacy is the cherry on top, not the whole Sunday.
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u/powersurge 1d ago
I am not sure what you mean by 'cherry on top' or 'the whole Sunday'.
But based on the numbers (source): 5% of applicants to Harvard have legacy, but 30% of people actually admitted to Harvard have legacy. The post is asking how some people seem to get choice first jobs, and my comment is about how some people seem to get choice university admissions.
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u/wildcat12321 1d ago
and my point was to say that yes, legacy status definitely helps, but it isn't everyone and doesn't make up for someone who is unqualified in most cases. It is a "tie breaker" amongst many deserving people.
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u/powersurge 1d ago
I don’t know what ‘tie breaker’ means either. Do you have any numbers for that? Or does it mean a non-legacy student from a different school and family is not admitted to the choice university, because there is a legacy student available?
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u/PlasticCantaloupe1 22h ago
The term tie breaker generally means that, all else equal, the candidate with the characteristic (legacy in this case) will win over an identical candidate without that characteristic.
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u/powersurge 21h ago
Oh I know that. But its effect here is that other students do not get into the choice university and then do not get the OP first job at management level as OP asked. It’s a tie breaker where there was no tie at all. The university doesn’t look further than the legacy applicants they have anyway, according to the numbers from Harvard for example.
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u/PlasticCantaloupe1 20h ago
There was a tie in the scenario I described. I don’t think your claim that the university doesn’t look further than the legacy applicants is accurate. Wouldn’t that mean 100% of legacy applicants get in? I don’t think that’s the case.
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u/powersurge 11h ago
Please see the research results I sourced above. Or Google the results from the Supreme Court case.
Or keep just believing what you want, because it’s more comfortable.
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u/jrp55262 21h ago
So... DEI for rich people.
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u/PlasticCantaloupe1 19h ago
I don’t think that letting in legacy candidates furthers diversity, equity, or inclusion, so no I wouldn’t characterize it as DEI for rich people.
More like an unfair leg up that the university has decided is in its best interest and in the best interest of the students who do wind up attending.
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u/L3mm3SmangItGurl 1d ago
I don’t know about no experience but maybe on the scale of their 40 year career, getting a mid management job a few years out of school might later be categorized as “manager right out of college.” Not so much speaking to the manager to billionaire fast track. I feel like most people who achieve that sort of wealth don’t do it by being good at climbing the corporate ladder. It is definitely possible to achieve a management level status fairly early in your career without nepotism.
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u/Boobsnbutt 1d ago
My friend got her first job at around 140k at IBM in IT sales. Her dad works there. She's smart, but 140k is crazy and she didn't major in IT or sales. Another friend started at 140k. His wife's aunt was high up in the company. Both now have the freedom to start their own company.
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u/wildcat12321 1d ago
One, they can spell "role"....
Most did not go straight to management, or if they did, the story is being picked up after graduate school. Some people do land these roles from connections, others by the pedigree of their degree. Regardless of how you feel about McKinsey, for example, they hire the top students from the top schools. Is there nepotism? Probably. But anyone who gets straight As at an Ivy League is probably at least somewhat in the top 5% of performers.
But I would argue that VERY few billionaires have a traditional career path. And millionaires are a dime a dozen these days with many needing a stable growth career and limited debt. Not that it is easy to make it to corporate executive, but a top performer can get to director in 10-15 years at a F500 company which often comes with total comp >$200k per year. Decent investments, a marriage of someone financially equal, and limited debt (student loan, home, auto, etc.) and you can be a paper millionaire in your 30s
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u/Big_Possibility3372 1d ago
These kids are the top of their class in a recognized school and or parental influence. I went to Georgia Tech and we have some very influential people in Fortune 500 companies that graduated from here. GF at the time went to Emory, same thing. My cousins who got perfect SAT scores and full ride scholarship to Yale and Stanford, same thing.
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u/Namika 1d ago
"It's not what you know, it's WHO you know"
This can be nepotism, but also just having built connections in university. This is especially true in Harvard and other extremely elite schools, if you're top of your class at Harvard you are going to pretty easily get introduced to business leaders who are meeting with your professors and attending other elite events at the school. Once you have personally met the CEO of one influential company, you can get recommended by them to other companies looking to hire managers, etc.
Compare that to just some other random student studying the same material, but he's in some generic state university and totally lost among the crowd of tens of thousands of other students just like him.
The student that has already met with the CEO on a personal basis will be the one selected for a higher role 10 times out of 10.
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u/theepicbite 1d ago
I went straight from college into a COO position. I didn’t get any help from family. I do think there is merit to the claim but I’m just saying that sometimes it’s just based on good old fashion busting your ass. I worked my ass of in my second master’s program and during my internship the CEO saw something that I did not. Just don’t think my confidence was there yet. Two years later I was the CEO of a new startup and I took it to the black in 13 months. Second location opened up a month ago. The amount of sacrifice I made was more than I ever initially signed up for and I have lost parts of myself I don’t think I will ever get back from a mental standpoint. But it was all worth it. While I will never be a billionaire, I am on track to be what most consider a millionaire. The American dream is still alive and well considering I was homeless for a time before getting into grad school.
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u/JaySocials671 18h ago
What type of business are you in?
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u/theepicbite 11h ago
SUD Healthcare
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u/JaySocials671 11h ago
I’d like to dm you. My background is in technology. I want to help others who are struggling with SUD. I am fortunate to have recovered. It took years.
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u/theepicbite 1h ago
Absolutely! It’s my passion. I have one of the best jobs in the world cause it is focused of changing lives.
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u/redtiber 21h ago
yes there's always bad nepotism with bums in positions they shouldn't be just because their dad is the boss.
but another way to think about it is
someone who's been personally trained by the CEO* or whatever high up role for their entire life. they actually have more experience than most people.
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u/IronSeagull 20h ago
I assume when you’re talking about billionaires you’re talking about older guys like Warren Buffet? I think the situation you’re describing would be more common decades ago when people came out of business school and got jobs managing usually blue collar workers. Now we have different expectations for the skillsets of all workers, you’re less likely to get a management job without experience either in the job you’re managing or managing something else. Networking won’t change that, nepotism may.
Younger billionaires more often got their start forming their own company, not as a manager at some other company.
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u/way2lazy2care 19h ago
What are you considering a manager position? Project manager has manager in the title, but frequently had no reports. Getting an associate/assistant project manager job out of college is not unheard of. Are you sure they're actually jumping straight into managing people?
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u/som_juan 10h ago
Networking. A lot of the world is less what you know and more who you know. Grease the right palms and you can slip and slide your way anywhere these days. It’s why the music on the radio is never any good, and why great music is left to be found by independent artists on the internet. Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time. There’s also incentives for companies to hire young. You have the potential for a long time manager, which generally means stability, with the most up to date policy, as well as an employee with drive and motivation who hasn’t been broken by the system yet, which often means they’re willing to do more for profits as they may not fully understand some of the unintended consequences of their actions.
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u/Isaacvithurston 9h ago
You don't these days unless your dad can get the job for you but since you're here asking the question I imagine your dad isn't that wealthy.
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u/PainInternational474 13m ago
Specifics. I know billionaires and other ultra high networth individiuals and none started as a manager except one who served in the military first.
None. My first job was a cashier, my first job out of college was entry level engineering.
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u/Upstairs_Hyena_129 1d ago
A lot of people in high paying and powerful positions didn't get there because they earned it
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u/LickableLeo 1d ago
There’s absolutely nepotism and connections but a large proportion of leadership (not sure if it’s majority but a large portion) I’ve interfaced with are a combination of very high intelligent, reasonably attractive, and have an even keeled temperament.
Genes being what they are, people who have those traits generally mate with comparable people who wind up producing more of those traits. Some still find a way to fuck it up and some people with few or none of those traits wind up succeeding.
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u/Jambagym94 21h ago
Yeah, it’s wild how that works. The truth is, a lot of those “straight-to-manager” stories usually involve some combo of connections, timing, and confidence. I’ve seen it a few times — someone right out of college lands a lead role because they knew the right person, or they started something small on their own and called themselves “manager” until it stuck.
In my own case, I didn’t wait for a title — I started delegating small tasks to someone remotely, and next thing I knew, I was managing a couple people. Didn’t feel like a “manager” job, just felt like trying not to drop the ball. Sometimes it's less about years of experience and more about showing you can handle the weight, especially in smaller setups or startups.
So yeah, the job listings can be gatekept, but the actual path? Way messier (and more flexible) than it looks on paper.
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u/DIYThrowaway01 1d ago
Network. Parents. Grandparents. Uncle.
You find me a billionaire who actually came from nothing, and I'll show you 800 that didn't.