# Why Dumb People Earn More Than Smart People | How Money Works

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-money-works-7289568/why-dumb-people-earn-more-than-smart-people-how-money-works
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-money-works-7289568/why-dumb-people-earn-more-than-smart-people-how-money-works.md
Podcast: [How Money Works](https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-money-works-7289568)
Published: 2026-07-06T11:36:00+00:00
Episode link: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/PODAGEN8348906263.mp3?updated=1778655966
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/PODAGEN8348906263.mp3?updated=1778655966
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/how-money-works-7289568/episodes/why-dumb-people-earn-more-than-smart-people-how-money-works
Duration seconds: 870

## Resource

Why Dumb People Earn More Than Smart People ------ Edited By: Andrew Gonzales Music Courtesy of: Epidemic Sound Select Footage Courtesy of: Getty Images For sponsorship inquiries, please contact sponsors@worksmedia.group All materials in these videos are for educational purposes only and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. This video does not provide investment or financial advice of any kind. #business #finance #careers ------ Dumb people make more money than smart people and it took a study conducted by really smart people to prove it. A study out of Sweden has found that top earners have lower intelligence than the people in income levels directly below them. The Plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners drew on data from 59,000 men who had to take a compulsory military conscription aptitude test. It then tracked their earnings over their professional careers to find the relationship between intelligence and income. Before Tai Lopez gets any ideas for more shitty YouTube commercials or the hustle bros learn how to read journal articles and use this to encourage people to drop out of college, I want you all to know how this data really works. The relationship between intelligence and income was strong, smarter people earnt more money but only up to six hundred and seventy thousand Swedish krona or sixty-four thousand dollars per year. After that intelligence didn’t mean much anymore and at the very top end of income earners, the 1%, dumber people actually did better. So is this a sign that watching TikTok and reality TV is actually better for your career than going to college? Well maybe actually, for two important reasons but there are also two reasons why you should probably ignore this and keep studying hard if you w…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/how-money-works-7289568/episodes/why-dumb-people-earn-more-than-smart-people-how-money-works/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/how-money-works-7289568/why-dumb-people-earn-more-than-smart-people-how-money-works.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.