How to Earn a High Salary: Key Factors Ranked by Priority

The first person enters the room with capital.

When you bring capital to the table, you’re essentially paying yourself—and conveniently, paying others too.

The second person enters with an informational advantage.

What gives you the right to make money? It’s the asymmetry of information.

The third person enters with a skill or technique.

The fourth person is presentable.

From a businessman’s perspective, you’re all just there to pad the roster. None of you have capital, connections, or irreplaceable expertise.

So looking good and having a high degree come down to the same thing:甲方的喜欢。The former pleases the client’s eyes; the latter boosts their confidence when it’s listed on the team resume. They’re fundamentally the same play.

How do you build a team? A beautiful, young, articulate woman often gets promoted to “beauty fund manager.” If she isn’t pretty but can grind—working late, pulling all-nighters, writing analysis reports—then she becomes the analyst behind her.

Ugly? You write the PPT. Beautiful? She reads your PPT as if she wrote it herself. She takes the spotlight; you take the overtime.

Don’t complain about fairness—there is no fairness in the workplace. This is packaging strategy. The company wants investors to believe that single woman is both stunning and brilliant. Putting beauty and talent in one person attracts sponsors far more effectively than splitting them between two.

It’s all about business. Business seeks victory, not fairness.

The fifth element is overtime.

It’s not about how much extra work you personally accomplish by staying late. It’s about whether you can create a catfish effect—whether your overtime forces your colleagues to stay late too.

Those are the only paths to a high salary.

Because who gives you that high salary? Your boss. And why would your boss give it to you?