71–80 of 164 posts
My inner ring trap is retirement. I can’t wait to get there.
I wonder if the inner ring trap for retirement is "well, maybe I should wait until I have another $AMOUNT invested just to (be sure, be able to do more, etc.)."
I think there was a historical change that has complicated our conversation about status. In the 50's, the peak of this, it seemed like many people got a 'deal' that went something like this: you & your work colleagues could afford a house, car, and the costs associated with several children, starting in your 20's. All of those things at a pretty high level actually (ie not a terrible unsafe house, not a broken down…
Is this the same Fifties with white and colored water fountains, and where women had to leave office jobs when they married?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I think that pursuit of status is a rational way to increase security. I agree, I would recommend increasing security as the priority, not status. Status doesn't pay the bills necessarily when the recessions hit, security does. If you can get security without status, that's better than status without security.
Agree, and the best security is obviously money. But to me, status means warm intros for new business opportunities, or that your resume will reliably get past the recruiter screening stage. Stuff that can help you maintain or rebuild security.
When you look at individuals who have achieved things you admire, it's so often true that they themselves came from outside the status system that existed at that time. They now sit within, or atop the current one, but it's often something they themselves have created to a greater or lesser degree. There's a huge lesson there, I think. Being in that position in the current status system is not and never was their goa…
Ibn Khaldun's 1377 work Muqaddimah is a very old book that essentially says this. The concept of "ʿasabiyyah" (Arabic: "tribalism, clanism, communitarism", or in a modern context, "group feeling" , "social cohesion", "solidarity" or even "nationalism") is one of the best known aspects of the Muqaddimah. As this ʿasabiyyah declines, another more compelling ʿasabiyyah may take its place; thus, civilizations rise and fa…
More recently, Hegel made the same point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a club within the venture capital status system, right?
Which really existed for how long? YC was one of the groups that created that system.
And the VC system arguably evolved from the system that funded whaling voyages, though I really think it dates back to the joint stock limited liability corporation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree, and the best security is obviously money. But to me, status means warm intros for new business opportunities, or that your resume will reliably get past the recruiter screening stage. Stuff that can help you maintain or rebuild security.
best security is not obviously money. i wouldnt know of course, but there's a good scene that covers this in the first(ish) season of House of Cards: Kevin Spaceys character laments about otherwise excellent talent shortsightedly chasing the $$$ of the private sector jobs rather than strategically climbing the ladder of Capital Hill. All this to say, his point is broadly that influence and power can always find a way…
On the one hand, sure, status probably is a trap and won't bring "true happiness." And I think this is well meaning advice. But on the other hand, I think it's possible that an Ivy League educated founder/VC partner/executive coach might not be in the best position to see the whole picture. To paraphrase the Aviator[1], you don't care about status because you've always had it. I think that for many people who have ex…
>I think that pursuit of status is a rational way to increase security. I agree, I would recommend increasing security as the priority, not status. Status doesn't pay the bills necessarily when the recessions hit, security does. If you can get security without status, that's better than status without security.