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"As a soon to be 40-year-old man, I don’t give a rat’s ass about prestige anymore!" OK, great. I'm 39, I'm right there with you. But is this advice useful or a

by jpm_sd 9y ago

"As a soon to be 40-year-old man, I don’t give a rat’s ass about prestige anymore!" OK, great. I'm 39, I'm right there with you. But is this advice useful or actionable for people in their 20s?

adamant 9y ago
It would be great to hear someone's opinion about this.
- chubot 9y ago
  Check out Paul Graham's opinion: http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html This is easy advice to give. It's hard to follow, especially when you're young.
  - adamant 9y ago
    Exactly what I was looking for, thanks!
pmorici 9y ago
Seems to me that prestige usually follows from from things that signal wealth or at least potential for future wealth. Better than prestige is actually being wealthy / financially independent. He sort of implies this in the article w/o stating it directly. If you are in your 20's the take away might be to focus on keeping your costs low and maximizing savings to reach that point of financial independence earlier.
chubot 9y ago
Yes, because prestige runs behind what is actually valuable. Prestige is what other people think is valuable. If everyone thinks it's valuable, then there's insane competition, and you're unlikely to get meaningfully ahead (unless you're simply smarter and work harder than everyone else). PG wrote several paragraphs about prestige here which still ring true to me: http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html It might be a good rule simply to avoid any prestigious task. If it didn't suck, they wouldn't have had to make it prestigious. (Corrolary: it was best to join YC when it wasn't prestigious, e.g. when Reddit or Dropbox did. Now that it's prestigious, it's probably less valuable. Although it could still be valuable compared to the alternatives.)
- grepthisab 9y ago
  When looking at something like joining yc, wouldn't the prestige make it more valuable, because of the extended network and the increased reverence shown to it by outsiders?
  - chubot 9y ago
    I'm sure the network is valuable compared to alternatives, but it's probably diluted now, compared to joining when YC had no prestige. Your peers then would have been the current leaders of YC. Customers don't give you money because you joined a good accelerator, so in that sense the "reverence" is useless. It's also a double-edged sword, because you'll attract people who are looking to ride your coattails, as opposed to doing useful work. Apparently this phenomenon is common enough that PG has a word for it: "playing house". People join YC and play house rather than start companies.
jdietrich 9y ago
>But is this advice useful or actionable for people in their 20s? Absolutely. There are countless people struggling to get into the media in LA or NYC who could walk into a good job at an advertising firm in Cleveland or Tulsa. If you're considering founding a startup, you're probably better off organically growing a B2B product aimed at a relatively obscure market sector than going for the B2C unicorn. If you're looking to buy a house, you can find some real bargains that have ugly exteriors or are in unfashionable suburbs. Vacations in well-known resorts tend to be overpriced and overrated.

by jpm_sd 9y ago

"As a soon to be 40-year-old man, I don’t give a rat’s ass about prestige anymore!" OK, great. I'm 39, I'm right there with you. But is this advice useful or actionable for people in their 20s?

adamant 9y ago

It would be great to hear someone's opinion about this.

chubot 9y ago
Check out Paul Graham's opinion: http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html This is easy advice to give. It's hard to follow, especially when you're young.
- adamant 9y ago
  Exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

pmorici 9y ago

Seems to me that prestige usually follows from from things that signal wealth or at least potential for future wealth. Better than prestige is actually being wealthy / financially independent. He sort of implies this in the article w/o stating it directly. If you are in your 20's the take away might be to focus on keeping your costs low and maximizing savings to reach that point of financial independence earlier.

chubot 9y ago

Yes, because prestige runs behind what is actually valuable. Prestige is what other people think is valuable. If everyone thinks it's valuable, then there's insane competition, and you're unlikely to get meaningfully ahead (unless you're simply smarter and work harder than everyone else). PG wrote several paragraphs about prestige here which still ring true to me: http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html It might be a good rule simply to avoid any prestigious task. If it didn't suck, they wouldn't have had to make it prestigious. (Corrolary: it was best to join YC when it wasn't prestigious, e.g. when Reddit or Dropbox did. Now that it's prestigious, it's probably less valuable. Although it could still be valuable compared to the alternatives.)

grepthisab 9y ago
When looking at something like joining yc, wouldn't the prestige make it more valuable, because of the extended network and the increased reverence shown to it by outsiders?
- chubot 9y ago
  I'm sure the network is valuable compared to alternatives, but it's probably diluted now, compared to joining when YC had no prestige. Your peers then would have been the current leaders of YC. Customers don't give you money because you joined a good accelerator, so in that sense the "reverence" is useless. It's also a double-edged sword, because you'll attract people who are looking to ride your coattails, as opposed to doing useful work. Apparently this phenomenon is common enough that PG has a word for it: "playing house". People join YC and play house rather than start companies.

jdietrich 9y ago

>But is this advice useful or actionable for people in their 20s? Absolutely. There are countless people struggling to get into the media in LA or NYC who could walk into a good job at an advertising firm in Cleveland or Tulsa. If you're considering founding a startup, you're probably better off organically growing a B2B product aimed at a relatively obscure market sector than going for the B2C unicorn. If you're looking to buy a house, you can find some real bargains that have ugly exteriors or are in unfashionable suburbs. Vacations in well-known resorts tend to be overpriced and overrated.