To transpose the manner of organization here, one could achieve the same descriptive qualities with two tracks, and a gradation of experience levels: quality

To transpose the manner of organization here, one could achieve the same descriptive qualities with two tracks, and a gradation of experience levels: quality people: early, midterm, late full shitbirds: early, midterm, late This is to say that terrible people (untalented, dishonest, delusional) and solid colleagues (eager learners, ordinary operators, seasoned experts) exist at all experience levels. In organizations of chaotic leaderlessness, to keep one's wits sharp, usually the bellwether of choice is nerd signaling. This is where knowledge of relevant trivia is used as a guideline for experience level, trading in quips, name dropping and advertisements of awareness in exchange for actual measures of skill. Actual measures of skill can prove extremely expensive, and sometimes require live fire incidents before a skill will show itself. This is where the dishonesty starts to brew. It's easy to hear experienced people trade quips and advertise their qualities, and then become a poser somewhere else, and imitate the signals in a totally different group, while lacking actual skill. Sometimes, in a leaderless organization, that's enough, because democratically nerd posers still add to a voting block, and doofy imitators know they are imposters and, are usually incapable of doing anything but vote a straight ticket, so adding a nerd poser to your team still ensures strength in numbers, and potentially amps up the current of buzz and gossip information channels. But to stay alive, you need more than party members, because ultimately it still boils down to whataboutism, in the form of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately? Party members are that fickle, and core experts are still required. So now the back-stabbing, and boys clubs form. But who really matters? The truth is in a leaderless system, there are still leaders, but the convention is to avoid signaling. It's all expressed by waiting games. You have to sit around and wait for things to become evident. So lurkers are rewarded, over time, based on familiarity with a deeper awareness of organizational hierarchy. It's just a different system of control and signaling, that integrates literal time via in-group awareness of social histories, instead of titles awarded to people who just walked in off the street. This sucks if you were cool somewhere else, because you'll be starting over with at least half of your significance and relevance rolled back to beginner status. It's a mechanism for only rewarding years of mediocre service (loyal nerd signaling party members), or clear-cut high performance (core experts that can prove their worth), or some mixture of the two. But the core tenets remain: proof of loyalty, or actual rock stardom. The side effect here is flame-outs. People who have social currency or expect redemption of experience levels and recognition for past external work at a third party, or expect to level up on nerd signalling alone, find frustration at the pace of advancement, and if they can't find an opening to perform, wind up lumped in with the imposters. Some of these are valid grievances, but if you want to make an omelette, something, something...